Well, someone had to do something...

After our busier summer period, during which there are always groups on site, the winter and early spring bring a break from those hectic warmer months.

The slower season around Christmas allows our staff members a much needed cooling down period and a chance to catch up on any jobs that couldn’t be completed due to the constant stream of happy guests using our accommodation. For instance, Rob seems to have spent a solid month filling holes in the dormitories with pol

yfilla and Jan is almost definitely sick of the sight of Magnolia paint. There is something more boring than watching paint dry, and it’s painting the same colour for 2 weeks straight. The result of all this hard work, though, is definitely worth it, as the Centre is looking almost as good as it did when the new buildings were opened in 2008.

We have been fortunate enough to have been donated more trees from two separate organisations. The Tree Council have given us 15 apple and pear trees to start an orchard on site, which will hopefully start providing us with apples this coming autumn. We have also been given 420 trees from the Woodland Trust. These trees are of various different varieties like Hazel, Crab Apple and Elder. They will provide us with even more harvestable fruits in the autumn. The Woodland Trust have also given us an Oak, grown with seed taken from a Royal estate to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.

We were joined by yet more piglets, with 8 arriving with a bang on Bonfire Night. Our very first pig, Nessa, was the mother and Rodney (who has now sired 15 piglets) was the father. These piglets have already moved on to greener pastures, having been adopted by Andy and Carol who have a farm in the Swansea Valleys. They are very happy in their new home, and are apparently trying to eat Andy and Carol out of house and home. Rodney went with his children to their new home and is also settling in well. This leaves us with our original two pigs; Nessa and Peppa, who are enjoying a bit of peace and quiet.

Breaking News!

The week after Rodney and the piglets were collected Peppa gave birth to even more piglets. At the time of writing all 8 piglets are doing well and are preparing to start eating their own weight everyday in pig-nuts. This latest litter of piglets takes Rodney’s total of children to 24!

The work on our poly-tunnels is nearing completion, with growing in the smaller of the two having started. The larger poly-tunnel is well on the way as well and we look forward to sampling the home-grown (is that the right word?) fruit and vegetables it will produce when finally finished. The main aim for the larger poly-tunnel is to allow school groups who visit us during the spring and summer to be able to take part in the harvesting of crops, which we can now start growing earlier in the year. Both poly-tunnels had a visit from a herd of cows, who helped fertilise the ground, which was nice of them. We aim to grow various unusual plants and vegetables like yin-yang beans, white aubergine and purple carrots.

To dig some fantastically straight trenches for the poly-tunnel we hired a lovely mini-digger. This was basically an excuse to use the following picture of a very happy Rob in the digger. Rob would like to make it clear that he did actually use the digger, and didn’t just sit in it.

Events:

2nd Sunday of every month: Eco Tribe: 3-5pm

We have been running a new Sunday afternoon youth group at the St Madoc Centre since last summer. The group is for children and young adults and is called ‘Eco tribe’. The group is a mixture of wildlife and outdoor activities, as well as fun and games. Over the last few months we have been pond dipping, star gazing, tree planting, snake hunting and eating toasted marshmallows over a bonfire. Eco Tribe runs on the second Sunday of every month. If you or anyone you know is interested in coming along get in contact with the centre.

Last Sunday of ever month: Archery Club: 3-4pm

The Drawforce Archery club meets in the sportshall at 3pm on the last Sunday of every month. Suitable for children and adults. The first session is free. Ring us for more details!

26-30th March: Reflections on God’s Creation - residential week £160

Take time out before Easter at St Madoc’s. Have time to wonder, wander and walk. Enjoy a programme of relaxed, optional activities with plenty of time to reflect, surrounded by God’s wonderful creation. See 27th below for day visitors too. See website to book, or give us a ring for details.

27th March: Reflections – focus on Caring for God’s Creation

Discover more about the work A Rocha and St Madoc Centre do to look after the environment. Hear inspiring talks and take part in walks and discussions. This is part of the Reflections residential week and is open to day visitors. Please book in advance. Chat to Sarah for further information. sarah@stmadoc.co.uk

19th May: Dawn Chorus Walk: 5:30am

An early morning walk led by A Rocha Intern Sarah to take in the musical dawn chorus. The walk will culminate in bacon butties and a brew at St Madoc Centre. Cost: £5 or £10 for a family. Please book in advance, sorry, no dogs.

June 6th: Arts and Crafts Fair

An exhibition of locally produced art and craft work.

11 August Bat discovery night 8.15pm

Join us for a walk around our grounds to spot some of our many species of bats! We’ll have bat detectors to use and our guide will be Rob Colley from West Glamorgan Bat Group. Please book in advance: sarah@stmadoc.co.uk

14th October: Apple Day: 1pm-5pm

Come along and help us celebrate the humble apple! Take part in appley activities eg juicing, apple games, and appley things to eat. With thanks to our Eco-tribe

volunteers

1st December: Carols and Crafts for Christmas

Our annual Carols and Craft event will be on the 1st of December this year. With live music, hot food and free mince pies. The event will be on from 10am-4pm and entry is free.

Volunteer at the St Madoc Centre:

We are always very happy to work with volunteers, no matter their age, skill or ability levels. If you are interested in volunteering at St Madoc Centre at any time please let us know. We do also hold Volunteer Days: 15th of February, 6th of June and 31st of October. Please book in advance. Sessions usually last from 10am-4pm.

If you are interested in volunteering at the St Madoc Centre, or would like more information about any of the events listed in this newsletter please contact us using the details found below.

A taste of Spring

In the chaos of New Year, people going on about the Euro and violent storms whipping across Britain, it's good to be reminded that the days will actually get longer, mornings will get lighter and I will no longer feel like a hedgehog searching for a pile of leaves to crawl under.

We've just put in the first of our wildlife info boards by the pond. By summer the presently naked wood will be filled with green leaves and Common Darter dragonflies will be skimming the surface of the pond. At the moment it's pretty bare and gale force winds are howling through it.

The apple trees are doing well and not bending too much in the wind. They've got years of life and hopefully loads of apples to produce. Planting a tree must be one of the best investments you can make.

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." (Martin Luther)

Editor's Note~ not actually by me, actually by Sarah Leedham, one of our fantastic A Rocha interns.

Oof, talk about a wait...

It has, in fact, been aaaages since I wrote a new post for our Blog, even though I said I'd update more regularly. I shall blame absolutely anyone other than myself for this unforgivable lapse, the other members of the St Madoc Team shall get no Christmas bonus this year.

To aid, what will hopefully be, more frequent posts I am attempting to rope more members of staff into writing posts on the Blog, who will post on a large variety of topics from conservation to... well... other things. Hopefully we will update about once a week, although probably not over Christmas, because eating and wassailing will be taking up most of our time.

About time too...

This guy has clearly had
success with something...

So, it's been aaages since my last post, I can't even say I've been too busy to update, since the School season, and the Summer are now over and things are nice and quiet now. Ah well, never mind, onwards and... well, on with the blog.

Firstly, looking back to my last blog about why failure is awesome, I neglected to mention, or forgot at least, that although we should all be allowed to fail, we should also be allowed to succeed ...allowed is probably the wrong word. Possibly the opportunity to succeed should be given to us. Something like that.

As important as learning to fail and learning to learn from failure are, succeeding is as important. If failure is all we are given or all we able to receive then failure is all we shall expect. Equally, if success handed to us over and over and over then success without trying is all we shall expect, and when, or if, we do not succeed (for whatever reason) then we would not know how to cope, or know how to build on that failure. So, there needs to be success and failure in life for someone to... succeed.

Thanks to Phil Goldney for pointing that out to me.

Events:

Right, so, events. Some of the following events are not yet set in stone, and I write about them here merely to raise awareness, rather than to put a date in diaries.

October 24th-28th: Volunteer Week. We aim to get as many volunteers at Camp as possible over this week, those over 18 can go tell the Orange Rock Corps what they've done and get £30 worth of gig tickets. (This is half-term week)

November 28th - December 4th: National Tree Planting Week. We have been donated plenty of trees to get planted, and anyone wishing to help is more than willing to do so, again the Orange Rock Corps can reward those over 18.

December 3rd: The Annual St Madoc Centre Craft Show and Carol Concert. Hot food, drink, live music and craft stalls. All are welcome, no charge - although donations are lovely and accepted.

No doubt I'll remember something else in a bit, but for now, ba-bye!

(also, oooh, look at the new blog design-stuff)

Random picture provided by Charlotte Holland, who happens to be my
wife, of our son wondering the headland at the St Madoc Centre

Why Failure is Awesome

Why Failure is Awesome.

This blog was going to be called the importance of failure, but then I might start a trend (since the previous blog was named ‘the importance of the outdoors’) and have to write about the importance of things forever and ever, and then I’d run out of things.

Aaaanywho.

Why Failure is Awesome.

Failure, or losing, or not getting things right the first time is important, or awesome, or both. Recently I have found that a lot of the opportunities for failure, or loss, are being taken away because someone somewhere has decided that losing hurts children, or the act of failing is unhealthy. That is what is unhealthy, taking away opportunities to fail is like taking away opportunities to learn, it’s teaching children that they never lose, it’s completely ridiculous.

Growing up I played for possibly the world’s worst youth football team, I mean, we were beaten by at least 5 goals every week, I loved it. That’s not to say I loved getting beaten, I loved playing football and I didn’t care if that meant I had to get beaten every week, I just enjoyed kicking a ball (and sometimes the opposition) around. As far as I know those 6 or 7 years I spent getting beaten in pretty much every game haven’t harmed me at all, in fact, I would definitely say they have done the opposite. I’m more used to losing now (I still don’t enjoy it though), I don’t get disheartened when the team I now play for goes a goal down, I just try and play better and motivate the team to do the same (this doesn’t always work, but I try). I’m sure if I hadn’t lost as often as I had back then I wouldn’t know how to cope with losing now, which is basically my point. (Yes, that's me playing football, I'm the one with the red arrow stuck in his head).

If we teach kids, and whoever else, without the opportunity to fail all we will eventually teach them is that they don’t fail, they won’t learn from their mistakes because they won’t know how to. This isn’t just about football, clearly, failure caused by pretty much anything is healthy and should be, if not sought out, then at least not avoided completely. Every failure is a building block to success, not just in the short term, but also for the future, well, provided we can learn and figure out why we failed in the first place.

For instance, bad grades at school, (considered by some a failure) coupled with a teacher’s notes and hints on why you failed, or got those bad grades, should mean that you can use those notes to improve that essay – or your next one – for the next assignment. If you had grown up without failure and hadn’t learn to cope with criticism then it’s quite possible that instead of building on those instructions you would instead become downhearted or angry and pretty much leave it alone, and not learn or build at all.

So, to conclude, failure is good, failure is healthy… provided you can learn from those failures and take what you have learnt with you.

Allow your kids to fail, don’t be afraid of failing.

Ooh, that last sentence has made me think of another point, sorry. Worrying about failure and allowing it to stop you from trying new things should be avoided, definitely. You should never allow any fear to stop you trying new things, and certainly not the fear of failure. If you want to try a new sport don’t worry about not being good at it, jump in and find out! How do you expect to get better at anything if you stop because you’re not as good as you hoped to be!? If you start school somewhere new, or start a new job, don’t not talk to people because you’re scared they won’t like you, or you’re scared you’ll make a fool of yourself – just do it, how do you expect to make friends and influence people if you can’t influence yourself to talk to them?

Yeah, so, again, that’ll do now.

To summarise. Failure is not not an option, it is indeed an option, and it’s healthy, honest.

Toodles!

Outside is Important

I was going to start this 'blog entry with something about how good I am to be posting another so soon after the previous one, only, upon checking, it's been nearly three weeks, which isn't so good. If this was a teacher's report it would say: 'should do better'.

Anywho, on with the 'blog.

Outside is important, and it's also important that we remember that it is important.

I don't want this entry to turn into a moan about how good things were in 'my day', I mean, I'm only 25, hopefully 'my day' is still happening. Having said that, when I was a little smaller than I am now things were very much different, you couldn't chat to your friends while attacking them with virtual spoons, or kill zombies in HD, in fact, there was no HD, there was only D, and the internet didn't happen as soon as you clicked on that Google Chrome icon, you had to wait for it to dial-up. Tough times. Tough times indeed. With the fantastic amount of technology that almost everyone now has at their fingertips and, if not in their pockets, then not far off, pretty much everyone can experience so much more without having to leave the comfort of their sofa or other chair of choice. This is fine, this is progress, and I'm not against it, but it's important to remember that outside is important. Pictures of forests do not beat actual forests*.

*although, they are pretty cool

And therein lies my point. Whilst it's amazing that we can see that picture of a Grey Seal surfacing, or the sun slicing through the canopy of a dense wood pretty much as soon as it's taken thanks to Facebook or Flikr or whatever, the pictures are no substitute for actual having experienced them. The pictures are impressive, no doubt, but there's no sound, no smell, and they are but a tiny, brief moment of what should've been a much larger, much more enveloping journey. This is also true for games. Computer games are awesome, I love 'em, recently I won the Champion's League with Dagenham and Redbridge on Fifa11, it was great. It was not as great as the camaraderie and exhilaration that comes from an actual football match, whether a kick-about or a competitive game. And that's without having even gone into fitness and all that stuff.

Learn about body-language, inter-personal skills, tracking, trekking, animal identification, wild-foods wilderness survival... all whilst getting a tan, or getting fit, or maybe both, see? Multi-tasking.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's important that we don't allow ourselves to get cooped up and absorbed by a computer, or the internet, or inside in general, experience the outdoors, don't just be the person who looks at the pictures and clicks 'like' before forgetting about it, be the person who gets to take the pictures, be the person who gets the first hand experience.

Do it! Or I'll tell my Mum on you.

We're getting there thanks to you.

From the very beginning of the St Madoc Centre's long history we have relied upon many different sources for survival; volunteers, our users and donations have all contributed to our continued existence, and our growth as an organisation. In my two years here I've helped put together several different applications for charitable donations, and seen others come and go through the office. These applications aren't always successful, many other organisations are competing for the same money we are, organisations that may well be more deserving of that money (good luck to them!). The applications that have recently been successful, and for which we are extremely grateful, have helped us make several big changes to our site, and will hopefully have a massive impact on our various visitors' stays on site, and their lives after they leave the St Madoc Centre.

The first funding application I had the (I don't know if this is the right word... ) pleasure to help with putting together was to an organisation called GwirVol. We applied for several thousand pounds for a project we dubbed 'Sustain'. Sustain's aim was to create new and more interesting volunteering opportunities for young people (those aged over 16, but under 25). These opportunities would include the creation of cob structures, the construction dry-stone-walls and woodland maintenance (see http://www.stmadoc.co.uk/faq/sustain-project-volunteer-at-st-madoc.php for more information). Sustain has been a long time in the works, having been running at the St Madoc Centre nearly as long as I have and our first cob structure is yet to be completed, although there have been many other successes; we've had around 150 new volunteers attend our various volunteer days, clearing woodland, assembling walls, maintaining our allotment and many other less glamorous activities. The difference these volunteers have made cannot be underestimated. Thankfully we will not have to see what the site is like had they not volunteered over the last year and a half, only what the site looks like thanks to their impact, but if we could see I'm sure the difference would be very dramatic, and not in a good way.

A more recent application was to the Ernest Cook Trust. Ernest Cook are a trust committed to enabling children to learn outside of the classroom and get their hands dirty, experiencing the outdoors. This aim sits brilliantly with those of the St Madoc Centre, the money we received from these very kind people will allow us to make our allotment far more child friendly and increase the educational benefits massively. Our aim is that each child will be able to plant and pick their own supper, collect the eggs they will then cook and eat, and learn about how food reaches their table. This knowledge and experience will go with each child as they grow up, so they don't take this world for granted, and will be more likely to start their own allotment or growing space. We hope to make a big difference in many children's lives in this way.

We have also received a grant from the Swansea Youth Bank, also funded by GwirVol. With this grant we created a separate organisation, known as the St Madoc Sports Improvement Program (SIP). Having noticed the lack of sporting facilities around this area of South Wales we sought to create such facilities. We began with the planning for an outdoor archery area on the grounds of the St Madoc Centre, purchasing the equipment and getting members of the SIP trained to a GNAS Archery Leader's standard. We're working hard on getting our archery set up and ready for our busy Spring season, and all is looking good, at present. The vast majority of the work on the archery area has been done by volunteers, another of the SIP's aims. The SIP plans to use volunteer labour to get our new sporting facilities ready, and, once the work is complete, allow the volunteers to use the facilities at no cost. This cost and reward is working well currently, and we hope it will continue with a new project once the archery location is completed.

Lastly, but not leastly (if that's a word, the spell checker says it isn't, but it can't know everything), we received funds for a whole lot of brand new sports equipment from the James Williams Trust. Whilst this equipment has not seen a huge amount of use over our least busy season, come the Spring and Summer it's durability will be tested by nigh-on constant use, and I'm positive that the children (and adults) who use the equipment will enjoy it immensely.

Charitable donations though, do not only come from large organisations, and they do not only come in the form of money. Volunteers from all walks of life give us their very valuable time and energy. Many times over the past years we have been rescued from situations that would have cost us a whole lot of time and money by the timely intervention of a well-skilled volunteer. Even those volunteers without a trade-skills can be a massive boon, our 76 acres of site needs a lot of looking after!

Anywho, scrolling back up I notice I have waffled on for ages and ages, so I'll leave it there, well, soon.

I'll sign off by saying thank you to all the very many volunteers we've had at the St Madoc Centre over the years, and to all those volunteers who haven't started here yet.

Until next time!