Hob Moor Local Nature Reserve, York, 23 October 2005
The event turned out to be a big success considering the terrible weather we had during the weekend of the 22nd - 23rd October.
It rained persistently in York for the two days before the event and there was light rain all morning on the Sunday itself. Around 70 students turned up from the University with support from the City councils conservation officer, the local tree warden and 3 'Friends of Hob Moor' volunteers. The non-student volunteers and a couple of the commitee members from the Conservation Volunteers Society got onto site about 11:am to set up and prepare for the later arrival of the students from campus. We planted a line of trees and did some fencing so that people coming later would know what we were all trying to do. At around 1:30pm the first of the two buses bringing students from campus arrived at the nature reserve with the second bus arriving a few minutes later. Volunteers were given a preparatory talk and then given tools and split up into small groups to either plant trees or do accompanying fencing.
Over a period of about threes hours about 1000 trees (80% hawthorn, blackthorn, guelder rose, dog rose, field maple, hazel and crab apple) were planted along a 200-metre stretch of 'historic hedge'. Gaps were left for access and vegetation around the existing remnants of the original hedge line were cleared to allow fencing to be put in. All the trees were planted on the day and the fencing work was completed in the following week by another group of conservation volunteers.
The general concensus was that the event had been a success, people had had a good time and everyone concerned with the event received some good publicity. Unfortunately the Yorkshire Evening Post didn't run a picture story on the event in the end but they did devote a paragraph to it. The student newspaper was going to run a picture of the event but messed up their print run that week.
However, loads of people signed up to be on the Nature Conservation Society and SU 'Student Action' mailing lists and I think the event was one of the biggest volunteering activities in the history of the University of York!
Justine Webber
(Event Organiser)
