Information

This page gives a flavour of what the Conservation Group does. For specific details of upcoming events see the programme page.

Who we are

Bristol University Conservation Group is the student conservation volunteering society of the University of Bristol.

Membership

Membership is open to all members of the University of Bristol Union and costs just £5 per year. Once paid you can attend as many (or as few) Sunday events as you like for £2 a trip if we use the minibus, or FREE if we don’t! If you know of a cheaper way to get out into the country every fortnight for two terms I'd like to hear about it!

If you missed us at Fresh you can still join at any time - just email a committee member.

Sunday Events

We meet every fortnight (or sometimes two weeks running!) on Sundays and go to local nature reserves, forests and conservation areas in the countryside. The tasks we do vary between events, and include:

• Coppicing (i.e. tree felling!)
• Dry stone walling
• Woodland management (could mean anything)
• Scrub bashing (often resulting in big bonfires)
• Drainage work
• Fencing (building fences that is, not flogging nicked stereos...)
• Grass and tree planting
• Boardwalk and pathway construction
• Hedge laying

Nothing that we do requires previous experience because there are always friendly people on hand to explain the work - and if you press them they may even tell you why what we're doing is useful! It isn't a boot camp and the emphasis is very much on having fun.

You need to wear warm clothes (that you don't mind getting muddy) and reasonably sturdy boots or wellies.
You need to bring waterproofs (nothing too expensive - they'll only get trashed), a packed lunch, something to drink and a mug. If you really want to make lots of friends bring jelly babies too... Free tea, hot chocolate and biscuits are provided, and a well earned pint or two is always enjoyed in a country pub on the way home so make sure you bring beer money!

Map of pick-up locations

We get to the sites by minibus which serves pick-up points at the Union, the Stoke Bishop shop and The Arches (Smile, Cheltenham Road), usually getting back to Bristol by 6pm at the latest. If you want to go on an event make sure that you email President Becky at rp8185@bristol.ac.uk and tell her where you want to be picked up from - otherwise you might get left behind!

Weekend Trips

In addition to the regular Sunday events, we generally have two weekend trips further away, leaving Bristol on Friday night/Saturday morning and returning Sunday evening. Always great fun, we stay in a village hall, spend the days doing conservation work and the evenings by the fire in the local pub. A modest charge (under £15) is made to cover food and accomodation costs.

Where We Go

Thanks to our enthusiastic ex-president Gemma we now have a large section of information about all the different reserves that we go to, including links!

Socials

Mid-week socials are plentiful, and have included pub-crawls, ice skating, a Smiles Brewery tour, laser quest, cocktail parties, summer BBQs, pancake parties, curries; and just chilling out in a good pub. The official BUCG Pub Guide is well worth looking at!

More Information

• How to fell a tree
• Tools usage (health and safety on events)
• Conservation Risk Assessment
• Society email (how to subscribe to our mailing list, and how to escape it!)
• BUCG Merchandising (get your essential BUCG fashion accessories here!)