Gift to Nature Blog
Shown below are the last 10 entries from Gift to Nature on the main Island 2000 blog. To see the whole of the Gift to Nature blog, click here to view it on the Island 2000 website.
Snorkelling Guide to the Isle of Wight now available online
published on Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:17:41 +0000
We have now added the fantastic Snorkelling on the Isle of Wight to the Gift to Nature Shop.
The guide is great for beginners or more experienced snorkellers or simple for a more involved rookpooling experience. It combines great tips on where to go with quality photographs of some of the species you are likely to spot. Best of all it’s 100% waterproof, so you don’t have to worry about dropping it in the sea! You can buy it online or drop into any Isle of Wight Tourist Information Centre.
You too could look like this!
Nature Knit
published on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:19:08 +0000
Gift to Nature’s Lin Watterson appears to always be doing something. Even when she sits still for 5 minutes the activity doesn’t stop, instead the knitting needles come out. Lin’s knitted iPod cases went down so well with staff in the office and their teenage offspring that we have decided to stock them in the Gift to Nature Shop. These are most definitely a limited edition, Lin can only knit so fast! As such I highly recommend hot-footing it to the Gift to Nature shop to snap up yours now for the bargain proce of just £4.50. Oh, and they also fit mobile phones or anything else that sort of shape/size (they are nice and stretchy).
P.S. This Nature Knit post is in no way connected with the excellent Nature Net website. That’s altogether different.
Have bike will travel
published on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:48:29 +0000
We periodically run walks and other events for Friends of Nature. Recently I lead a cycle ride along the Troll Trail (as recommended by the Daily Telegraph) to go pond dipping at Birchmore Pond. My first thought on the morning of the ride was to put all the equipment in the car, drive to the pond, drop it off, drive on to Merstone, get the bike out of the van, do the ride, then reverse the process. It took a while for my pea-brain to work out if I dumped half the equipment (which was always going to be more than we needed) I could strap it all to the bike and cycle the whole thing. After all, Dan managed to transport a 3m xylophone by bike. Thus I reduced my emissions to zero, and got some health benefit. As I rode out to Merstone it made me think about again how much more pleasant it was to actually experience the landscape rather than just zoom past it in my tin box.
I rather suspect a few people were rather frightened by the weird man in a cycling jacket, jeans and woolly hat with a huge net and tank strapped to his bike, so I apologise to you all.
I have spared blog readers the sight of me, but here is the simply modified bike come pond survey transport vehicle.
New Gift to Nature Website
published on Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:35:32 +0000
After much development work we have finally managed to get the new Gift to Nature website online. It’s been a bit of a mammoth task! The new site has more content than the old one, embraces our new logo and fits in with the design of the Island 2000 site. We’ll be adding even more new content over the next few months to make the site more usable. Highlights include a series of Youtube videos, details of our new business membership scheme and an online shop which also offers a range of free publications, plus free delivery on all orders over £5. www.gifttonature.org.uk
2008 Isle of Wight Festival
published on Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:40:21 +0000
Well, it’s 1.30am on Saturday, and it has been a hectic week. We were pleased to welcome Solo, organisers of the Isle of Wight Festival as our first corporate members of Gift to Nature recently. Part of our partnership with the Festival involves us manning a tent with information on Island conservation and in particular our Bees project developed jointly with the Festival. As usual with these things, everything took longer than usual to arrange, printers let us down at the last minute and so on. Then to top things off the weather on Thursday meant vehicles were banned from the festival site in the late afternoon - just as we needed to get all our gear on! A hectic morning followed on Friday, but we managed to get set up in time for things kicking off onsite at 2pm. We had a bit of a soft start on Friday afternoon, but will be pursuing Festival Goers tomorrow (I mean later today) with a vengeance, encouraging them to plant our fabbie bee wicks and part with their cash in pursuit of Bee conservation. Give Bees A Chance.
Festival Line up
published on Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:26:01 +0000
We’ve teamed up with Biffa and IW Festival and asked artists to decorate 10 bins that will be used as part of the festival this coming weekend. You can see eight of them here, we’ll post pictures of the ninth one, done by Michael Forrest, when we’ve delivered it to the site. The tenth one is the lovely Bee Bin that Aaron Fletcher did which will actually be used as donation bin over the weekend in the Gift to Nature tent. We don’t know where they’ll end up but hopefully they’ll help festival organisers in their efforts to make the festival a more green and litter free place. Dave Badman enlisted help from students at Chale Primary school to do his large bin. After an educational lesson all about waste, recycling and what to do with your rubbish the children designed their own cartoon story based on imaginary festival goer ‘Rocky’, as he says, “Don’t be a litterbug”!
Big Green Picnic
published on Sat, 24 May 2008 06:35:13 +0000
Well, it is now upon us. The Big Green Picnic kicks off in about two and a half hours. Island 2000 have been busy preparing all kinds of stuff, from lollipop signs to entrance way arches. Gift to Nature will be there throughout the day, with an opportunity to see video clips of our work and have a chat with staff about our Friends scheme and the projects it helps bring to life. Magpie has turned some rubbish into incredible creations which will be on show around the Biffa waste displays. There will also be some interesting on-street signage, but more of that after the event…. I’m not going to post any images of the amazing creations that will be there, as you should come and see them for yourself. County Hall Car Park, Newport from 10-6 Saturday and Sunday. Oh and there’s lots more interesting stuff from other people too!
Dragonfly Bonanza
published on Mon, 12 May 2008 11:56:08 +0000
Dave Dana, dragonfly recorder extraordinaire, has reported 2 very exciting records from the Gift to Nature pond at the sandown Wetland Walk. He found Hairy Dragonfly Brachytron pratense and Four-spotted Chaser Libellula quadrimaculata, both rather scarce on the Island and the former scarce just about everywhere! This is a great reward for the conservation efforts of the Trust, many volunteers and Southern water who own the site. Here’s one of Dave’s fabulous pictures of the chaser.
Job Vacancies
published on Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:34:11 +0000
We currently have a part time job vacancy and a volunteer position available within the Gift to Nature team. If you would like more details please take a look at the Gift to Nature site where you can download an application pack.
Artist’s Gift to Nature
published on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:55:13 +0000
Artists and friends of the ‘Gift to Nature’ scheme will be at Dimbola Lodge Museum at 11am on Sat 8th March to view a new range of unique and specially commissioned donation boxes for the scheme.
The wooden donation boxes were made by Vestas as part of an ‘Arts & Business’ supported project. These blank boxes were then given to six commissioned artists for them to redesign, decorate and transform into beautiful boxes that would encourage people to donate money to Gift to Nature.
Anne Bodemeaid, Michael Forrest, Gemma Bell, Miranda Amapola, Jeff Dyson and Chris Jenkins have collectively produced a great array of inventive and novel designs. Such was the appeal of the design challenge that a number of other boxes will be on display that have been designed by friends and staff members of Island 2000 Trust too.
The boxes will be on display in the tearoom at Dimbola Lodge for a further week if you would like to go and see them for yourselves. To find out more about the Gift to Nature scheme and how to become a ‘friend’ please visit www.gifttonature.org.uk . After the display the boxes will be put to use and find their way into Island businesses and Tourist Information Centres