Projects officer Alan explains what it’s taken to look after some of our key features over the past year. A lot of work goes into maintaining parts of the grounds used for our learning development with children, and 2022 saw the biggest changes for some time. At the start of
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2023’s shaping up to be another busy year for us. We have some odd jobs we’d ideally like done before Christmas to help us get ahead. We’ll be recruiting volunteers again but in the meantime, if you have skills you can share and have a couple of days to spare,
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Our board of trustees are all volunteers, and as well as lending their expertise from various professional backgrounds, they also jump in and help in other ways. In 2019 one of them, Bill Crook, raised over £2,000 for Wiston Lodge’s first major roof repair works through a sponsored cycle the
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As we step into spring 2022, we reflect on the past and look to the future. Our friends will recall bidding farewell to Jonny Sutherland last summer, as he relocated with his family including Wiston character Barney the dog; and as autumn turned into winter, we welcomed Fiona Hird as
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“With residentials off the table, pupils were missing out on a big opportunity to engage themselves in developmental learning. These experiences are known to have a profoundly positive impact for young people. Taking Wiston on the road seemed like the natural way to re-engage with those who were missing out.
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Our two new Community Jobs Scotland Programme grounds staff, Daniel and Struan, have spent the past month settling in. They are gaining new skills all the time, from using leaf blowers to learning how to work the biomass heating system. Grounds co-ordinator Colin Aitken and his son Shaw, who has
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Our amazing chairperson has decided to step down, following our recent AGM. Isobel Lindsay has been a fantastic advocate for Wiston Lodge since the formation of the charity in 2007. In this time, she has overseen the growth of the charity to a successful enterprise, which is proud to have
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There have been some changes to part of our woods! Forestry contractors have begun removing 2 hectares of non-native trees from the edge of the estate. This is all sitka spruce, which was planted as a windbreak by previous owners and is largely a forestry crop. The removal of these
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We are delighted to be able to show off our new-build, on the site of the Little Lodge. The new lodge creates an outdoor education hub, complete with classroom, and self-contained showering and changing facilities. Demolition of the Little Lodge was on 3 December 2019 and the foundations were laid
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Making sure our guests have warm rooms and hot water is vital and, thanks to our biomass boilers, the lodge is cosy even in winter. Our head groundsman, Colin Aitken, oversees the two burners and their infrastructure, a system which was installed in 2015. The system is highly efficient, and
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