ACTIVE PROJECTS
PITLOCHRY LITTER ACTION GROUP
George Edwards has and still is working wonders combating Pitlochry's litter louts. Each month George and his team of volunteers hit the streets of Pitlochry to keep the town looking clean, tidy and inviting for residents and the thousands of visitors which come to Pitlochry each summer.
Attached is George's 2010 report.
2010 PITLOCHRY LITTER ACTION REPORT
If you would like to volunteer even if it is only for an hour every little helps. Please call George please call 01796 473980
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BUMBLEBEE MEADOW IN WILDLIFE GARDEN - ACTION EARTH 2011
Volunteers are welcomed in the Wildlife Garden on Wednesday 14th September anytime from 10:00 to 15:00. The second session in on Monday 19th September again from 10:00 to 15:00.
Please bring with you your own tools and wear protective clothing, sturdy footwear and a sense of humour!!
We will be providing refreshments and lunch. The site is partially accessible by wheelchair, under 16's must be accompanied by an adult.
We will be strimming the meadow of growth, leaving seeds of Yellow Rattle to distribute, clearing the Raised Bed and cleaning out the pond. The second session will remove vegetation from meadow and rake back hard. We will be seeding with Wildflower Mix and then installing an Insect Hotel.
If you are interested in helping out, please ring Sally Spaven on 01796 472020 to express an interest.
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 THE SILVER BRANCH 2007 - 2010 FELT STORIES
In 2007 we began our Silver Branch project as part of the town bid to retain the Enchanted Forest event. We wanted to do a project with children and one which would raise environmental awareness. The Silver Branch name is traditional to Saami/Laps and Celts and announced that the poet/singer/storyteller/shaman was about to perform and take you on a journey to the otherworld place of Enchantment. The tradition comes from Celtic times called SAMHAIN, Sa'wen, Summers End, Celtic New Year and All Souls Festival (Hallowe'en). The season brought dark, cold nights as winter wrapped her veil around the earth and story telling began in earnest.
 Through our professional Storytellers we have now told tales to well over 6,000 children and adults. Tales at the Autumn Festival were told in a magnificent Mongolian Yurt (kindly loaned by Corbenic). The Yurt is lined with beautiful Felted Wool Panels made as a Community Art Project and depicting the Biodiversity of Highland Perthshire. Deer, swans, ospreys, red squirrels and badgers to name but a few of our local wildlife and scenes of landscape, buildings and history locally.
Phase two of the Project took place in 2008/09 when we obtained funding to work with some of the remoter schools in Highland Perthshire who do not normally have access to art and environmental funding. In the Autumn of 2008 we took Felt Stories to Pitlochry, Blair Atholl and Kenmore schools. We are grateful to the Scottish Co-op Community Fund for sponsorship. In Spring 2009 we secured additional funds from Take A Pride in Perthshire to complete our 6 workshops in Logierait, Kinloch Rannoch and Grandtully Primary Schools. With our Storyteller Claire Hewitt and Feltmaker Ruth Atkinson each school made their own Felt Panel depicting a Folk Tale, using soapsuds and water, which all children enjoy, the feltmaking was an added bonus. Each school now owns their own unique hand crafted storytelling panel for their storytelling corner. 
School sessions teach the children environmental awareness, global citizenship and responsibility and through stories and song links connected an understanding of how tribal peoples the world over take care of the forest. We have found this an excellent medium for teaching, giving mutual responsibility for the planet and everything that lives and grows on it. The Silver Branch received one of only three Big Tree Country Awards in September 2009 for Families and Children in the Community.
 The Silver Branch Project encompassed International Year of Biodiversity in 2010, with funding from the Scottish Book Trust and a bursary from the Scottish Arts Council. The month of May saw Claire Hewitt, as Storyteller in Residence in Explorers Garden, Pitlochry. Local schools were invited to come along and do storywalks through the garden, looking at plants from all over the world, local wildlife and hearing tales of the Scottish Plant Hunters. Stories were told in the Yurt and David Douglas Pavilion accompanied as usual by clarsach and bhodran. This culminated in the children writing the Earth Song to sing to our judges from the RHS and Canada last year. The Silver Branch received a Highly Commended from Big Tree Country in 2010 for Education.
Sideshoots of our Silver Branch over the past four years have been an annual visit from the Cairngorm Reindeer every December with a special passenger. Events in the Wildlife Garden for Wildlife Week in June, an evening celebration with Jess Smith, well-known author and storyteller and Eassie Stewart, performer and storyteller, both travellers come to entertain us with tales of living off the land in the past.
In 2010, we grew a new twig! A summer season of the Giant’s Kitchen was showing children how to cook from the garden in the Guide Hut. And our own Pitlochry WRI ladies making Felt Pockets for our Kist to hold individuals memories of gardening. We shall be continuing to work on this over 2011.
 
Big Tree Country Award working with the community
See the attached link for
dethttp://www.perthshirebigtreecountry.co.uk/index.asp?cat=Newsails of the award.
FELT STORIES - www.feltstory.blogspot.com
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