After a busy summer dominated in our Group by preparations for the In Bloom judging, our attention in the early part of September shifted to Heritage Open Days in which we led two events: a talk on the History of Farnham’s Water Supply and a Guided Walk named “From Bat to Cow.” These were both well attended but were soon overshadowed by the news of the much-lamented death of Queen Elizabeth the Second and her memorable State Funeral.
We soon got back to basics by catching up with our work in the Old Churchyard which had been somewhat neglected because of other priorities. This included the annual hedge trim by the team as pictured below. Then the final arrangements for our special event on 29th September to commemorate 20 years of our conservation work had to be put in place.
The chosen date did indeed mark almost exactly the first BCG Work Session in Burnt Hill Wood on 22nd September 2002 and the event fully lived up to our expectations with a capacity crowd of over 70 Members, Friends and other local residents in the Centenary Rooms of St Thomas’ Church. All were able to enjoy a glass of wine and snacks before listening to a talk by Bishop Chris Herbert, a former Vicar here. His subject, Change in the Village: Life in The Bourne Around 1900, provided fascinating insights into local history as well as identifying topics that needed further research. Altogether a fitting end to our first 20 years.
There was little time to relax after that because on Saturday 1st October we conducted a guided walk around the Old Churchyard for members of the Farnham Rotary Group who were interested in learning more about our approach to biodiversity conservation and enhancement.
So, September 2022 will go down as a remarkable month in our records both because of national events and the scale and variety of our own activities. We can approach the coming months with renewed confidence and energy as we start to think about our AGM and the autumn tasks such as gathering up the fallen leaves and bulb planting that will need to be carried out.
