Woodland Trust Volunteer of the Year Awards!

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I travelled down to Grantham in Lincolnshire on Friday to attend the Woodland Trust Volunteer of the Year Awards ceremony at the Belton Woods Hotel. I was delighted to have been nominated for one of the awards.

On the Friday we arrived early enough to have a dusk walk through part of the lovely wooded nature trail that runs around the grounds of the hotel.

Yesterday morning we revisited the nature trail to explore it a bit more before attending the event. It's a nice area of mixed woodland

we were tempted to wait to see if a badger would emerge from the hole! We found another hole too, the sett seemed to be quite extensive

 and we were impressed by this little patch of oyster fungi

Less than impressed to see this sign on the fence, but then this is England, not Scotland, where we have the right to roam....

Then we returned to the hotel, scrubbed the mud off our shoes and went to the event

The event consisted of speakers, a three course lunch and an awards ceremony. I was delighted to be shortlisted for the 'Juniper Award' which recognises volunteers who provide their voices to protect and raise awareness of woodlands and the work of the trust in protecting them. It was great to see the videos about the work of the winning volunteers in the various categories, a very inspiring group of people!

So thank you  to the Woodland Trust for a great event to recognise the work of volunteers and  in particular for shortlisting me from such a large pool of inspiring volunteers!

Also thanks to Belton Woods Hotel for being a great venue, the nature trails were a great draw, but also the food is great and the staff  are incredibly helpful and friendly. Though the hotel corridors are a maze!