Blaen Bran Community Woodland and the Friends of the Earth are holding a social evening on Monday 29th February 2016 at 7.30pm at the Bush Inn, Upper Cwmbran. It’s in our events calendar here.

There will be a mix of different quizzes and games (general knowledge quiz, music quiz, hoy bingo, dingbats, anagrams, and some other stuff we will come up with 🙂 ) which will be 50p/person a go. There is a ticket price of £5 to attend (which has not been affected by inflation since Oct 2014!!) which covers a roll and chips plus a free game (plus undefinable atmosphere, of course!)

Tickets will be available at the Bush Inn later this week (or contact us to reserve some) – encourage your friends to come along and support these worthy causes!

Great day up at the log circle area a couple of weeks ago.

We were joined by Sasha from “Wild Spirit” (web link here), who helped us create a wood henge structure which is the base, above which we suspended a parachute canopy giving us an event shelter. The structure is planned to be permanent with the canopy being put up only when required and is located by the log circle, forest school and ‘office’ portacabin – all part of the woodland dedicated to host and coordinate events.

It is hoped that we will make regular use of this excellent facility for such things as outdoor school activities, social events, gatherings etc. Let us know by contacting us here if you have any questions about the facility or are interested in using it. Do be aware, any events held there will need to be supervised by a trained woodland representative for insurance purposes so events will need to be pre-arranged.

The project has been funded by grant support and advice from Rhianon Trimm of “Space Saviours” (web link here) – an organisation aiming to make the most of the open spaces within our communities. See their website .

A special thank you to all those who worked so very hard to complete the job in one day.

(only a few were able to stay for the photo at the end – there were others who worked equally hard but left before the pic)

Of course we extend our sincere thanks to Sasha and Rhianon

We will be holding a walk around the woodland in mid-March which will let you find out some information about the the history of the woodland.

Around the Mynedd Maen mountain area which our woodland is on, there has been evidence of settlements back to the Iron Age. Caerleon was close too which was a major Roman fort, and evidence has been found that the Romans were mining coal – and the farming of animals to provide food for the fort was here too.

You don’t realise the history on your doorstep sometimes, so come along and find out!

When the date is confirmed it will be put in the events calendar.

Congrats and well done to our volunteers who successfully completed their training this week on the chipper machine. Brash – we’re coming to get you!

If you would like a 2016 Blaen Bran calendar with some lovely photos there are still some left. Obviously we dont really want to bin them and would appreciate some advertising locally, so if you are interested in having one let us know here.
A donation of your choosing towards the woodland would be appreciated, but is not necessary if you can collect it from Cwmbran. All proceeds will go towards projects in our much loved woodland.

Steve Smith has recently joined us at Blaen Bran to help us look after the woodland. He will be on hand for volunteers looking for help, guidance or just a poke in the eye. He can be contacted on the Blaen Bran volunteer mobile number 07434042627. Steve has years and years of woodland experience (and he’s only 21) so feel free to contact him if you’re looking to help out at Blaen Bran in any way (planting/brash clearing/admin/tea making)

Steve is a regular on our facebook page too where he is aka “Coed Flidais”