New Fell Care Days This Autumn Announced

A vounteer works on path restoration on last year's Helvellyn day.

The Fell Care Days are also a great way of getting local youngsters involved and aware.

Following on from the success of last year's Fell Care Days, Lakes-based initiative Flora of the Fells - sounds like a romantic heroine to us - has announced two dates for this autumn with events set for Ullswater and Windermere.

The idea of the Fell Care Days is for volunteers to get involved on a hands-on basis with tasks like  footpath work, drain clearance, coppicing and woodland work, walling, surveying and activities with local schools.Tasks happen anywhere from easily accessibly lowland sites through to the high fells.

Last year's events at Helvellyn and Ennerdale were a big success with around 200 volunteers undertaking 13 practical tasks, achieving the equivalent of 145 days work in just two days. You can see Rob Grange’s short video about the Ennerdale Fell Care Day in 2011 and photos from the Helvellyn and Ennerdale days.

Full details will follow in due course, but for now, if you're interested, dates to make a note of are Thursday 27 September for the Ullswater day and Thursday 25 October for the Windermere one. 

Flora of the Fells say:

'So far we know that we will need people to help working with school groups, people with experience of driving minibuses and happy to drive volunteers around, setting up and manning of the 'hubs' from 8am; greeting and signing in volunteers, a video maker for the Ullswater day, cake bakers and someone to approach local cafes and bakeries to ask for cake pledges for each day.

'Each day will be based around a 'hub' where volunteers sign in and set off in groups of 8-16 on various tasks led by skilled leaders from a variety of organisations including Friends of the Lake District, the Lake District National Park Authority and the National Trust. Volunteers return to the hub at the end of the day for tea and cakes. Schools undertake conservation and educational activities based around water quality, wildlife habitats and landscape.'

Good stuff. See www.floraofthefells.com for more details and background on the organisation.