Free Wildflower Walk on Yate Common - Tuesday 28 May

This guided wildflower walk will cover various grassland areas on Yate Common. Our guide for the evening will be local naturalist Pauline Wilson. The walk will start at 6.30pm and run to 8.30pm.

The meeting point will be the southern Road to Nowhere entrance to the Common where
there is some limited parking (please see https://goo.gl/maps/w96ncixAbXuXEqmi7

Free First Aid Course for environmental volunteers - Wednesday 29 May

Dodington Parish Council has arranged a First Aid course on Wednesday 29th May (next week) at Dodington Parish Hall, Finch Road, Chipping Sodbury, BS37 6JZ.

It is intended for allotment holders and people who volunteer of local open spaces.


The course will start at 7.00pm and finish at 9.00pm and it will cover:

Safety
Bleeding (types and how to stop)
Bandaging (compression, ambulance dressings, slings)
Choking
Fainting and seizures
Burns and sunburn
Recovery position
Calling 999
Heart attack & Defibrilation
Record keeping

Beating the Bounds of Yate Common, Sunday 26 May

Beating the Bounds is an ancient custom that is practised on The Common in Yate. The Reverend, Town Mayor, Friends of the Common and local residents will walk the boundaries of The Common.
Traditionally, children are turned upside down at the corners to teach them the boundaries of their Common, which they should protect (nowadays sweets may be used as an incentive)
 
Beating the Bounds of Yate Common starts at 3pm from the St Briavels Drive entrance of Yate Common. The walk is suitable for pushchairs and takes about 60 - 90 minutes. 

If you would like to find out more about the custom, please follow this link

Meadow species planting on Wapley Common - 4 May and 17 May

We had 13 volunteers at our work morning on Saturday 4 May, when we put in several species of plug plants to enhance the diversity in the Orchard for the Future section of Wapley Common. As well as planting we did a "deep clean" of some of the harder to reach areas of the Reserve and cut back some overgrowth.

Unfortunately one of our chosen species hadn't arrived, so we had another session on Friday 17 May. Six of us started at Dodington Parish hall, and planted all three species on the "Mini Meadow" next to the Hall - our present to the Parish Council.

Then four of us went on to Wapley Common and planted the remaining plug plants. The result is that we now have yellow rattle, oxeye daisy and knapweed (see photo above) in the third of the Orchard nearest to Shire Way - you won't see them until they've grown a bit. These plants will help encourage pollinators and discourage more invasive species. In future years we plan to do the same sort of planting on the other two thirds of the Orchard.

We finished off the session with a walk round the Reserve doing a site inspection. The icing on the cake was that we saw a Red Kite flying over the Common, with its distinctive forked tail.