Off-grid Eco-friendly Woodland Classroom

Hello, dear supporters

Thanks to your donations and additional fundraising, we were able to resume building in late July, with a view to being able to move in in December this year. Not long now and everybody is working really hard to ensure we can meet that deadline.

WORK PROGRESS:

• Pigeons! With just one small section of boarding, high up in the eaves, not completed earlier in the year, local pigeons had discovered our build as a great place to overwinter and raise chicks in the spring... but they were making such a mess and just had to leave. So the first task was to evict our uninvited feathery friends and board up their entrance. In one of the images, you will see them perched on the ridge considering their options as, above the scaffolding, you will see their access point finally boarded up.
• Windows and Shutters. The bespoke Ash windows and metal shutters were handmade by a local carpenter and with the build restarting, we could finally fit glazing and the all-important handles and stays that made them usable. It was a landmark moment to finally be able to bring light into the space.
• Fascias. The raw ends of the insulated roofing sheets had remained exposed until the wooden fascias could be fitted; once fascias were in place, the trim could finally be added - one of those small finishing touches that made a huge visual difference, as you will see from the image below.
• Walls, ceiling and wiring. Insulation has been fitted, 1st fix wiring for the solar-generated electricity installed and the timber sheets providing our ceiling and walls in the main room screwed into place. We have a room
• Floorboards. This was a huge job - not so much the fitting but their processing. Back in 2021, when the locally-felled cedar and larch logs were milled in the wood to produce the main timbers, the boards created in the process had been set aside and stored for this very purpose. Painstakingly planed and finished over many days, the floorboards could finally be fitted. Another milestone reached!

WALK FOR THE CABIN

Our dedicated and talented buider, Ben Startup, together with two of our wonderful volunteers, Andrew Whitney and Shane Pike, created their own fundraising page and gave up 3 days to walk the 44-mile long-distance track 'The Test Way'. Trustee Elizabeth Scrace and volunteer Annette Hobbs also joined the walk for part of the way. Together, their efforts and your support and sponsorship pushed us closer to achieving our project goal. You can read about their fundraising efforts and share some of the wonderful landscape they walked through in the link below.

CPRE AWARD

Congratulations! We have just heard that The Cabin project has won CPRE Hampshire's Sustainable Communities Award. This is a huge achievement and your support and donations have played a major part. There is a link below that will take you to the CPRE Awards webpage and the chance to vote for our Cabin project as overall winner - we hope you will! 

AN INVITATION TO CELEBRATE

Please join us on Saturday 9th December to celebrate the opening of the Cabin. The project will need to continue beyond this, but the community areas of the Cabin will be ready to use and, if you possibly can, we hope you will pop along to see what you have helped to create.

We will need to know numbers, so please email wendy.davis@andovertrees.org.uk if you'd like to be there.

THANK YOU! As ever this comes with our sincere thanks for your help and, as we edge ever closer to the project's conclusion, we hope that you will continue to support us.

Links:

• Walk for the Cabin! September 2023
• CPRE Hampshire Countryside Awards 2023