5 Star Christmas Dinner

Well it's that time of year and the Christmas decorations have gone up. But we haven't just got a star on our Christmas tree we've also once again been awarded 5 stars for food hygiene in our kitchen.

Over the next 3 weeks Jane and Karen will be preparing 5 Christmas dinners for over 60 people at a time! The first was last night and was much enjoyed by all.

Mmmm! Doesn't that look good!

Front of Centre Painted

 The scaffolding from the solar panel installation is now all down but we kept it up a little longer so that all the windows, gutter and facia board at the front of the centre could be painted.

The Virginia Creeper has been trimmed back to half height and has now lost most of it's leaves for this year. It will grow back next year and reach the top windows again before requiring a prune to stop it getting into the gutters. Although it's a continuing maintenance task we don't want to lose our Creeper that has become part of the building and it's history. It softens the building in the summer with it's green foliage and often puts on a beautiful display of Autumn colours.

While work was being done on the building we came across some graffiti on the slates in the middle as indicated by the red dot in the picture above.

It all dated to the 1960's during which time the building was a Forestry College. On further investigation,  asking an historical source, it appears that there was an initiation 'ceremony' whereby first year students were dangled by their legs out of the window above to scratch their names on to the slate! Fortunately such things don't happen today as the windows have closures to prevent them opening more than a few cm's. Although we don't condone graffiti now that it is over 50 years old it has become historical and gives the names of several people who are now old men and came from places as far away as Ghana to live in The Forest of Dean for 2 years and learn how to become forestry managers.

Now that the scaffolding is down it can't be viewed unless you want dangling by the ankles!

General Update

Do you remember the heatwave during the Summer 2013? Our wildflower meadow roof turned to hay. It provided 5 bags of hay for Debbie's Guinea Pigs but we did wonder if the grass and flowers would ever grow back.

Well it's looking nice and green again now and is even growing mushrooms!

As this Blog shows, we are constantly developing things at DFSC and getting new things for our groups to have and use. We always ask for feedback and ideas at the end of a course from teachers and leaders but we've now installed a Suggestions Box in the entrance lobby that students can also add ideas to.

We look forward to hearing their suggestions and have already implemented one - buying a digital thermometer for staff to use when they suspect a child may have developed a temperature.

Please let us know if you have any good ideas to make a popular activity programmes or comfortable residential accommodation etc. even better.

The Dean Garden Room Hosts Macmillan Cancer Support Coffee Morning

Our fantastic DFSC Centre Cooks, Jane, Karen & Nicky have this morning made a huge effort for Macmillan Cancer Support

They ran a Coffee and Cake morning at The Dean Garden Room (our wonderful new classroom building) as part of Macmillan's 'World's Biggest Coffee Morning'. 

With Tombola and raffle + further cake sales locally they raised an amazing £900 for this very worthwhile charity! Last year a record £15 million was raised for Macmillan with coffee mornings around the country.

We Love it When the Sun Shines!

Being on Outdoor Learning Centre we love it when the sun shines as our groups enjoy being outside in good weather. We now have even more reason to love it as we have just had 4 kWp Photo Voltaic Array installed on the roof of the Main Centre Building.

In under a week of use we've generated 50kWh of energy. Projected figures are that we should avoid 2,937 kg of CO2 emissions each year. Let's hope for lots more sunshine!

Tunnels at DFSC

Ian Healey, The Centre Manager, is a keen caver and has been leading groups of young people caving for over 20 years.

His experience tells him that many children really enjoy the tighter more challenging parts of a cave! This is in-spite of the expectations of their teachers! Ian regularly leads groups in Clearwell Caves and a popular an memorable part of the cave for many students is the 'Polo Hole', pictured above.

For a while we have had an old drainage pipe in the centre garden that has been used for problem solving challenges and it becomes a magnet to children to investigate. Above are two 2 year-olds from Forest Tots who have decided to go through it.

 The plans for the new classroom left a small area of land next to the building blank. Yes, it could have just been laid to lawn but we had a much better idea!

"What if we bought a load of pipes and constructed an underground tunnel maze!?" "We better make a plan!"

"Right let's buy some pipes". "We need some people to move them!" "Well, we've got lots of DFSC staff"

"We'll make construction workers out of them yet! Here we go walking down the road with one of the big pipes and the Centre building in the background."

 "I know lets use rainwater harvesting tanks as junctions between the tunnels!" "Yes, and we could start in a shed with 4 different tunnels heading out of it!"

"We'll need somebody with a digger and a dumper truck"

"What about putting one tunnel under the deck and another one sliding down on to the lawn?!"

This project is well under way and should be ready for the first groups to use next term. The construction phase has raised a lot of interest from visiting groups who are now looking forward to using it on their next visit. We think it will make an excellent new activity that combines team work, personal challenge, communication and  problem solving. We'll be setting a variety of challenges which  will include orienteering, mapping and transporting objects. We look forward to telling you more about the Tunnels in the future once they are being used. 

Summer is here

Summer is definitely here with temperatures up to 29 degrees Centigrade today. The Pond Cabin Laboratory is hidden in the foilage and staying nice and cool over the pond.

The dragonflies are darting about the pond reeds.

The wild flower meadow on the roof of the Dean Garden Room is wafting gently in the breeze and attracting it's own collection of insect life.

There are many different varieties of wild flower growing. The grass will soon need a cut and we will then let it lie like hay on the roof to allow any wild flower seeds to disperse before then clearing the grass off. Removing the grass prevents too much nutrient build up in what should be a fairly poor soil. Cutting the grass a couple of times replicates grazing and prevents the grass out competing the wild flowers.

The living roof of the roundhouse is also looking good but we don't plan to cut it.

A wren has made a nest in the outside of the wall under the eaves. See red circle on photo below. 4 chicks are busily being fed by the parents and look about to fledge.

Opening Ceremony for The Dean Garden Room

Now that our fantastic new building is completed we couldn't let things pass without a celebratory event. So we put out the bunting and the Lord Mayor of Bristol kindly agreed to formally open it.

The Lord Mayor, Councillor Peter Main, unveiled The Dean Garden Room and then presented souvenirs to specially invited pupils from some of the schools that have visited over the last few months.

After this our 80+ guests all enjoyed a buffet lunch out on the deck. We were glad we'd had the canopy built when it sheltered us from a shower of rain.

Many of our guests then decided to have a go on our Zip Wire

Including The Lord Mayor in his Robes!

Some of our younger guests also had a go at a few of our other High Challenges. The sun came out and an enjoyable afternoon was had by all.