Getting Ready For Winter
Since September, Woodmill has been transformed by volunteers from Scouts and local community partners.
Thousands of hours of volunteer time have been poured into the site. On our biggest maintenance weekend hosted over 100 volunteers. It’s been fantastic to have our volunteers joined by local businesses, charities, and community groups, working tirelessly together to make the site welcoming. We’ve gone through over 30 cans of paint refreshing sheds and walls, and will continue this pace throughout the winter.
The site has been alive with paddling, fishing, and hundreds of young people enjoying the outdoors since September. The bushcraft area has been especially popular in the evenings for campfires, even on the frostiest of nights. We ended November with a festive campfire for Squirrels (4-6 years old) with over 150 people in attendance.
Refreshing Our Community Hall
Our volunteers have spent over 120 hours transforming the community hall in South Stoneham Lodge into a welcoming community space. It’s now unrecognisable, with essential repairs completed, a new fire alarm system, and a fresh dash of colour to the walls. We hope you’ll agree it looks fantastic!
Thank you to everyone who helped make this happen, often painting late into the night. A special thank you also goes to Ascension Church Southampton for their generous support in lending us their scaffolding, which was crucial for getting the job done safely, and also Southampton City Scout Network who helped us to paint.
The Hall is available for Scouts, Guides, Schools, Charities, Community Groups, and wider community. Interested? Get in touch with our bookings team.
Embracing the Outdoors
Work has also begun on creating an educational vegetable and herb garden at the roundhouse for young people, particularly those aged 4-8 years old, to grow and learn about food. We are also excited that this returns some ‘Capability’ Brown landscaping out of the brambles and into the light for our young people to enjoy with an edible twist.
Sadly the Roundhouse roof was damaged in Storm Amy. We are in the process of getting this repaired with local experts. We’re really looking forward to opening this space up for more than just bushcraft and together with the ancient and medicinal herb garden we are planting, we hope the space will be perfect to support local Primary Schools with teaching Y3 History.
Embracing Nature
We’re pleased to have cleared the majority of the remaining Himalayan Balsam from the woodland areas of the site, and are now moving forward with preparing the woodland area to be suitable for camping and activity use next summer.
It was exciting to rediscover the pond dipping area, which has been out of action for many years, and more exciting to discover that it’s in relatively good condition. We are currently investigating how we can make this area safe again and return pond dipping to Woodmill.
Woodmill is full of amazing birds and bats! Some of our young people in the early evening in October were more interested in the bats flying across the lake than in paddling. Our young people have built and installed new bird and bat boxes across the site.
We’d also like to thank Southampton SSAGO and the N10 Maintenance Group who have spent over 200 volunteer hours since September carrying out groundswork across the site to keep it looking tidy and accessible to all our visitors.
Fishing Responsibly
Fishing for Sea Trout this year has now come to close and we’d like to thank Friends of Woodmill Fly Fishing (FOWFF) for their continued support for Woodmill’s new chapter. Through donations, members of FOWFF have kindly donated the funds to repair the car park. We are now awaiting suitably dryer weather to make the repairs. We can’t wait to say farewell to our potholes, and hope the ducks will go back to using the lake.
We’d also like to thank the Environment Agency whose tireless efforts in the local area are helping to prevent poaching and protect the salmon at Woodmill.
Our First Camp
In October we welcomed our first big camp at Woodmill. Hampshire Freshers Camp was open to university students from across the county, and was the first time they’ve ever camped at Woodmill. The event went very well, and we look forward to welcoming them back soon.
Looking ahead we are working with the Woodmill Coffee Kitchen (their food is amazing!) to offer catering packages to future events and camps at Woodmill.
Camping available to be booked for Scouts, Guides, Schools, Charities, Community Groups, and wider community. Interested? Get in touch with our bookings team.
Repairing the Lake
In our first week at Woodmill we had our first tree fall into the lake. Several more have fallen down in the storms this autumn since. We’d like to thank Hampshire Garden Machinery for giving up their time to come down and remove the trees from the lake for us, and clear other fallen trees from the site.
This has made a huge difference to space available in the lake. We are also looking forward to reusing the wood onsite for seating, bug hotels, etc…
Expanding Our Programme
Our volunteers have been busy improving existing activities and creating new ones.
The Low Ropes has transformed into a new course that has already been enjoyed by Scout, Schools, and our first Birthday Party.
The Archery range has been refreshed, with netting repairs, new equipment, and many hours of volunteer time spent refletching arrows.
The Inflatable Football Pitch has returned to life (it’s huge!) and been enjoyed by local Explorer Scouts and university students.
Slingshots will soon be launching (or slinging) into Woodmill as a new self-led activity.
Looking Ahead
There is lots of work still to be done! Our next big project is to reinstate lighting across the car park, repair lighting across South Stoneham Lodge, and add lighting to more outdoor activity spaces to support evening use.
Our young people have been busy designing a new badge and logo for Woodmill. They’ve come up with something 'quacking' that we can’t wait to unveil soon!
We are always looking for new volunteers. If you’d like to get involved in Woodmill’s new community-led future, please let us know.
