#5 Discover Brislington Brook Newsletter 20/03/2012

The spring has definitely sprung!

Welcome to the (somewhat late) March edition of the Discover Brislington Brook Newsletter. A lot has happened since February and we've got lot's yet to come. Im looking forward to seeing more of you out and about as the weather warms up and our line-up of exciting activities gets underway; Read on to find out more!

In this Edition:
1. Green Stories and Watery Tales - Oral History
2. Lets get practical - Wednesday 28th and Saturday 31st March
3. Early birds and bacon sarnies
4. St Anne's Wood clean up - didn't we do a good job!

1. Green Stories and Watery Tales - Oral History

There's still a few places left on this excellent training course I'm organising on Saturday (24th March) at Arnos Vale Cemetery 10:30am - 4:30pm. Are you interested in Oral History and green spaces in Bristol; then this FREE training session is for you. Learn how to interview and record peoples stories, memories and personal histories using digital sound recorders. After the session you should have all the skills necessary! If you want to come along and/or volunteer please get in touch with Rowan on 07737344318 or email rowan.matthiessen@bristol.gov.uk

2. Lets get practical - Wednesday 28th and Saturday 31st March

Come along and help us build some lovely wooden benches for St Anne's Wood and Nightingale Valley! We will be meeting the BTCV team next Wednesday 28th and Saturday 31st March in the St Anne's Park car park at 10am. Please get in touch if you are interested in coming to either session as places are limited. You will need to wear sturdy footwear and bring a packed lunch; Tea, coffee and biscuits will be provided! The day will finish around 3pm.

3. Early birds and bacon sarnies

On Sat 7th April, for those of us who are good at getting up in the mornings there will be a bird walk in Nightingale Valley led by local bird expert Richard Bland. 8am-10am followed by delicious bacon sarnies cooked by the Community Café. Please let me know if you're coming as places are limited and I need to know how many rashers of bacon/veggie sausages to buy!

4. St Anne's Wood clean up - didn't we do a good job!

A massive thank you to the 15 volunteers and the Community Payback Team who turned up to give St Anne's Wood and the Brook a good old clear-up at the end of February. We collected so much rubbish it was amazing! The next community litter pick will be on the 19th May in Nightingale Valley - I've already spotted a few interesting things to haul out - put it in the diary and come and join us!

That's all for now!

Splish splash splosh!

Rowan




Hello team!

I just wanted to say an enormous thank you to all of you who turned up to help with the litter pick. We collected a huge amount both in the morning and the afternoon and I think you'll all agree the park looks a hundred times better. 16 members of the local community turned up to help as well as 10 men from the Community Payback scheme - many hands definitely made it light work...well except for the washing machine that we found which I think was pretty heavy!

I particularly wanted to thank Mary who not only carried on picking til 4pm but also took a car-full of rubbish to the tip, well done!

I've attached a few photos of Saturday and the Discover Brislington Brook Diary so you know what's coming up soon. Particularly of interest to outdoorsy people like yourselves are: work days on the 27th, 28th and 31st March - bench building in Nightingale Valley with BTCV (please book); A bird walk on the 7th April and another litter pick on the 19th May in Nightingale Valley with the Scouts! It would be great to see you there.

Finally, if you're interested in becoming a regular volunteer please have a look at Volunteering.

Happy exploring

Rowan









#4 Discover Brislington Brook Newsletter 07/02/2021

Lets get busy!

Hello Discover Brislington Brook followers; it's February already and despite the recent cold spell it feels like spring can't wait to burst forth…and with it we have some fabulous opportunities for you to get stuck in to.

In this Edition:

1. Spring/Summer diary 2012
2. Community litter pick 25th Feb
3. Oral history training
4. Brislington's film stars!
5. Get involved

1. Spring/Summer diary 2012

The Spring/Summer diary is ready and JAM PACKED full of things for you to get your teeth stuck in to - from walks to workshops, litter picks to bacon sarnies we've got it all and more!
Please see here - Brislington Brook Diary

2. Community litter pick 25th Feb

As you can see from the diary, we will be having a community litter pick of St Anne's Wood on Saturday 25th Feb. Come and join us, meeting at the Wicklea centre at 10:30am. Bring a packed lunch and wear suitable clothing ie. wellies and stuff you don't mind getting a bit dirty. Gloves, litter pickers, bin bags and biscuits will be provided!

3. Oral history training

Are you interested in local people and their stories? Green spaces and how people use and perceive them? We are looking to recruit volunteers to help design and run a project, helping collect, record, edit and put together a beautiful and inspiring exhibition about the Brislington Brook in living memory. We are running 2 training sessions on Sat 10th and Sat 24th March at Arnos Vale Cemetery. Places are FREE for people who want to volunteer for the project and £30 for anyone else. Please get in touch to book a place at either of these workshops. Basic computer skills are helpful.

4. Brislington's film stars

For those who haven't already seen it please have a look at the gorgeous video about the project and the history of the area made by the lovely students of Bristol University - see here or above.

5. Get involved

As well as coming to any of the opportunities advertised in the Spring/Summer Diary, we are also looking for people to get involved on a more formal basis and have lots of new volunteering opportunities with more details on our website Volunteering.

Opportunities include: Oral history volunteer; General and events volunteer; Schools and youth support; Wildlife and conservation volunteer; and Web support.

That's all for now

Splish splash splosh!

Rowan


#3 Discover Brislington Brook Newsletter 11/01/2011

Happy New Year!

I hope you've all had a wonderful festive season and are looking forward to the year ahead. The Discover Brislington Brook project is gearing up for an action packed Spring and Summer with plenty of events, walks, volunteering opportunities and activities for people of all ages...The New Year's Calendar will be winging it's way to you shortly as soon as I've done the last few finishing touches: IN THE MEANWHILE...

...An exciting opportunity for you to get your historical teeth stuck in to (see info below and attached flyer). Please email or call me if you'd like to book a place and feel free to spread the word amongst your networks.

Know Your Place workshops Thursday 19th Jan 4 - 5:30pm AND Thursday 26th Jan 6 - 7:30pm @ Brislington Enterprise College.
Do you have any old images of South East Bristol or new images of historical points of interest in the area?
Want to learn how you can archive them for the whole community to use?

Come along to one of these interactive sessions at Brislington Enterprise College and Learn how to:
- scan in and upload photos
- upload images to the Know Your Place website
- access historical information and images from across Bristol

Meet at Visitor's Reception ­ Brislington Enterprise College, Hungerford Road, Brislington, Bristol, BS4 5EY

Splish, splash, splosh

Rowan


Discover Brislington Brook Newsletter 16/11/2011

Hello Brislington Brook fans,

What a fantastic first few months of the Discover Brislington Brook Project. I feel like I've met up with hundreds of amazing people and discovered a thriving community of, all of whom want to make Brislington a better place to live. Thank you for welcoming me in so enthusiastically.

In this Edition:
1. Achievements so far
2. Invitation to Christmas drinks
3. In the pipeline

1) Achievements so far:

Not only did we have an incredible launch to the project with Brislington's Gone Batty (which attracted around 250 people) but here's a snippet of some of the other things that have happened so far:
- 12 people attended a "how to lead a bat walk" training session with Nicola Ferris and Dan Merret @ Wicklea Centre
- We secured an extra £2K of funding for BTCV to do maintenance and improvement work with volunteers in St Anne's Wood and Nightingale Valley.
- Led a walk with a group of vocational GCSE Science students from Brislington Enterprise College (BEC). And another session with a group of children from the special needs unit at BEC.
- Assistant guided walk for over 60 people from the Walking for Health groups through Nightingale Valley and St Anne's Wood.
- Met up with hundreds of people from community organisations to interest groups to individuals to talk about working on different parts of the project


2) Invitation to Christmas drinks

We will be meeting up at the Bloomfield Inn in Brislington for a cheery Christmas drink on Thursday 15th Dec 5:30-7:30pm. Although I can't offer to buy all of you a drink, the Discover Brislington Brook steering group and myself would love it if you came and joined us on our first of perhaps many social event!

3) In the pipeline

I'm so excited about the New Year and all the fantastic activities we have planned. Here's just a taster of what's to come between now and next Summer:

- We are working with a fantastic group of students from the University of Bristol who are putting together a 3-minute documentary on the history of Brislington Brook. Watch this space
- We will be working with a local theatre company and local residents to write material for a play about medieval pilgrimage to St Anne’s Chapel and Holy Well. Hopefully culminating in a community celebration in St Anne's Wood next July.
- We hope to apply for more funding to widen out the Water Tales part of the project turning it into an intergenerational oral history project, working with young people in the area to collect local stories.
- We will be running workshops in conjunction with the Council’s Community Learning team to collect and archive local photographs and teach people how to use the Know Your Place website. www.bristol.gov.uk/know-your-place
- We will be running otter detection workshops and work with local people to conduct an otter survey of the brook!
- We will be recruiting volunteers in the new year to help with Watery Tales, Pilgrims Way and Wildlife Watch elements of the project, details to be sent out in January.

Splish splash splosh!

Rowan


05.10.11 - Come one come all!

Discover Brislington Brook is having it's first event on Wednesday 26th October 2pm - 6:30pm at the Wicklea Centre Wick Rd.

2 - 5pm - A Batty Afternoon
Including workshops making shaddow puppets, bat boxes, lanterns and bat masks, tea and cakes from the community cafe, bat experts and an apple press - so bring along your apples and a plastic bottle to take fresh juice home!

5.15pm onwards - Evening Bat Walk
Suitable for all ages this will be a dusky walk through Nightingale Valley with storytelling, shadow puppetry and bat detectors. Wear warm clothes and bring torches if you have them. This should be the perfect pre-Halloween activity.
Calling all volunteers - If you or anyone you know would like to volunteer please get in touch! Help needed setting up before hand, with activities on the day, putting out lanterns along the path of the walk and marshalling the walk route to make sure nobody gets lost! I'm looking for around 10 people in total.
This is part of a day of activities going on in Brislington - if you're free in the morning, Wick Rd Library are having an open event with Rhymetime at 10 followed by coffee morning and craft sale til 12 (don't eat too much cake everyone!).

Many thanks,
Rowan



02.10.11 - Brislington Brook on the BBC news!

From Rowan Matthiessen 13/09/2011
Discover Brislington Brook Newsletter 13/09/2011

Hello Everyone!
I hope that everything is going swimmingly (get it) for you! The project has been underway for about 6 weeks now and it's starting to feel like something's actually happening, hooray!
Here's what's happening, check it out:
In this Edition:
1. Half Term Fun Day and Story/Bat Walk
2. Discover Brislington Brook Blog
3. Know Your Place
4. Abandoned Trolley Survey

1) October Half Term Fun Day and Story/Bat Walk
Wednesday 26th October from 2 - 6:30pm we will be having a Batty Fun Day followed by a Dusk-Time Story and Bat Detecting Walk! We're planning on having lots of practical and crafty activities in the afternoon ranging from mask making to apple pressing. Cups of tea and cake will be available. The evening walk through the woods will be lit up by lanterns made during the afternoon! It's going to be brilliant. Pease, please let people know, and if you can volunteer any of your time or make a cake or something, let me know!

2) Discover Brislington Brook Blog
I've started a blog, Discover Brislington Brook - go and have a look, find out more about the project, the river, the area etc, feel free to leave comments too! If you have any news about the river or photos I can upload them to here as well. If you want to keep updated on the project, the best way is for you to "follow" the blog by typing in your email address in the right hand bar and click "sign me up!"

3) Know Your Place
This is an exciting new historical web tool where you can upload your old photos, or new photos of historic things in Brislington and Bristol. I'm available to train groups of people on how to use this particularly if you want to put things up to do with the brook. Check it out at Know Your Place and for the really flashy up to date version download the free silverlight plugin.

4) Abandoned Trolley Survey
Ben Packham, who's organising the 2011 Abandoned trolley survey is looking for a volunteer to survey a stretch of the Brisilington Brook that runs from Allison Road, through Nightingale Valley and St Annes Wood, to the River Avon. Your help would be very much appreciated. Abandoned trolleys and fly-tipping in Bristol Rivers are a problem because they increase flood risk, encourage further fly-tipping and disrupt the balance of sensitive river eco-systems. If you are interested in getting involved please can you let Ben know by e-mailing him here by September 16th if at all possible.

Well, that's everything for now; don't hesitate to call or email if you have any questions or ideas or if you'd like to volunteer for the project at some point. Feel free to pass this message around your contacts.

Splish splash splosh!
Rowan