A recap of our Supporters’ Celebration 2025

Education

There’s been plenty to get excited about in education at Earth Trust recently, including two new, impressive projects – Edible Classroom and Outdoor Explorer Camp.

The Edible Classroom project is 1.5 acres of beds growing fresh fruit and veg, which will double the outreach capacity of our Education team, allowing us to welcome more children out into nature and teach them all about where their food comes from. It also gives us the opportunity to grow fresh produce, right from the Earth Trust Centre!

25 children took part in our first ever Outdoor Explorer Camp this October half term. They learnt bush crafts, cooked outdoors with food grown and harvested at Earth Trust, and tried their hand at orienteering on the Clumps.

More than 25 events were put on by our Education team this summer, welcoming over 500 children and their families. Overall, we expect to reach a total of 6500 children through our education programme and 8500 people through our public events this year. None of this incredible work would be possible without the hard work of our volunteers, and the generosity of our donors.

Land Management

This year’s Big Farmland Bird Count saw 58 confirmed species, with 12 red list – including sightings of oystercatcher, kingfisher, little grebe and green sandpiper at River of Life II.

Bessie’s field, at the foot of Castle Hill, was hand-sowed by volunteers with wildflower seeds. The new walking route around the edge should make this field a thriving spot for wildlife and visitors alike by summer 2026.

Coming up very soon, you will begin to notice the installation of trees for our innovative nature-friendly farming projects across the lane from Bessie’s field – this area will become a living laboratory, integrating trees into agriculture to show how this supports biodiversity and farming resilience. Plus, you will be able to make your stroll to Broad Arboretum a round-trip from the Centre, thanks to a soon-to-be-completed circular walk!

There’s been achievements away from the Centre too, at our community reserves. 3 Dexter cattle were introduced to Tuckmill Meadows to help maintain the habitat, new paths were installed at Besselsleigh Wood for improved access and protection of dormant bluebells, and Wallingford Castle Meadows received the Green Flag Award for the 15th consecutive year.

Volunteering

We were excited to welcome the new volunteers from Tuckmill Meadows and Besselsleigh Wood to the Earth Trust community this year, and have been enjoying working on these new sites with them.

There’s been lots of new roles and opportunities available this year too – including the formation of the new Creative Hub and a 3rd hedgelaying group.

Our agroforestry project has created opportunities for volunteers to try their hand at new skills – this summer, 25 volunteers completed training to become surveyors to help us monitor the project’s impact. We also created the orchard volunteer role, where you can help to manage our existing orchards and the new fruit trees being installed this winter as part of the agroforestry project.

Our Young Volunteers programme saw some evolution with the creation of the Young Ranger role, open to 16-18 year olds. This will be a monthly weekend work party, giving young people the opportunity to try out hands-on conservation, and get some meaningful experience for their CVs!

We are on track to record 320 active volunteers this year – thank you all for being part of the Earth Trust community!

Looking to the future

So, what’s next for Earth Trust?

We’re very excited to be breaking ground on our transformative Gateway to Nature project at the start of 2026. This will create a hub where people can come to learn, play, and fall in love with nature, with the creation of new access tracks, a new car park, a more established café, and our Earth Adventure playscape. We will keep you up to date with these exciting plans as they progress, so make sure you’re subscribed to our mailing list to stay in the loop.

Alongside this, we will continue to care for the cherished landscapes that we are guardian of, facilitating access to green spaces and inspiring a love of nature through our education and events programme, to enable nature and people to thrive together.

We are so grateful to all of our supporters for the many ways in which they make our work possible – thank you for being an essential part of our community! We always love to hear from you about how our events resonate with you – if you would like to provide feedback you can email us at [email protected] or click here to fill out the feedback form.