As the holiday season approaches, here’s a look back on the Friends group activities over the past few months.

Please visit our website: friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org for more information about the group. For information about the attractions at the reservoirs and how to book onto activities, please visit the lisvane-llanishen.com site.

Reservoir Action Group (RAG) donation

Following the dissolution of the Reservoir Action Group last year, RAG members agreed to donate a large part of its remaining resources to the Friends. As set out in the previous newsletter, the donation will be used to broaden access to the site to benefit the wider community.

Wellies in the woods

Some of the funds that were donated to the Friends by RAG have been used to broaden access to the reservoirs to refugee and asylum seeker families. Working with Groundwork, Oasis, the Welsh Refugee Council and Welsh Water, up to 8 families attended outdoor learning sessions over 8 weeks from September to November.  

Wellies in the Woods involved the families enjoying themselves together outdoors, learning new skills and games.  The sessions introduced outdoor play to children, some who had never experienced being a forest before.

The response from the families has been terrific. One parent said “We loved it, his favourite thing was squirting targets and playing hide and seek. We will come visit the reservoir again, I didn’t know it was there”.

We hope to run more of these events and other schemes aimed at encouraging and facilitating greater access to the site, making further use of the RAG donation. If you are interested in being involved with this project, please let us know.

Digital memories

The project to capture digital memories of the reservoirs is being developed in partnership with Welsh Water, Digital Communities Wales and Peoples Collections for Wales (PCW). The material collected will eventually appear on the PCW website. There are several opportunities to volunteer to help with this project.

Following some training sessions, we held an enjoyable pilot day in November, trying out new kit and capturing several interviews and images with members, reflecting on their varied memories of the reservoirs over decades. If you would like to share your memories please get in touch by emailing memories@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org.   

Awards

In October, the site was successful in winning the prestigious Land Management UK award by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Both Friends committee and former Reservoir Action Group members were among those who met the judges to help explain the impact that the reservoirs had made and were represented at the awards ceremony in London.

The reservoirs site has also received a Green Flag Award – the benchmark international standard for publicly accessible parks and green spaces. The Friends group was also among the nominees for the Cardiff Third Sector Council’s Volunteer Group of the Year.

Volunteering opportunities

With Welsh Water, we offer a wide variety of practical activities that help to manage the woodland areas. Volunteers can also act as ambassadors to help visitors get the most from their experience at the reservoirs or help preserve and record the rare fungi by raking the embankments in the spring, take part in the annual autumn surveys or help with events. There are now over 180 volunteers registered on the Volunteer Management System. Since the Friends group was set up, over 3,600 hours of volunteering time has been recorded.

The Rangers at the reservoirs are keen to hear from volunteers about the programme of opportunities on offer. We had our first focus group at the end of July when several members joined Rangers to discuss what works well and what could be improved. If you want to take part, more sessions are planned for 2025.

New Year social

Following the positive feedback we received after our social event earlier in the year, we are hoping to host another in the New Year, possibly showcasing some of the “Digital Memories” we have gathered. We’ll keep members posted as soon as we know more.

Guided Walks

This year we offered the chance for volunteers to train as “walk leaders” to welcome visiting community groups to the site and, in pairs, lead guided tours to introduce the history, ecology and activities available. So far we have run a series of well-received walks for community groups and our members.

Annual General Meeting

Many thanks to members who attended our meeting in July. Those attending approved a series of constitutional changes, the group’s finances, committee posts and agreed that the Committee should explore what is needed to become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. The AGM minutes are available on the website along with the revised constitution.

Your committee

Many thanks from us all for their contributions to the Friends group to Amit Jain,  Rajeev Sharma and Sandra Veasey. Following the AGM, Ros Reilly (Membership Secretary) and Phil Savage were co-opted onto the Committee. We still have a couple of vacancies, so please let us know if you would be interested in joining us. Please use our membership email if you want to get in touch with us: membership@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org

We continue to schedule regular drop-in sessions in the Visitor Centre café from 10am to 12 noon on the last Saturday of each month. These sessions allow members to drop by and chat and for people to find out more about the Friends group and the volunteering opportunities offered.

Friends’ membership and subscriptions

We now have over 300 members. Details of how to join the Friends group are on the Membership section of our website and costs just £5 per year (or £10 for a household). Over the past year the subscriptions received have fallen short of the routine running expenses of the group, so we would be particularly grateful to receive any outstanding subscriptions for 2024.

We try to email members about all volunteering opportunities on a regular basis. These opportunities all appear on the volunteer management system (Team Kinetic). The best way to book onto these opportunities is by logging on to the system (Login Page teamkinetic.co.uk). Please email membership@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org if you wish to enrol on Team Kinetic for the first time.

If you have any difficulties with Team Kinetic, Richard, our IT support, is happy to help (email: ITsupport@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org ).