Wild Colerne Chairperson’s report and Finance Report AGM 13th October 2025
Wild Colerne (Charity number 1197970) was formally established as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation 17[th] Feb 2022 with the following objectives agreed with the Charity Commission:
To promote, for the benefit of the public, the conservation, protection, and improvement of the natural environment in Colerne parish by:
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Enhancing habitats for native wildlife, including its flora, fauna and other taxa to promote biodiversity
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Providing information to raise public awareness of the magnitude and causes of biodiversity loss.
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Promoting actions to mitigate biodiversity loss and the impact of climate change on the natural environment.
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Facilitating community support for biodiversity protection by promoting nature themed activity.
We are inspired by Frank Entwistle whose foresight gave Colerne village the legacy of 'Frank’s Wood'.
Current Trustees:
Dorothy Robertson (Chair) Ian Butterworth (Treasurer and data protection lead) Duncan Robertson (Secretary) Mike Rogers (Safeguarding lead) Chris Woods Rachel Dutton (website maintenance).
Our constitution requires that 1/3 of trustees stand down each AGM in rotation and stand for re-election if they wish.
Chris Woods and Ian Butterworth are standing down.
They are both standing for re-election.
If you are interested in becoming a trustee, please contact us via Email info@wildcolerne.org
Our Policies on Safeguarding, Inclusion, Health and Safety and Data Protection are reviewed by the Trustees each year and can be viewed via the website (or on request).
Steering Committee
Trustees plus Karen Brzezcki, Jane Mellet, Susi Bancroft, Keith Mortimer and Katie Butterworth.
Membership and Social Media Communication
Subscription paying members (£10 per year): 30. Wild Colerne email list: 173 (18 new since last AGM).
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Wild Colerne Facebook membership has grown from 277 to 311 since last AGM Wild Colerne also has an Instagram and Tik Tok account.
Our website wildcolerne.org includes lots of wildlife and biodiversity information, an Our Projects Page, Event Diary, Photo Gallery, Nature News and Nature’s Calendar blogs.
Links with other organisations include:
Colerne CE Primary School’s Eco School projects Colerne St John the Baptist Eco Church work Wiltshire Climate Alliance Cotswold Wardens Corsham Area Hedgehog Rescue
Wild Colerne is represented on the Parish Council’s Working Group for Climate and Biodiversity.
Funding support 2024/25
We are grateful to the Parish Council for £200 in support of Colerne’s participation in the Wild Waters Festival.
Projects and Activities
This year our main focus was water. We joined 12 other communities along the River Avon from Bradford on Avon to Batheaston, and Box and Colerne on the By Brook to run water themed events for a Wild Waters Festival (wildwatersfestival.com). A poem celebrating the By Brook was written for our Festival events (see Page 5). Our contributions to the festival were:
a) A walk led by Keith Mortimer to see dippers. These birds are now rare in Wiltshire, but we still have them on the By Brook. They initially played hide and seek, but we were eventually rewarded with lovely views of this special bird.
b) The Wild Colerne Nature day. This year we had a Water theme with a screening of local river photos in the Church accompanied by birdsong, a display of By Brook poems from Colerne Primary School, a children’s nature activities area and various stalls in the Market Place and churchyard. The Wiltshire Geological Society brought a fascinating display featuring the natural and cultural history of the By Brook, its source brooks, and their geology.
c) “Water Quality for People and Wildlife” A talk in the Parish Rooms.
Speakers: Samantha Vince, Head of water compliance Wessex Water, and Dan Nicholas, Surveys and Monitoring Officer for Bristol Avon Riverside Trust (BART).
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d) Rave On for the Avon – a film screening in St John the Baptist Church.
This inspiring tale of creativity and community follows the highs and lows of the Conham Bathers, Bristol’s clean water campaigners as they fight for the safety of wild swimming on their beloved Avon River. We are grateful to the Church and support from the Parish Council for enabling this event to happen.
Our Wild Waters Festival events raised £60 for the work of the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust.
The festival provided lots of food for thought on how we might help protect our Brooks. Some early initiatives/actions include:
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Contact made with “We are Avon”, a collaborative movement linking groups keen to promote the regeneration of the River Avon and its valley.
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We took part in The Rivers Trust July water testing for nitrates and phosphates along the By Brook, Doncombe and Lid Brook and their September “Big Water Watch” Two of our members are starting Riverfly Testing on our Brooks to monitor the ecological health of the water.
Other activities
a) With Colerne CE Primary School.
We continue to work with the School to bring to our children appreciation of the joys of nature and how to help it thrive.
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Butterfly and Moth collage workshop with collage artist Marian Hill in June. The children learnt about the life cycle of these fascinating insects and produced some great artwork which we plan to create into a display. Members of Wild Colerne took the children “butterfly and moth spotting” in small groups in the school playground.
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By Brook acrostic poem writing for the Wild Waters festival.
We have Mike and Christine Rogers to thank for the nature-friendly habitat at the school. Many hours of input over a long time.
- Mike Rogers has set up a “Pond Team” of children to renovate one of the ponds in the schoolyard. We will be helping with a work party to do clearance needed for another pond area. Wild Colerne financed the planting of some additional wildflowers which are important as butterfly and moth food plants.
b) The “start the week with a wildflower” blog, posted on Wild Colerne Facebook, Instagram and our website, continues to raise awareness of our local wildflowers. Sixty-four Colerne wildflowers have featured so far since it began February 2024. It will restart next Spring.
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c) Wildflower sewing project – a glorious alter cloth and a new cloth for signing the register in the making.
This lovely collaboration with Colerne Eco-church continues. Around 25 people have been involved, meeting in the church under Susi Bancroft’s excellent tutelage.
d) Children’s Nature Activities.
Our “children’s activities team” (Susi Bancroft, Catherine Dixon, and Rach Dutton) organised nature art and craft sessions on our May Fair stall, as part of our June Nature Day Event, and a free morning session at the Recreation Ground in August. A final session for the year is planned, weather willing in Frank’s Wood 11[th] October.
e) Colerne’s Swifts.
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Celebrating the return of our swifts on a fine evening 30[th] April. They arrived as if on cue.
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We continue to look for Swift nests on evening Swift walks - for protection and to inform the best places to site swift boxes.
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3 swift nest boxes were installed in the church tower this Spring - a joint Wild Colerne, Colerne Eco Church project. Thanks to Clive Spencer for making the boxes, Graham Kelly for fitting them and Roger Haynes for facilitating bell tower access. Also, to Karen and Mike Brzezicki for negotiating the necessary permissions. It can take some time for nest boxes to be used, but playing swift calls near the box brings them in to investigate. The logistics for doing this will be explored.
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This year saw a pleasing number of swift boxes fitted on houses in the main swift areas of Colerne following some Wild Colerne “door knocking”. And breaking news – swifts used a box at the end of Chapel Path with successful fledging!
f) Colerne Tree Trail walking map.
We have continued with preparation work for hopefully getting this project off the ground. Rob Child will be helping with the mapping work. Clive Spencer, Catherine Truscott and Dorothy Robertson have made a start with identifying and photographing potential trees to include. Work in progress. We welcome nominations of favourite trees to include, and ideas on funding.
g) Talks.
Jinny Matters from Corsham Area Hedgehog Rescue gave an excellent talk in the Fox and Hounds on her work “Caring for our hedgehogs.” £50 was raised to support her work.
h) Monthly nature walks.
Monthly Bird walks, also tree appreciation and butterfly walks. A winter moth trap reveal is planned for December.
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Thanks to Keith Mortimer and Chris Woods for leading and sharing their knowledge.
i) Monthly pub socials for informal nature chat.
j) Habitat work.
A Volunteers WhatsApp Group has been set up to facilitate calls for help with whatever work might be needed to preserve/improve our natural spaces.
Future plans
We held an open “bring your ideas” session in Franks wood in August which generated a lot of ideas and discussion. We will be sifting through them to decide on priorities for next year, and hope for more input into this during our AGM 13[th] October. Our speaker will be Dagmar Junghanns, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Trustee, talking on “Nature recovery in Wiltshire, and how can we help.”
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Finance report
Our Finance reporting period for the Charity Commission is 1[st] June to 31[st] May.
| Wild Colerne Finance 01/6/24 - 31/5/25 |
Balance carried forward. £1,924.81 |
Balance carried forward. £1,924.81 |
Balance carried forward. £1,924.81 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income | Expenses | |||
| Subs | 259.73 | Equipment | 681.08 | |
| Donations at events | 82.87 | Hire ofpremises | 30 | |
| Grants | 0 | Speaker fees | 100 | |
| Other | Printing | 120.60 | ||
| Internet charges | 135 | |||
| Insurance | 100.80 | |||
| Other | ||||
| Total income | £342.60 | Total Expenses | £1,137.48 | |
| Balance 31/05/2025 | £1,129.93 |
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