“Our overall aim and vision is to promote wellbeing, resilience and sustainability: for individuals, society and the natural world.”
Our intention is:
- To respect and serve this land as a place sacred to nature.
- To maintain and enhance a sustainable and diverse eco-system.
- To offer a place of peace and privacy where people can nourish their connection with the land, themselves and each other.
- To build harmonious and inclusive community through transformative teaching and learning in the presence of nature.
Main Activities
Our main activities to fulfil these aims are a range of programmes helping people to engage more deeply with nature.
- Education:
The wood currently hosts around 60 events per year, involving around 1000 people in total. These events range from residential weekends to 2-hour groups for local people. Many events are delivered or supported by the Hazel Hill staff team. Some are delivered by partner organisations whose events are coordinated as part of the overall programme.
There is great variety in the client groups, themes and activities offered at Hazel Hill. The underlying aim is to enable people to improve their wellbeing and resilience by deeper contact with nature. Whilst open events are listed on the Hazel Hill website, many groups at the wood are not listed as they are private bookings, for example school groups and other organisations. Here are a few examples of events at the wood:
- A wellbeing day for children from a local primary school.
- A 28-hour woodland resilience immersion for stressed NHS doctors.
- A weekend on how to learn resilience skills from nature.
- A conservation day for local people experiencing depression or bereavement.
2. Conservation and Forestry:
Hazel Hill is a highly varied 70-acre wood, with diverse habitats and abundant wildlife, including some rare butterflies. Regular conservation days and weekends are essential in sustaining all this. Our ever growing volunteer base now stands at well over one hundred. Between 10 and 20 volunteers join us at least once a month on our Volunteer Conservation Days. The wood is also managed for sustainable, productive forestry, and has some good stands of oak, beech and pine.
- Facilities:
The wood has a range of timber buildings, largely using timber from the wood. There are indoor and outdoor group spaces, and residential and cooking facilities for groups up to 30 people. These facilities are almost entirely off-grid, with two different electrical systems, four types of compost toilets, a reed bed for greywater, and all heating by firewood from the wood.
- Other Projects:
The vision for the Trust gives it a remit which extends beyond running programmes at Hazel Hill Wood. The Trust has already shared expertise with a number of other projects, and intends to expand its range of online resources.
You can view our 2017 Annual Report here.
Our vision
Hazel Hill Trust (HHT) is a new registered charity, whose main work initially will be taking over the ownership and operation of Hazel Hill Wood from July 2015. This is an introduction to the aims and organisation of the Trust.
The overall aim and vision of Hazel Hill Trust is to promote wellbeing, resilience and sustainability: for individuals, society and the natural world. Enabling people to engage more deeply with nature, especially woodlands, will be a major means of fulfilling this aim, including the operation of Hazel Hill Wood as a demonstration and education centre.
The vision for Hazel Hill Wood, as agreed in the November 2013 review, is:
Our intention is to respect and serve this land as a place sacred to nature.
To maintain and enhance a sustainable and diverse eco-system.
To offer a place of peace and privacy where people can nourish their connection with the land, themselves and each other.
To build harmonious and inclusive community through transformative teaching and learning in the presence of nature.