The end of a fantastic year and the start of a new one at Fallin Bing!

Welcome to the final blog update for this All Our Stories project at Fallin Bing. I want to thank everyone for reading the blog over the last year and I hope you have enjoyed our regular updates. I also want to thank everyone who has watched the film on YouTube and been on Historypin to look at the digital record which have the photos and video which are our legacy of this project (why not check out the records of other All Our Stories projects: http://www.historypin.com/project/44-all-our-stories/channels/). 

Volunteers helping at our habitat creation days had a great time. If interested in coming along to future events see the details below.

This project has not only been a fantastic success but has also been great fun and we have met some amazing people and wildlife along the way. Although we are sad it has come to an end we are now looking forward to starting work at the site through the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative (IFLI), which was pleased to announce last week there successful bid for funding to Heritage Lottery Fund of £2million! This will help to fund 50 individual projects in the IFLI area over the next four years. These projects will help to protect areas important for wildlife and their historical value and also help to connect habitats and provide education to local communities. IFLI covers an area stretching from Stirling to Rosyth and Blackness and covers the village Fallin.

Who can forget all the amazing 6-spot burnet moths seen at fallin duirng habitat creation work at Fallin in  the summer of 2013. Lets hope we see this many at the site in our future work through IFLI.

Through this, Buglife will continue habitat creation and management work at Fallin this year. We will be organising volunteer days where everyone can come along and help out at for as little or as long as they want. For more information about these future events this year please contact Suzanne Bairner at 01786 447504 and suzanne.bairner@buglife.org.uk and for more information about IFLI and to keep up to date with events at Fallin: http://www.innerforthlandscape.co.uk/

Thanks again and please be in touch if you require any more information about this All Our Stories project, Fallin Bing: from Coalfield to Brownfield.

What a Success!!

We would like to say a hug thank you to everyone who came along to Fallin Bings project celebration event at Fallin Miners Welfare and Social Club on Tuesday night. The event was a great success and 15 members of the local community came along to learn what the project has achieved over the past year through this All Our Stories Heritage Lottery Funded project as well as the work that Stirling Council have been doing in Fallin and what we want to do in the future through the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative and how people can get involved through Butterfly Conservations work on Wester Moss.  

Harry Woolner, TCV Natural Communities trainee, who organised the event, did a fantastic job with his short talk about the project and he really highlighted how important the site is for both the people and the wildlife. We would also like to thank Scott Mason from Stirling Council ranger service that came along and did a short talk about how the council are involved in the site and what future plans we have for habitat creation and management as well as how local people can get involved in further activities. 

Harry talking to event attendees about the All Our Stories project at Fallin

We then put on the film that has been made about the project and the history of the site, largely thanks to the interview with Jock Thomson. The film was received very well and people enjoyed seeing their local area on the big screen. If you haven’t yet seen the film it can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzLifCIzscU

Scott Maosn from Stirling Council Ranger Service came along to talk about the councils work at Fallin

Feedback forms were handed out to find out what people would like to see in their area, what they think about the work that has happened on the Bing and any feedback about what they would like to see more of. Overall, the feedback was really positive and people are really keen to get involved with further habitat creation days, wildlife walks and even photography classes.

This is the end of the project but not quite the blog….yet! There will be a further update about the project and its future plans soon so watch this space….

Celebration event date confirmed!

We can now confirm the celebration event for the All Our Stories project at Fallin Bing as the date stated in the last blog on the evening of Tuesday the 25^th of March. The event will be held at Fallin Miners Welfare and Social Club (FK7 7HT) from 6pm-8pm and everyone is welcome to come along for part or all of the evening. Cake, biscuits and juice will be provided hopefully along with tea and coffee.

Come along and celebrate the history and future of Fallin Bing on the evening of the 25th of March (c) Scott Shanks.

Harry Woolner who is organising the event is planning a couple of short talks about the project, Fallin’s history and the wildlife found at Fallin along with the showing of the project video, which can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzLifCIzscU

There will also be opportunities for attendees to share their ideas of what they would like to see happen on the Bing and the reasons they use the site today. Buglife will be there along with Ami Crozier a TCV Natural Communities trainee with Butterfly Conservation and there will be a display and leaflets about the Inner Forth Landscape Initiative who have projects in and around Fallin.

For more information about the event and any questions about the project please contact Harry on harry.woolner@buglife.org.uk and 01786 447504.

Project Celebration Event!

We are close to confirming our project celebration event at Fallin. So far it looks like it will be Tuesday the 25^th of March at Fallin Miners Welfare and Social Club (FK7 7HT) from 6pm-8pm. Harry (TCV Natural Communities trainee) who is organising the event is hoping to confirm the date this weekend.

Everyone is welcome to attend the event and get involved in our celebration of Fallin Bing. You can watch the film ‘From Coalfield to Brownfield’, hear short talks celebrating the Bing’s history and wildlife, and share your ideas of what could happen on the Bing in the future.  This event will allow us to complete this project and also allow us to continue our work at the site. 

Come along to our celebration event and tell us your thoughts on Fallin Bing.

The film about the project seems to have been making its rounds of Fallin and Jock has had people speak to him about it while out visiting the shop. We are so glad that we have been able to make this film as part of the heritage of this project and hope people will continue to enjoy watching it. If you haven’t seen it yet check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzLifCIzscU

As I have said we hope to confirm the date of the event this weekend and I will have more details about this next week. For more information about the celebration event please contact Harry Woolner on 01786 447504 and harry.woolner@buglife.org.uk.

Celebration event!

Only 6 weeks to go till the end of this amazing All Our Stories project at Fallin Bing! TCV Natural Communities trainee Harry Woolner (who wrote an introductory blog last update) is organising a celebration event with Fallin primary school and also a separate event either at the local library or church. He has been busy working up dates of his visits and is hoping to finalise them soon.  With the primary school Harry hopes to go into the school and do an art activity about bugs to discuss their importance to the children and what they can do to help them. Should be a great day that gets kids thinking about the bugs around them and their different shapes and sizes.

Come along to our celebration event and learn about the history of Fallin while getting to meet new people.

Harry will be meeting with members of Fallin Miners Welfare and Social Club on Monday the 24^th of February. One of the members has already seen our film so it seems it is making its way to Fallin and the wider community which is fantastic! 

When we have the finalised dates of our event we will put them up on the blog as everyone is welcome to attend. It will be a great way to learn more about coal mining in Scotland and a chance to meet new people. In the meantime if you have any questions about the project please contact Suzanne Bairner at suzanne.bairner@buglife.org.uk and 01786 447504.

A new trainee...

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to watch our film about the All Our Stories project at Fallin Bing. So far we have had over 600 views on YouTube which is fantastic. If you haven't watched the film yet please catch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzLifCIzscU 

Harry Woolner has now started with us and is continuing the work that paul Gunn did at Fallin last year. I have asked Harry to write a short piece about his interests and what he will be doing this year. read on to find out more:

Hello, I am Harry and I’ve just started out as a trainee with Buglife as part of TCV’s Natural Communities traineeship. I have moved to Stirling from the heart of Kent where I grew up amongst fruit orchards, on the boundary between the chalky North Downs and the clay based Weald. The most striking thing for me since my move has been, therefore, the vistas of the rocky mountainous outcrops that loom over Stirling to the north and east.

Harry at the garden at Balallan House, Stirling

I am going to help organise the Fallin Bing final celebration event towards the end of March alongside Ami, another Natural Communities trainee, working with Butterfly Conservation. The hope is that we will be able to have a day where residents of Fallin can share stories, form the past to the future, about the Bing, in order to help strengthen local connections with site. We hope to engage both adult residents as well as children from the primary school.

For my part, I come to this project as a newbie and outsider. I have a passion for insects, particularly bees, and wildflowers. I recently completed an MSc in Ethnobotany in which I learned about scientific approaches to the plant world, as well as indigenous and folk perspectives. My learning and work was broad; touching on the worldview of the Ese’eja in Peru who perceive forest plants as powerful spirits that must be negotiated with caution, to the Palawan of the Philippines who say that bees come from an Upper Celestial Plane and will only come to our world if treated appropriately, to the Botanists of Kew who see the plant world through the beauty of flower parts. I then went on to carry out a research project which assessed residents’, gardeners’ and beekeepers’ knowledge of bee plants and bee declines in Canterbury, Kent.

Harry is really interested in bees and is looking forward to learning more about insects this year.

My background has therefore led me to have a great interest in local knowledge. I am really keen, therefore, to learn how Fallin residents and children approach the plants and insects on the Bing, and what they know about the area and the landscape that is their home.

Having seen all the great work that local residents, Buglife and TCV have done at the site last year, I am looking forward to help bring the project to a close in celebratory style. I hope that we can inspire the children of the primary school to continue to enjoy, engage with, and learn from the history and nature found at the Bing.