Woodland to Workshop Course - Scotland 2021

Summary Description:

This 3 day training course brings together young forestry professionals from across the homegrown hardwood (and premium softwood) industry (foresters, sawmillers, woodworkers, etc.) to learn about all aspects pf the industry, and to build links with other professionals, incresaing links, mutual understanding, trade and collaboration across the sector to its benefit. This is the firts Woodland to Workshop course to be held in Scotland and the first to be organised by ASHS. The course has been run successfully in England on 26 occasions by Woodland Heritage. Initially planned for delivery in 2020, the course will take place in October 2021.

Project Outcomes:

This was the first course of its kind to take place in Scotland; taking its template from the celebrated ‘From Woodland to Workshop’ course run by Woodland Heritage in England. While inspired by the ‘From Woodland to Workshop’ ethos of bringing together a broad range of workers within the hard-wood sector to pass on knowledge of the different stages in hardwood production and processing, the WWS course provided its own take on the day-to-day content of the course. Day 1 was run at the Scottish Wood sawmill by Gavin Munro, who taught the attendees how to grade and value logs and standing trees – with a detailed explanation of the ‘Hoppus foot’. This was complimented by a session run by Paul Hodgkiss who went through the different end uses of the sawn and dried timber. Day 2 took the group into the woodlands at the Dalmeny estate, where Rick Warrell and Neil Aitchison provided an in-depth look into good silvicultural practises for growing broadleaves for hardwood production. Starting literally from the ground up by looking at good soil types for planting before going through the different successional stages of different oak plantations. The final day saw a return to the sawmill for a closer examination of sawmilling, drying and timber pricing, to round off the course. While very informative the course stuck true to its aim of encouraging cross-sectional integration by making each day very interactive with high levels of group work to encourage knowledge sharing between trainees.