Woodland group buy

[Wilderbeast]

started as a joke, but it's got me thinking ......

how about a group buy for some BCUK land?? Apparantly there's 12,000 members, lets say 5,000 currently active, everyone pays a tenner, that's £50,000...lets see


ahh yes well central England would be the fairest, so equal travelling times for everyone,

that looks o.k:
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/buying-a-wood/central-england/magna-wood/

as does that:
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/buying-a-wood/central-england/dingle-wood/

I'll start the list:
wilderbeast

 

[Shewie]

Then there's the insurance to think about

 

[bri66]

Hi,if this goes through I'd be interested,Brian

 

[Kerne]

I'd chip in a bit for Dingle Wood - it's just down the road from me. In fact, why don't BCUK buy the land and pay me say...£35000 a year to be the warden.

Any takers?

 

[MartinK9]

Dorset - Central England???

 

[Draven]

4 acres is a ludicrously small plot of woodland for any number of people to use with any regularity... 100 people would probably have it stripped bare before long, never mind 5000!

Sorry to be a wet blanket, honest! I just don't think the UK has enough big woods for sale for this sort of thing, if a significant number of people were involved. I think it would be detrimental.

 

[Iona]

Ooooooooh... now a tenner I could do! Sounds awesome, count me in!

Although; these threads don't seem like the most effective way of telling people stuff. I often see posts from people saying they wished they'd seen things earlier etc. We'll never know how many people never saw them at all...

So, if it looks like it's an actual possibility rather than just pie in the sky, then is there a way of pm-ing all the members to see who's interested? Mods?

personally I like the positive "anything's possible" attitude of this idea! will be keeping a close eye on the thread...

 

[Jay.in.the.woods]

Draven is right with what he said. i've been looking for woodland for myself for a few months now. when i finally get some i'll be keeping it quite for that reason, call me selfish but i'd like a place i can go to chill out. not with people dotted all over the place.

 

[Wilderbeast]

4 acres is a ludicrously small plot of woodland for any number of people to use with any regularity... 100 people would probably have it stripped bare before long, never mind 5000!

Sorry to be a wet blanket, honest! I just don't think the UK has enough big woods for sale for this sort of thing, if a significant number of people were involved. I think it would be detrimental.

thing is I don't think it would be detremental, everyone on here, at least most people knows about woodland respect and only to take when necessary, I reckon it could work!!
I'll ask mary to put a poll on to guage numbers!

 

[Draven]

thing is I don't think it would be detremental, everyone on here, at least most people knows about woodland respect and only to take when necessary, I reckon it could work!!
I'll ask mary to put a poll on to guage numbers!

Yeah, but it wouldn't take long for what dead wood there is to be used up with fires and spoons, as said with any number of people doing it. People would either move on to cutting living wood or just sit doing nothing, which you can do in public woodlands. Respecting the woodland is easy when there are only one or two people without another Bushcrafter or camper for miles around, but a common bushcrafting haunt for that many people would invariably be detrimental. That's why the nomadic lifestyle was so effective for so long, because it is much easier to move around to avoid using up all the local resources (and allow the local ecosystem to recover from your stay) than it is to maintain a single piece of land for frequent or constant use. Particularly such a small piece.

Pete

 

[Logit]

okay, why not up it to £100 each, less people needed then!

 

[MartinK9]

okay, why not up it to £100 each, less people needed then!

Or people bring in the resources required?

 

[archie3]

For £10 each I'm in.

 

[woodstock]

It has been covered and thought off many times before, check the search function, there are a lot of legalities and pitfalls when a group as large as this decide to buy land or a wood

 

[Kerne]

This may be stupid but:

Why not buy it together then donate it to the Woodland Trust on the understanding that it is their wood in perpetuity but the donors get to play in it?

Just a thought. Maybe the Trust wouldn't be interested anyway.

 

[Wilderbeast]

This may be stupid but:

Why not buy it together then donate it to the Woodland Trust on the understanding that it is their wood in perpetuity but the donors get to play in it?

Just a thought. Maybe the Trust wouldn't be interested anyway.

that maybe a really good Idea actually, shall we try???

 

[Graham_S]

It's come up before, and each time it's proved impractical.
people can't agree on a location, organizing access, insurance, contributions etc.
It won't work.
Sorry.

 

[woodstock]

If say 5000 of you bought a wood say 4 acres how would you all get to use it 5000 divided by 365 you would need 400 + a month just so everyone could use it or 100 week how long would the wood sustain that kind of use

 

[Glen]

Having previously lived in a 500 person Housing Co-operative for several years, I'd point out how hard it is to get even that many people, who lived in the same few streets, to get together and sort out stuff when it inevitably needed it.

Even with people being asked to bring in resources and pack them out that many people in the size comtemplated, i doubt it's feasable.

Not wanting to put a damper on the idea so I'd suggest another possible way to go about things, Which is to keep the woods buying continuing, eg aim to buy lots of woods in different areas over time, The ammount of people interested would obviously vary with the ammount they would need to invest so a pole would be a good starting place, along the lines of how much would people be prepared to contribute to that sort of project per month/quarter/year.

Taking your £50,000 figure 500 people at £100 a year would have ownership of 10 woods in 10 years, a rough 50 people per wood ( geography will probably skew that somewhat ) Which, seems to me, a much more acheivable and amicable solution to finding the right compromise as to where to locate this 'crafter haven idea.

 

[neil draycott]

count me in for that one have to agree with some of the against comments but what the hell nothing ventured nothing gained