Welcome to the blog for October 2025

“Kingswood volunteering can be exciting, tiring, fascinating, brilliant, strange, cold, life affirming, frustrating, wet, rewarding, messy, amazing, painful and instructive but is never glamorous and seldom dignified.”

We enjoyed a smashing Cycling Special Saturday, which had toddlers to teenagers riding round the site and learning how to cross humps and leap gaps (supported by Hannah Excott, National Cycling Champion). From young teenagers sharing daring jumps to a very small, very focussed, toddler on a balance bike circling furiously.

Our produce this year, thanks to obsessively determined watering through the dry spells, has been pretty good – we even managed to get some (delicious, apparently) sweetcorn despite the usual depredations of mice and rabbits. Plus apples, pears, tomatoes, potatoes, marrows, courgettes … a surprising amount of which got made into cake or jam by various volunteers. Not entirely sure what to do with the quince though.

The sheep are trying to help by shoving their feet and noses under their fences to get their teeth into apple windfalls.

Bee larva cleaning starts now. We empty the bee nesters, remove the larvae and brush and wipe them to remove mites and bee poo. We then store them in a cool place until spring, when they go back into the bee nesters’ special drawer in which they will hatch – supporting a healthy essential bee population.

In addition to the regular Mon/Tue/Sat groups of volunteers, we had a big group from High Flyers, Severn Trent, who spent the day laying slabs, moving soil and doing other mucky jobs. Thanks to them and another regular group, of students from Wolverhampton College, helping to provide refreshments and keep the site tidy.

Finally, we were all surprised when our sweet chestnut trees produced, for the first time ever, sweet chestnuts big enough to roast and eat. Pity they were almost tasteless. Our squirrels are clearly doing their best to eat them all, despite having already eaten all the cob nuts and more bird food than I like.
Volunteering not only supports the charity and its aims, it provides lots of people from all walks of life with a reason to get up in the morning, meet new people and make a difference. I can hilghly recommend it.

Julia Pursehouse – Volunteer at Kingswood Trust