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Photography, Fun and Funding on the Chase

Staffordshire County Council sent this bulletin at 29-11-2022 12:48 PM GMT

Newsletter date: November 2022

New Team Member

Hi, I wanted to introduce myself as the new AONB Communications Officer - Samantha Hall. My role is to keep you up to date with the AONB Partnership news, inform you of the projects we are involved in and work that is currently in progress.

This e-newsletter will inform you on how you too can get involved. Please do forward the e-newsletter onto friends, family and colleagues who you think maybe interested in finding out more about Cannock Chase AONB and get them to sign up here to make sure they receive the next one.

Sign up here

Funding for Farmers

A call out to all farmers and landowners. Do you have ideas for improvements but no funding? The Farming in Protected Landscapes programme is funded by Defra and is aimed at one-off projects that have positive impact on nature and wildlife, heritage, public access or tackling climate change. We can also fund projects outside the AONB if there is a demonstrable link that the project will enhance the AONB. Examples of activities that we have funded include hedgerow restoration, gapping or planting of hedgerow trees, small scale woodland planting, improvements to Rights of Way such as replacement of stiles with kissing gates or heritage projects to restore historic features. To find out more about the programme and see examples of what we have funded so far, please click on the link below.

Funding for Farmers

Activities

Fixed Point Photography

This project has been running in Cannock Chase since 2005 to monitor changes in the landscape over time. Volunteer photographers take images twice a year at 56 points in and around the AONB. The website has just been updated to include photos taken in 2022. View all the photographs here.

National Poetry Day

To celebrate local nature poet Cherry Doyle and the Poet Laureate of Wolverhampton, Kuli Kohli, led a poetry workshop on the theme ‘The Environment of Cannock Chase’ at the Museum of Cannock Chase. Seven budding poets took part in analysis of noted nature poems, a walk around the Hednesford Hills, and a picnic lunch topped off by some writing exercises.

Deer Management

A deer census has just taken place on Cannock Chase using a thermal imaging drone. Volunteers from the British Deer Society supported by Staffordshire County Council Rangers and Wildlife Rangers from Forestry England undertook the survey and results will be available soon. Click here for more information.

National Team Visit

The AONB team hosted a site visit for the National Association of AONB's on 8th November 2022. For many of the NAAONB staff this was the first time that they had visited Cannock Chase and we were lucky to have a lovely dry autumnal day for showing them around the Sherbrook Valley and Shugborough Estate.

Recording Ancient Trees

Do you want to find out more about some of our beautiful ancient and veteran trees that we have on Cannock Chase and help us to record these special trees? Ancient and veteran trees are living monuments, that can have immense ecological value through their range of microhabitats, cavities, and decaying wood. We want to increase our knowledge about their distribution and status on Cannock Chase AONB, as well as building respect for them, so we can help protect, care for and plan how best to conserve them for the future.

In October, the Woodland Trust Cannock Chase AONB and Forestry England held a field-based training day to record trees to the Ancient Tree Inventory (ATI). A follow up workshop and a further training will be organised in 2023. If you would like to be on the list for the next training day please contact us.

Save the Dates

The Cannock Chase AONB Annual Conference will be held on Wednesday 8th March 2023 at Brocton Hall Golf Club. The theme for the conference will be The Chase Through Time. More details to follow.

The next Joint Committee meeting will be held on 8th December 2022. Please see further details here.

Get Involved, Volunteers Required

Thank you to all our volunteers who work tirelessly through the year to help to keep the chase a great place to be. We are always interested in hearing from anyone who would like to get involved in any of our projects please do get in touch by contacting us here.