1st Britwell Group Conservation day

1st Britwell Scouts, Cubs and Beavers travelled to Stoke Poges to voluntarily help out with the conservation of the heathland. The main objective of the project was to clear as many of the Birch trees as we could in the entire day. Birch trees are overtaking the whole of the area and if this happens then the heather that is located all around it will die out as it will have its sunlight blocked out by the Birch trees. This will result in it no longer being a heather heathland, but instead a birch woodland area, which is very common in Britain, unlike the heathland that is becoming increasingly rare.
Forty nine troop members turned up to help, from six year old beavers to fourteen year old scouts. We worked all morning with two different types of tools: bow saws and loppers. The younger troop members taking the loppers while the older ones took the bow saws for some heavy duty tree sawing. The scouts and some of the more able cubs worked in efficient teams of two to three while the beavers and the rest of the cubs helped out with the loppers, trimming down the trees we were cutting down to be used as pioneering poles.
A few of the trees were quite large and the leaders had to help out for some of them. At lunch time, the beavers went home but the scouts and cubs stayed to help out in the afternoon. The remainder of the troop carried on sawing down the trees and then removing all of the branches that stuck out with the loppers. After we had finished, the area of land we had been working on looked like a different place. A good few trees had been downed and we were left with a clearing in the dense mass of Birches. A few of the stumps still poked out of the ground, but the keepers would dig them up when we left. It was quite awing to see the effect the troop had caused on the heathland, and we all felt pretty proud of ourselves for helping out.
However it wasn’t all hard work, after we had finished we had a few games of manhunt- cubs versus scouts style! The scouts of course won against the cubs, who seemed to be unable to stick together and run at a few people at a time. Instead it was each cub for its own and everyone seemed to be running after anyone that came within their view. Overall, everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves, but the best thing that the troop got out of the day was the good feeling of kindness, knowing that we had helped conserve Stoke Poges. It had been an ordinary day for 1st Britwell Scouts...