We held our Annual General Meeting this evening by Zoom. All the current committee members stood for re-election and were duly appointed.
Roger Gilbert was appointed chair, Judith White treasurer and Stephanie Clarke was appointed secretary. Rob Hall agreed to check the annual accounts.
The constitution provides for a committee of 10 members. Currently, we have six committee members, so we are keen for new volunteers to join the committee. If you are interested in joining the committee and having an input into the work done by Friends of Adel Woods please put yourself forward – you can do this by contacting Roger Gilbert by posting a comment on this website. The duties of the committee are not onerous. In a normal year we have about four meetings when we decide on our program of work, discuss and approve fund raising and expenditure, and deal with the matters which arise from time to time.
The Chair’s review of activities from May 2019 to May 2020
Our last AGM was on the 9th May 2019. We couldn’t have an AGM in person in May 2020 due to Covid 19 restrictions and it has been put off until today. So we have two years to review.
May 2019 to May 2020
From May 2019 to May 2020 we carried out the following:
- eight litterpicking mornings
- three mornings working on Adel Moor
- two mornings working on Adel Bog
- four mornings of path clearing including repairing the Stairfoot Lane steps
- one morning clearing mud and debris from Adel Pond
- one morning working in the hospice woodland
- two days of nest box cleaning and surveying with S Joul
- one day when David S and I replaced a missing nest box by the bridge below the pond – this particular location being a popular one for nuthatches to nest in.
In addition Steve Joul let a very successful Fungal Foray in October.
We also had a stall on the village green in August when Kibitz played.
In addition it is worth saying that 2019 was our tenth anniversary year and we celebrated this with a meal at the Olive Branch attended by 58 people, and the sale of a FOAW 2020 calendar which sold 50 copies.
Our last event in this year was the path clearing in March 2020. However, we had a great discovery when Lisa and Andy Worrilow found a colony of green hairstreak butterflies on Adel Moor – hitherto the only colony in the Leeds area was on Otley Chevin.
May 2020 to May 2021
Our activities were severely curtailed from March 2020 due to the Covid 19 lockdown.
We were not able to have our AGM or our annual birdsong walk in May 2020. We did, however, manage to have some events from May 2020 to today.
In September we spent a day raking mowings from the Orchid Meadow after Steve and a volunteer, Jim, mowed it. We also had a morning in December when we extended the northern boundary of the meadow. I should say that the Orchid Meadow has been a great success after all the work which FOAW and Steve have done on it. See the pictures on the blog for June 2020.
In October we had a morning of dredging Adel Pond, working on the ditches draining into the pond, and Judith cleaned out the Slabbering Baby.
We also had a day in the Autumn path clearing, but I don’t seem to have put a blog entry or have any photos!
Other notable events are the installation of the new interpretation boards – Adel Moor, Alwoodley Crag, and Buckstone Road entrance and the planting of a new orchard in the practice rugby field.
The Interpretation boards: in June, David Preston helped some of us choose sites to place them. In September, we helped Steve Joul clear the sites and mark them. In March David and his colleagues installed them for us – and they look wonderful.
Steve has planted ten fruit trees – eight apple and two conference pear trees – in what used to be the practice rugby ground to the north west of Old Leo’s clubhouse..
Oh, and I should say that the Green Hairstreaks were seen on Adel Moor in April, but we are concerned that they may not have been able to breed before the rather wet weather we have had in the last month.
Apart from that, I have put some entries in the blog about ring necked parakeets in Leeds and murmurations of starlings, badgers and yellow hammers
One thing is clear is that Adel Woods has been a very popular recreational spot during the lockdowns – as evidenced by the large number of extra paths that have appeared for the first time in the last year.
Friends of Adel Woods 