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Annual Review 2015 / 2016

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Annual Review 2015 / 2016 Annual Report 2016 21/9/16 08:41 Page 1 The Birmingham Civic Society Annual Review 2015 / 2016 Annual Report 2016 21/9/16 08:41 Page 2 Message from Geoff Cole Chairman, Birmingham Trees for Life Following another hugely busy planting season, I am delighted to report that the winter of 2015-16 saw BTFL reach the amazing milestone of planting our 50,000th tree in Birmingham! This is a huge achievement for such a small organisation and we would like to thank everyone who has helped us to achieve that magnificent number. Having seen the end of the national Government’s Big Tree Plant programme in 2014-15, the ‘funding landscape’ that BTFL found itself in this year was very different from the one that we had previously enjoyed. In order to be able to continue our work, we needed to identify new grants from a variety of un-tried sources to replace the Government funding of the previous four years. Our Committee decided we needed to bring in some specialist help with this, and after several months of making applications to Charitable Trusts, we achieved enough success to be able to plan another full programme of events across the city. We also entered in to a new collaboration with the Woodland Trust – a national organisation more used to planting trees in the countryside, but which is looking to work more in urban areas.This relationship is in its early stages but we hope that it will develop in to a very positive partnership for both parties over time. We are once again grateful to the City Council for providing ‘core funding’ which enables BTFL to continue to operate and seek additional funds elsewhere. Council staff continued to offer much needed ‘in kind’ support during the planning and implementation of the planting programme, and Birmingham Parks and Nurseries’ Woodland Management Team continued to support us at all our events with ground preparation. Deutsche Bank Birmingham maintained their support of, and participation in, tree planting this season; a further 3000 trees were planted on three sites, and almost 70 of their staff joined us on site. Local company Castleton Technology (formerly Documotive) continued their programme of planting a tree for every million documents processed, planting a further 10 trees in Sutton Coldfield. Our programme of school and community involvement was once again a great success, with 630 schoolchildren from 28 schools involved in tree planting. For the first time we worked with groups of young people facing challenges from City of Birmingham School and the Youth Offending Team. As well as our normal programme of events, we held a number of ‘special’ events: the Lord Mayor, Cllr. Ray Hassall, chose Birmingham Trees for Life as one of his Lord Mayor’s Charities, and we were delighted to ask him to plant our 50,000th tree in November, as well as holding a ‘Woodland Challenge’ event in March to raise money for his Charity. We also planted a memorial tree at Sarehole Mill with the late Alderman Michael Wilkes’ family, to commemorate his contributions to BTFL, and helped families to remember loved ones at several events in different parks. So, all in all, a varied and exciting year for BTFL, one which saw us reach new groups, and plant over 8000 trees on 28 sites, involving over 1100 people across the city. Thanks to all those people, many of them volunteers, who help to make those statistics a reality – none of it could be achieved without the support of our very part time staff and our knowledgeable volunteer Committee Members. Annual Report 2016 21/9/16 08:41 Page 3 ‘Birmingham Trees for Life’ is a project BTFL is a partnership between The Contents devoted to promoting awareness and Birmingham Civic Society and understanding throughout the City of Birmingham City Council, formed in July Page 5 Summary of achievements the value and importance of trees. 2006. By working in partnership, the two Page 6 Involving school children, organisations have access to both the Our objectives are: local communities and land and resources to plant and maintain businesses • To plant more trees in Birmingham. trees and woodland in Birmingham’s Page 7 The importance of trees • To involve the City’s business parks and open spaces. community. and tree planting The City Council contributes a sum of Page 8 Planting sites map • To involve local communities and money annually to the project, which in school children. 2015-16 provided essential core and Page 9-15 Our planting sites • To raise awareness of the match funding to enable BTFL to have Page 16 Supporters and partners importance of trees. the resources to seek additional funding Page 17 Participants • To raise money to increase tree elsewhere, from grant making bodies planting. such as Charitable Trusts, through The Page 18 Statistics Birmingham Civic Society, which is a Page 19 Summary Registered Charity. BTFL also works with local companies, who sponsor tree planting as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes, and enables individuals, families and groups to sponsor and plant trees through the ‘Plant a Tree for Life’ scheme. www.btfl.org.uk 3 Annual Report 2016 21/9/16 08:41 Page 4 Report by Jane Harding Project Manager Birmingham Trees for Life reached a huge milestone in late 2015 when we planted our 50,000th tree at City Centre Gardens. We are very proud that our project has done so much to involve local people in ‘re-greening’ the cityscape in just ten years, working with such limited resources. The Lord Mayor, Cllr. Ray Hassall, generously selected BTFL as one of his Lord Mayor’s Charities, and in March BTFL held an unusual event to raise money for his Charity – a Woodland Challenge at the Lickey Hills. Existing corporate supporters Deutsche Bank Birmingham and Castleton Technology joined teams from BPN Architects, Wates Construction and JMP Consultants to get muddy and have lots of fun doing a host of challenges in the woods, all for a good cause. Our thanks go to the Rangers and volunteers who helped us to make this event a success, to Horton’s Estate for their support, and to Barcham Trees for donating 4 beautiful ceremonial trees to plant. Jane Edwards Sue Griffith Despite having come to the end of the Big Tree Plant grant the previous year, we were able to raise sufficient funds to run a very full programme of planting events and involve nearly 1200 people in planting trees across the city. At three events we welcomed over 100 children to the site – it is always a challenge ensuring that all the trees are planted correctly with such big groups of youngsters, and we hope to be able to enlarge our small pool of adult volunteers in the coming years, through the new Birmingham Tree People initiative and hopefully local members of the Woodland Trust too. We were pleased to be able to welcome some of our new funders to planting events – Trustees from The Halpin Trust and the W.A. Cadbury Trust joined us Joe Jordan Viv Astling on site, and it was great to enable funders to experience first-hand our hands- on tree planting work with school children and young people. Once again our thanks go to all in the City Council Parks Department for their invaluable support to help us to achieve another great year of involvement in tree planting. Trees Committee In addition to the Chairman and the Project Manager, the Committee Bill Heslegrave Simon Gulliver includes the following Members: Jane Edwards Schools and Community Liaison Officer Simon Needle Conservation and Woodland Manager, Birmingham City Council The Chairman and following members give their time and expertise on a voluntary basis: Sue Griffith Formerly Project Manager of BTFL Joe Jordan Simon Needle Kelvin Rose Trustee of the Birmingham Civic Society Viv Astling Formerly Chairman of the National Forest Company Bill Heslegrave Former Regional Director for the Forestry Commission,West Midlands Stevie Prior Birmingham Open Spaces Forum (BOSF) Simon Gulliver Freelance horticulturalist, formerly Birmingham Botanical Gardens Kelvin Rose Volunteer with interest in the environment and multimedia. www.btfl.org.uk 4 Annual Report 2016 21/9/16 08:42 Page 5 Summary of Achievements Objectives Progress in 2015-16 Raising awareness of We participated in a number of local and the importance of regional forums. We worked with City trees in Birmingham Council colleagues to highlight the need to protect and retain mature trees as a crucial part of a healthy city landscape. Tree planting We planted 128 large trees, 28 fruit trees and 8,316 whips (saplings) and feathers (young trees). Our 30 planting events were spread across 28 sites all over the city. Involving businesses Deutsche Bank Birmingham and Castleton Technology (formerly Documotive) were once again ‘Platinum’ sponsors, and their staff attended 5 planting events and took part with four other companies in our Woodland Challenge. We were one of the three local charities that the new John Lewis Birmingham chose to support as their opening ‘Community Matters’ partners. (See pages 6 and 16 for details.) Involving school Our plantings involved 630 schoolchildren children and events were organised with 28 different schools, facilitated by our Schools and Community Liaison Officer (see pages 6 and 17). Involving local The Friends of Parks and/or local residents or communities community groups were involved in 12 events. City Councillors took part in 15 events. Planting took place in all of the 10 Constituencies (see page 18). ‘Plant a Tree for Life’ We received donations from 11 families and sponsorship – groups to sponsor 35 trees.
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