Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2013 | Page 49
COUNTRY LIFE
10 Y ea rs of Green
Gy ming!
Ten years ago the first Green Gym sessions
started on the Island and they have been
meeting every week, for three hours of
practical conservation work, ever since.
That is about 45,000 hours of volunteer
man hours! They have worked in over
140 different locations across the Island.
Performing; pond clearances, beach cleans,
scrub clearance, path creation, school
environmental work, the list goes on and
on.
Back in 2003 the first ‘work-out’ was held
at the Fort Victoria Country Park and to
complete the circle the IW Green Gym
are returning to the site, to work around
the Park and celebrate by unveiling a new
gate the group has sponsored to mark the
milestone.
Green Gym’s leader Mark Russell said:
“We’ve succeeded because of all the
amazing volunteers, more than 450 who
have joined us at different times. We’d
also like to thank all of the local and
national organisations, charities, schools
and councils we work with each week,
too numerous to list but essential as
these partnerships we’ve made ensure our
sustainability.”
If you have a project you might like
their help with check out their webpage.
iwgreengym.org.uk
Back to nature
I feel that we have had a ‘proper’ summer
this year; the sort that you can spend the
day relaxing on the beach; sightseeing
without having to take a coat; and warm
evenings ideal for entertaining.
It has also been a welcome relief for
working in the countryside. Hay making,
normally a stressful squeeze between
showers, was a more relaxed affair along
with combining, with yields not as bad as
some feared.
A lot of our time has been taken up
assisting Natural Enterprise and dozens
A cou ntry ma n's dia ry
of volunteers, pulling and controlling
Himalayan Balsam, which unfortunately
has benefitted from our wet spring and
warm summer. So much so that we had
to resort to the tractor and flail mower in
places.
Also having extracted last year’s cut
timber from one of our woodland jobs, we
were able to carry out some work to the
woodland tracks. These paths are often
species rich in flora, attracting all sorts of
insects and butterflies and as such are
very important. It’s the sort of thing that
gets missed until absolutely necessary.
Lots of woodlands are growing on poor
ground, often clay. The tracks tend to get
rutted over a period of time, and although
we try to reduce this by only using a quad
bike in the winter, damage still occurs.
Replacing pipes through ditches was
relatively straight forward, but a shallow
stream at one point meant we had to
create a ford, causing us to scratch
our heads and drink tea until the right
approach had been agreed!
www.visitislandlife.com
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