Forestry Skills Forum
Written by Tir Coed / Thursday 08 March 2018
A beautiful sunny day for a journey to Birmingham – what could be better? Time to work on the train with a changing view to inspire, calm and revive – what a treat.
On International Women’s Day it was fabulous to attend a meeting that was made up of organisations from across the UK involved in the Forestry sector, and even more pleasing to see that half of the representatives were women.
I love going to these gatherings as they always fire up my enthusiasm and make me feel proud for the small, but hugely significant, part Tir Coed is playing in the greater picture.
Stimulating discussion, up-to-date information about all number of fantastic projects, insight into best practice and the chance to help shape the future of the woodland and forestry sector, are just a few of the benefits for attending these events.
Tir Coed fulfils a key role in this UK-wide group, both in terms of informing others of our own focus and developments as well as being the ‘go-to’ organisation for contact in Wales.
This group meets every six months, usually at the University of Birmingham to discuss a wide range of current forestry-related topics, catch up with developments the group is leading on, as well as getting updates from all the organisations present.
Partner organisation updates this time included Birmingham Institute of Forest Research(BIFoR), Forest School Association (FSA), Woodland Trust, National School of Forestry - Cumbria Universtiy, Sylva Foundation, Forestry Commission, Hereford & Ludlow College, LANTRA, Forest Enterprise, Tir Coed, Adrow Consultancy, Royal Forestry Society (RFS), and Heart of England Forest. These provided a really positive, informative picture of current and future projects and highlighted several areas where Tir Coed is working alongside others to push forward the skills and career progression agenda within the sector.
Presentations and wide-ranging discussions followed and this resulted in the group deciding to extend the duration of future meetings to allow for more time to thrash out the detail of important issues, network with, and make connections to other organisations and build working partnerships.
Tir Coed has many strands of current project work that link with the areas of development discussed and there will be further meetings with individual members of the FSF group to take these ideas forward in the very near future.
Watch this space!
