1) November Funding In October our ‘stage one’ crowdfunding completed yet we have received another £1029, raising the total to £28,257. Thank you once again for the monthly cash donations which have amounted to £29, from Dover Road collection containers at the Post Office (£11), The Chippy (£0), The Blue Star (£7), Morrisons (£11).

2) Amazing NHS Donation. We received an amazing £1000 NHS donation, specifically from the Primary Care Network in recognition of the health benefits associated with this project.

3) Stage Two Crowdfunding Begins with an Incredible Year Long Co-op Partner. As part of our stage two crowdfunding 2020/2021 we are absolutely delighted and honoured to announce that our July application to be partnered with the Co-op for one year has been successful, which may have the potential to raise between £3000/£5000 before the end of October 2021. More information about how you can help will be provided next week. In the meantime, our Co-op website is available at https://membership.coop.co.uk/causes/53065

4) Stage Two New Online Crowdfunding Website, is now available at: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/woodend We have set the funding target for the year at £5000 which will provide community planting of the huge borders, a wildlife corner, and planting of bulbs and wildflowers along certain parts of the proposed path.

5) Update on Implementation. We have used some of this money/in-kind already to do the following: topographic survey (£800), removed weeds from large rear border (£1000), installed two of the three litter bins (£1000), installed 92 m of wooden perimeter knee high rail fencing.

In December, we are lifting some more turf (tomorrow) and planting 230m perimeter of mixed wildlife friendly hedging (1380 tree whips at £600), 200 tree whips to under plant and future proof the current trees (£500) (next week), and before the end of the month installing a rustic welcome sign (£500). We had hoped to install the main cost involving the installation of a beautiful Cotswold path (£9000), seven mature standard trees (£1400) but there is some uncertainty in terms of the timing due to the pandemic restrictions at the moment.

6) Mysterious News! (a) We believe that we may receive some significant funding from an unknown source at the moment. (b) During the course of this project we have been able to instigate the exploration and planning of a huge nature reserve for Maghull, which if everything goes well we may be able to announce within the next two months. (c) Our third major environmental crowdfunding project for 2021 in Maghull has made significant progress in terms of permission & idea planning and physical land preparation. Hopefully this should be announced in January 2021.

7) Finally, our previous project on Stafford Moreton Way is very close to having the last two items installed one of which is pictured in the form of the rhinoceros, and should be installed around Christmas.

Unforgettably, we also have 8000 tree whips healed-in in two sites and will need to be planted during the tree planting season (November/March), which is quite a challenge during the current restrictions. Most of these will be planted in Maghull parks but we are also hoping to plant the remainder in our local schools. All of this planting will be included in the recent appeal by last Sunday’s brilliant Country File programme, in which they are seeking support from everyone in the UK to plant 750,000 trees and it will be included on their postcode totaliser map (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t0bv). The 750,000 number is symbolic because it represents the total number of children starting primary school in 2020, for whom the climate change future is so important.

* Picture: Martin Mere Wetland

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