Woodknowledge Wales

Woodknowledge Wales

Inspiring innovation through collaboration

Community Sawmillers

Sawmillers visit Grosvenor’s Eaton Estate in Cheshire

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Woodland creation is a viable economic option for some areas of the estate’s farmlands

Grosvenor Eaton Estate’s Head Forester Greg Vickers hosted a visit to the estate’s state-of-the-art sawmilling operation, Grosvenor TimberWorks, and woodlands for Woodknowledge Wales on 25th November 2023.

Participants enjoyed a two-hour morning tour of the sawmill located in Hatton Heath, near Chester, followed by an afternoon walk through just some of the extensive woodlands managed by Greg.

Since 2015, Greg has been Head Forester for more than 2,000 hectares of woodlands across Grosvenor’s Eaton Estate in Cheshire, the Abbeystead Estate in Lancashire, the Halkyn and Nant Estates in Wales, and the Reay Forest Estate in Scotland.

The woodlands create local employment and supply materials to building and property maintenance activities across various estate holdings. The Eaton Estate alone has over 450 properties requiring routine maintenance and upgrades.

The Hatton Heath sawmill

Hatton Heath Mill took five years to build and became operational in 2021. To construct the sawmill, the project team had softwood grown on Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate in the North West Highlands shipped to BSW Fort William sawmill for processing, then transported to the Makar Workshop near Inverness. Here the workshop constructed frames and panels and had them transported down to the Eaton Estate for assembly. To fit in with the estate’s vernacular, the sawmill has a red-brick façade, and details such as red rainwater fittings. All the timber fittings within the building use estate-grown and processed hardwoods.

The site is on the southern edge of estate lands and was formerly a dairy farm. Three full time staff are employed in the mill, working five days a week. At present the sawmill aims to produce 2500m3 timber products per annum. The estate uses 20% of production internally across its various sites. The rest it sells to third parties. A small workshop facilitates on-site secondary processing of stock for the buildings team.

The mill works five days per week, usually milling hardwoods on two days and softwood for the other three days. The mill’s daily output can vary between 5m3 and 7m3 when processing hardwood, where special orders will often make up part of the production. When milling softwood, the outputs can rise to 15m3 per day.

The team stack timber outdoors for air drying prior to kilning. They fell and mill hardwoods in winter to avoid rapid drying during summer months.

As well as processing timber from its English and Welsh estates, timber is transported by ship from the Reay Estate via Kinlochbervie in Sutherland to Mostyn Docks. The short distance between the port and the estate helps minimise distance travelled by road, reducing its carbon footprint

The Eaton Estate woodlands

The Eaton Estate woodlands occupy over 400 hectares on the Cheshire plain. Planted for landscape and amenity use in the 1840’s on what had been agricultural land, the woodlands occupy sites along the five approaches (formal drives) to the main hall. The medieval ridge and furrow system are clearly visible within the woodland.

The heavy clay soils primarily hosts oak alongside a mix of broadleaf and conifers. Ash, alder, sycamore, lime, beech, hornbeam, and birch grow among Douglas fir, yew, larch, western red cedar, and Norway spruce. More recent plantings of hybrid lime and cherry have achieved yield class 8 to 10 with Douglas fir achieving yield classes in the high teens. Hornbeam is growing well but attempts to grow sweet chestnut have not been so successful.

Woodland creation is a viable economic option over traditional agricultural practices for some areas of the estate. In particular, the lower ground near the Dee flood plain.

The tour ended back at the sawmill and a donation was made to the Estate’s chosen charity in thanks for their hospitality.

For further information about our Community of Practice for Sawmillers and future site visits, please contact john.sweeney@woodknowledgewales.co.uk

Membership and Communities of Practice (CoP) Manager

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Job opportunity: Join the Woodknowledge Wales team and mission

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Membership and Communities of Practice (CoP) Manager Job Opportunity

Are you passionate about collaborative approaches as a means to drive change? Do you believe in the importance of developing and supporting strong relationships with member organisations built on trust and shared ambitions? Are you committed to improving the quality and sustainability of our natural and built environments? If so, would you like to work with us in Wales?

We’re a growing and highly motivated multi-disciplinary team. As our Membership and Communities of Practice Manager, you will help develop our membership further as well as strengthen relationships with existing member organisations across forestry and land use and the timber supply chain. You will support our communities of practice, a collaborative network of practitioners across the wood value chain. Your role in building knowledge and trust among our members is key to accelerating the just transition to a zero carbon Wales. As such, your work will be instrumental for all aspects of our ongoing and future projects from forest creation up to completed buildings.

Find out more about our current membership on our members page.

Read about our collaborative network of practitioners on our communities of practice page.

Job description

JOB TITLEMembership & Communities of Practice Manager
PURPOSE OF JOBTo manage and develop our membership and our communities of practice (CoP) and to support the Woodknowledge Wales team in delivering on its wider mission and purpose.
REPORTING TOGary Newman, Chief Executive
COLLABORATING WITHCommunities of Practice directorCommunities of Practice chairsCommunications manager
LOCATIONCardiff Office or home-based with an expectation to travel within Wales and the borders as required by the job. This primarily relates to in-person CoP events, visits to our members and occasional in-person team meetings.
AREA OF WORKThroughout Wales working with organisations in the timber supply chain from forest to end-product.
HOURS OF WORKFull-time. Part-time considered. Some long days may be required from time to time including occasional overnight stays.
SALARYBetween £33k and £38k depending on experience
DURATIONFunding for this post is currently secured until 31st March 2025 with an aspiration to develop a long-term funding model for this core role.
HOW TO APPLYSend your CV with a covering letter stating why you believe you are suited to the post to gary.newman@woodknowledgewales.co.uk
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION3rd December 2023
DATE & LOCATION FOR INTERVIEWMonday 11th December 2023 – online or in Bangor, Gwynedd

About the role

This is a pivotal role in our organisation. You are the key contact and the face of the organisation, when it comes to our members. You are coordinating requests from our team members for collaborations with our members as well as requests coming in from our members. Together with our Communications Manager you will develop member communications. In collaboration with our Chief Executive and members of the team you will work on expanding and developing our membership further.

A significant part of your role is to manage and support our communities of practice (CoPs) in collaboration with the CoP director and the CoP leads. We are currently running five such collaborative networks and are planning to establish two further CoPs over the coming 18 months. Each community has a member of our team assigned as their dedicated CoP lead. The CoP director is responsible for knowledge sharing and learning across these networks by bringing together the CoP leads in our internal ‘CoP of CoPs’.

Our CoPs gather professionals of the same trade or supply chain level around a shared challenge or opportunity. They are an essential part of our work, guiding what we focus upon as well as informing and validating outputs across our projects. This approach helps to extend impacts and accelerate shared learning within and across the supply chain.

Our CoPs are centred around practical solutions and capacity building and give members the opportunity to prototype innovative approaches together with others. Each community defines its own agenda and schedule of actions based on the needs of its members. Woodknowledge Wales ensures flow of information between CoPs, so that we can progress together.

Key Responsibilities

  • Membership engagement and development
  • Supporting the development of our CoPs by working with the CoP leads to plan, organise, attend, potentially facilitate, and report meetings and events.
  • Being able to work effectively with a diverse range of organisations in our existing CoPs (Architects and Designers, Timber Frame Manufacturers, Housing Associations, Small Timber Processors and Joinery Manufacturers) as well as helping to develop new communities in the areas of farming and forestry.
  • Identifying opportunities for collaboration, innovation and change across the supply chain to demonstrate the value of participation in the CoPs, thereby helping to deliver project objectives and help deliver on Woodknowledge Wales vision and purpose.
  • Being pro-active and creative in problem solving.
  • Preparing progress reports and contributing to writing articles for Woodknowledge Wales newsletters and website

In addition, the successful candidate is expected to contribute to the overall mission of Woodknowledge Wales and help design, organise and participate in events such as webinars, workshops and conferences (incl. the annual WoodBUILD conference and expo)

Key abilities / experience

We are looking for someone who can work closely with a growing, independently working team of driven individuals in a flexible and supportive way across job boundaries. You must be able to engage with all relevant individuals and organisations in the supply chain from forest to construction sector. You must be able to do this in a way that promotes trust and supports the mission and purpose of Woodknowledge Wales as an independent for-public-good organisation. You must be able to communicate with humility, empathy and clarity in discussion around complex challenges to landscapes and communities posed by climate change.

Person Specification

Essential criteria

  • Project management
  • Evidence of effective partnership working
  • Thorough working knowledge of Microsoft Office
  • An organised self-starter, able to manage own workload and work independently to tight time scales
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills – specifically the ability to work closely with and build trust with partner organisations
  • Excellent problem-solving skills, coming up with ideas and solutions as issues arise.
  • Willingness to work in a flexible way and respond to changing circumstances.
  • Full, clean driving license and access to a car for travel throughout those parts of Wales where there is limited access to public transport.

Desirable criteria

  • Facilitation skills. We can organise training in facilitation skills if required.
  • Be up to date with changes in legislation which impact on the forestry, timber and construction supply chain.
  • Understanding and experience of wider delivery of social value.
  • Welsh language skills would be a plus.

About Woodknowledge Wales

Woodknowledge Wales is an independent mission driven membership alliance. We are a charitable Community Benefits Society, which is a form of cooperative that exists for the benefit of society. We are governed by a voluntary board. We aim to create and share knowledge to accelerate change. We believe that timber demand and supply can be better aligned and more purposefully driven to deliver greater climate change mitigation and biodiversity enhancement across land use and construction. We are transparent and collaborative in our approach.

We are a growing interdisciplinary team of driven individuals motivated to inspire, catalyse and accelerate the transformation to a regenerative zero carbon society through the growing of trees and the use of wood. We believe that the most effective way to do this is to build trust in the change agenda by supporting organisations involved in both timber use and supply. We seek to capture and share the knowledge gained by holding engaging events, by creating informative case studies, by developing new guidance and through inspiring communication. We support policy makers to create enabling policies and then help overcome barriers to implementation.

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