We were so lucky to have hosted the talented Yoav Kafets at our workshop a few weeks back.

Yoav taught a one day improver’s bowl turning course aimed at people with previous experience on the pole lathe. He also taught a two day course, giving participants the opportunity to dive deeper into pole lathe techniques as well as turning at least one bowl and one cup!

All students came away with a greater appreciation of the craft as well as a thirst to continue creating stunningly beautiful and ergonomic every-day objects.

Here are some photo highlights from the courses he taught that weekend.

If pole lathe turning is something you want to explore, you can sign up to a one day course with one of London Green Wood’s experienced turners.

Our members were treated to an ash splint weaving masterclass by basketmaker extraordinaire Chelle Mateo over the weekend.

Hard work but very rewarding . . .

Dave Evers is our bowl turning tutor and we’re very proud that Dave recently received the prestigious Cockpit Arts’ Turners’ Award giving him a year of making in his own studio at Cockpit Studios. This award is sponsored by The Worshipful Company of Turners.

London Green Wood will be exhibiting a selection of hand made chairs during London Design Festival alongside Shoreditch Design Triangle. This year, the festival runs from the 16-24 September.

The chairs have been made from fresh logs from tree surgeons. This wood, quite often from wind blown trees, is usually seen as waste wood, and either chipped or burnt.

Of the tens of thousands of trees lost in London every year, we save a few to make unique chairs and stools ( & spoons, bowls, cups, sculpture, etc).

Using various techniques with a long history, the logs are transformed into beautiful and functional furniture, which will last for generations.

Event Times

20th – 24th September 2023
10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Hackney City Farm, E2 8QA

The London Green Wood workshop at Hackney City Farm will be open 20th-24th September for demonstrations, workshops (pre-booking essential) and an exhibition of their work.

See online

www.shoreditchdesigntriangle.com/events/hand-made-chairs-london-green-wood/

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One of the things about pole lathe turning, is that the work can come loose and fly off the lathe. If turning bowls, the weight of the bowl and mandrel means the work will come loose and fall onto the floor. But with spindle turning (long thin things like chair legs) the work can really fly. So, Spencer has designed an attachment to our pole lathes which can catch flying spindles.

Here’s a video of it in action.

This is what our risk assessment says. To reduce the risk of injury/ impact from flying pieces of wood caused by lathe:

In the workshop lathes are set up with adequate space and in a direction to minimise the risk of any work coming loose from the lathe will not hit other users or members of the public. In addition, when spindle turning, place a 15mm dowel at the back of the poppits to arrest the drive string launching the work and therefore reduce the risk.

About London Green Wood
London Green Wood (LGW) is a cooperatively-run workshop. We teach green woodwork using traditional techniques, hand tools and locally grown wood straight from the log. We have been creating opportunities to learn heritage and ‘rural’ crafts in Hackney since 2011. We are currently based at Hackney City Farm.

By creating a space for people to work creatively alongside others, we foster friendships and community connections. By teaching people new skills, we create resilience. By working outdoors in nature, we provide a space for reflection and therapeutic activity.

Our aims:

• Create a welcoming and accessible green wood workshop for a diverse community of woodworkers.
• Promote green woodwork.
• Provide opportunities for people living in the city to learn traditional rural crafts.
• Create opportunities for people to learn new skills and earn money from their skills.

Our members

At the end of 2022 we had 53 members (8% growth on 2021). Currently, 28% of our membership pay unwaged or low income rates, 34% of these are female.

This year there was a focus on developing skills within our membership, on building the community at the workshop and ensuring that when members join the coop they feel confident to come back and use the space. All this activity was led and organised by members on a voluntary basis.

• Spoon Club. Spearheaded by Sam and Mat, we opened on Thursday evenings over the summer for a coop members Spoon Club. This was an amazing additional offering for our members. Spoon Club was incredibly successful in getting new members and female members in particular back to use the workshop regularly.
• Skill shares. Thanks to Spencers’ organisation, we had 6 coop skill shares. Apart from a demonstration by Monocoat oil, these were all led by members for members.  These sessions have not only increased the skills of our members, they have been a tool to get members who hardly ever use the workshop back into the space.

May – Dan:  wooden knife sheaths (11 members joined)
June – Spencer: Fan birds (10 members joined)
July – Jo: clothes peg from a hazel branch (5 members joined)
August – Rubio Monocoat: paints & oils (6 members joined)
October – Mat: Colour & decoration (5 members joined)
November – Jo: Leatherwork (4 members joined)

• Museum of the Home. Sharon also arranged a visit to the Museum of the Home library and archive, for members to see their collection of chairs and tools. Following this visit the Museum have enquired about LGW getting involved in their School programme.

• Coop work days and socials. There have been numerous informal volunteer days in the workshop where coop members have built and fixed equipment and made other improvements to the workshop. Our biggest one was in November with 12 coop members coming in for a big clear up day, followed by a feast and a fire (and even more people joining in the evening). We also had evening celebrations and BBQs in June and August to get out membership together. At the August event we said goodbye to Ken, who had been Deputy Manager at the Farm for many years and was instrumental in getting us into this space.

Other projects

• Asylum Seeker support group

We continued our partnership with the Red Cross to offer regular sessions to the Men’s Support group from the Hackney Centre. We have worked with them since 2019. Discussions about doing the same with the Womens’ group at ongoing. As well as monthly sessions, Sharon helped the group host an event the Hackney Centre for Refugee Week, the group were able to show what they had learnt to staff and other users at the centre. Our participation at this event was funded by LGW.

Participants in this group are offered a free space on our Induction to the Workshop course and invited to join the coop at zero cost.

• Hackney Ark

Hackney Ark is an NHS service for children and young people with disabilities and additional needs. They asked us if we could run some sessions with their young people, but they didn’t have any budget for it and most of the young people they work with are from low income families. Luckily the very same week Rubio Monocoat Oil got in touch asking if they could send us some samples of their products and support our work in anyway. So we asked them to fund some sessions for Hackney Ark, and they said yes!

We ran regular school holiday sessions with the young people and their support workers. 15 young people took part. The feedback was amazing, some of them have already asked about joining the coop when they turn 18. We would love to do more of this, but need to find more funding or sponsorship for it.

• Shoreditch Design Triangle

We participated in Shoreditch Design Triangle (part of London Design Festival) for the first time. Our workshop was on the SDT map. Members demonstrated turning and carving outside the SCP shop in Shoreditch, at Spitalfields Market and at our own workshop.

• Events

These have not returned to their pre-covid levels, and so far we haven’t had any paid invitations to events. But we did attend Rich Mix Goes Green and Nunhead Cemetery Open Day, where members demonstrated and sold their work.

• Kids birthday parties

This was a new thing for us, we did two. This could be developed as a bookable option on our website.

• Corporate groups

Not entirely a new thing, as we have done a couple of small ones before, but this grew in 2022. We hosted 3 company away days at the workshop, visited 1 in their offices in Shoreditch and through a new partnership with an events company went on 2 trips to a golf club in Watford. Our corporate days were evenly split between big tech and east London creatives and designers. Corporate group sessions don’t particularly contribute to our aims, but they do bring in income for LGW and provide group teaching opportunities, which is useful for developing more members as tutors.

• The Shop

Graham built us an amazing shop inside the container to go alongside our online shop. So far 5 members are selling their work through the shop, and spoons are flying off the shelves.

Supporting other woodworkers and community projects

1. Ben, member of LGW and former tutor, has incorporated Bristol Tree Craft CIC with support from LGW.
2. We hired a lathe to Sussex based bowl turner Amy Leake for a demonstration at the Guildhall Yard, an event for the Worshipful Company of Turner.
3. We lent the workshop and lathes to Tim Stevenson from Nunhead Cemetery and Helen Welch of London School of Furniture Making for two days on their Understaning Wood course, https://furnitureschool.co.uk/.
4. We are donating our waste wood to Hackney based, Community Sauna CIC.

Campaigns and fundraisers we’ve supported

1. Fundraiser for Rape Crisis (2 members participated)
2. Makers auction for Ukraine DEC appeal (5 members participated)

Other exciting things members did

1. Sam was a Toast New Maker, with work on display at their Carnaby Street shop, demonstrations in their shops and vessels available to buy on through their webshop. He has also featured in lots of flashy magazines.
2. Spencer continues to make buttons and handles for Bethany Williams, which were exhibited in the Design Museum. He also modelled in their advertising campaign, shot at the LGW workshop!
   

Courses
818 people joined 128 courses in 2022. Added to our other activity above, we taught green woodwork to around 900 people.

People attending our courses at 46% female, 13% from ethnic minorities, 7% low income rates. 14% had been on a LGW course before. 95% of course reviews were 5*!

See the full courses report.

Things we are doing well with our courses

• People feel part of this community of makers.
• People know what they can do next (tools to buy, other courses and joining the coop).
• People have a lovely day, even if it’s difficult or frustrating at times, they leave feeling satisfied. This is especially important in our work rehabilitating office workers, they join our courses on their day off they need to feel looked after and inspired.
• We have a pool of 8 regular tutors and a couple of extras who do occasional sessions, so mainly we are able to cover for each other when it’s needed.

Accounts

Here’s our financial report. This is a draft, we are working with our accountant on the final accounts.

Hackney Ark is an NHS service for children and young people with disabilities and additional needs. They asked us if we could run some sessions with their young people, but they didn’t have any money for it and most of the young people they work with are from low income families. Luckily the very same week Rubio Monocoat Oil got in touch asking if they could send us some samples of their products and support our work in anyway. So we asked them to fund some sessions for Hackney Ark, and they said yes!

We ran regular school holiday sessions with the young people and their support workers. 15 young people took part. We’re hoping to get more funding to see them again next year, some of them have already asked about joining the coop when they turn 18.

I just wanted to get in touch to give some feedback on the session your fantastic co-op members ran for us over the Easter holidays. As my colleagues have no doubt highlighted in initially contacting you, our team works with some of the most isolated young people in the borough who often struggle to access education and leisure settings. The young people who access our services are largely on the autistic spectrum, many of whom experience high levels of anxiety, especially in accessing new activities.
Your team couldn’t have been lovelier, they were so patient in their teaching, kind and engaging. The three young people who made it along had a fantastic time and were discussing afterward how they could pursue this new interest. I cannot overemphasise what an achievement this is – one of the young people is currently unable to attend college or any other group work due to his anxiety, and the environment and staff were so welcoming that he felt entirely relaxed and enthusiastic. It was a joy to see. For our part as staff, we discussed how it didn’t feel like work at all- we are in love with greenwood carving!
We can’t thank Sharon and the team who hosted us enough, it really was a fantastic opportunity and we would love to find a way to do more with London Greenwood in the future. What a wonderful community of craftspeople.

Chrissy Baxter, Targeted Health Outreach Worker

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Thanks again for putting on another brilliant session, the young people who attended really seem to enjoy the experience. We hope we can do our sessions with you in the future as this is a very good activity.

Shamsun Ali, Targeted Health Outreach Worker

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” We had a wonderful day, and came away wanting more, so already planning our next session. Thanks so much! “

Apart from our courses and occasional funded projects, London Green Wood is run by volunteers. This year we are 10, we were founded as a community organisation at the end of 2011. So far we have taught green woodwork to more than 3000 people.

We started the year, like everyone else, in national lockdown. During this time we gave away wood every week for people to carve at home and taught some online Mindful Whittling courses. In the background, bigger things were happening. A team of 20 LGW volunteers were clearing 17 tonnes of rubbish and rubble from a disused space in Hackney City Farm, bringing it back into community use. We made a new workshop space at the Farm and reopened there after the winter lockdown, courses and our members workshop have been back uninterrupted since April 2021.

Everything has been growing steadily: more courses, more members, more people making things out of green wood. We ran 60% more courses than in 2020 or 2019. Over all our activities we taught green woodwork to over 500 last year. The only thing we didn’t do more of last year was attend community events, they were still pretty low on the ground in the summer. The only public event we went to was Nunhead Open Day. Our members also contributed to the Worshipful Company of Turners Wizardry in Wood exhibition and event at Carpenter’s Hall. One of our core members and Directors had a baby, and everyone else stepped in to keep things running whilst she was away.

Our aims:

• Create a welcoming and accessible green wood workshop for a diverse community of woodworkers.
• Promote green woodwork.
• Provide opportunities for people living in the city to learn traditional rural crafts.
• Create opportunities for people to learn new skills and earn money from their skills.

Our activities:

• We teach green woodwork courses and create new makers. In 10 years across all our activities we have taught 3,000 people new creative skills.
• We provide an affordable cooperative workshop for people to continue developing their own artistic practice. We create opportunities for members to sell their work and take commissions.
• We help people to improve their skills through volunteering and to become craft tutors. We have trained 12 tutors (in 2021 we had 7 tutors working for LGW on a freelance basis), one of whom has since founded a green wood CIC in Bristol.
• We run regular Family Whittling courses to teach safe knife skills to young people up to 18 and children as young as 6. To date we have worked with 185 families. We have also worked with Scouts and Woodcraft Folk groups, home educating families and an after-school club.
• We are the only workshop in London teaching bowl turning on a treadle-powered lathe, which is listed on the Heritage Crafts Association Red List of Endangered Crafts. Since 2019, 60 people have learnt bowl turning with us.
• We bring craft participation to under-represented demographics, and developing partnerships with other community organisations. In 2021 we delivering regular sessions with Women After Greatness (who mentor young women of colour) and a Red Cross Asylum Seeker Support Group, we also ran one-off workshops for NEET young people in partnership with Harrow Arts Centre, and for women and non-gender conforming people as part of Cordwainers Grow Bloom series.
• We support other start-up craft organisations by giving advice and sharing what we have learnt, including making all our policies and procedures available on our website for others to use and adapt.
• We are active members of several networks: the Association of Pole Lathe Turners and Green Woodworkers, Social Enterprise UK and the Open Workshop Network.
• A 2021 business analysis by the University of Brighton recognised that we provide a ‘unique opportunity’ to learn heritage crafts in London.

” I had an amazing experience with London Green Wood. I can’t recommend this course enough, everyone was so friendly and helpful. Thank you 🙂 “

Spoonesaurus Awards
London Green Wood was awarded the Spoonesaurus Service Award for making the world better through spoon carving! In recognition of our ‘efforts to make carving wood freely available to people throughout the lockdown in London, thereby protecting people’s mental health by carving at home’. Spoonesaursus is a niche, international magazine about spoon carving.  We are very proud to be featured.

” Great course. Lovely location. Very sensible and attentive instruction just when needed, but very hands on without too much standing around. “

Courses
We taught green woodwork to 478 people over 79 courses in 2021. This is a huge increase from 271 participants over 47 in 2020 (276 in 2019). Only 73% of courses  were fully booked (compared to 83% last year) due to our reduced administrative and promotional capacity this year. 95% of reviews of our courses gave us 5 stars. Over the past 3 years 20% of course participants have returned to join another LGW course, with others continuing to develop their skills at home (supported by tool recommendations from LGW).

We created handout resources on safe knife grips and axe work, along with session plans for our courses, all available on our website.

” Thanks to the guys at Green Wood London for the excellent spoon carving course. I loved your teaching style, and especially enjoyed the axe work, superb. Many thanks, will be back in future. “

In 2021 51% of participants were female, however our experience has shown us that women are less likely than men to return to use the workshop outside the structure of a course. We are a female founded and led organization, but women remain underrepresented among our volunteers, our board of Directors (2 of 6 are female) and our membership (37% female). We do not yet represent the ethnic diversity of our local community. In 2021 BME participation was 15%, greater than the 14% BME population of England and Wales but far below the BME population of London.

We donated 2 spaces to two members of staff from Homerton Hospital, as part of a drive for staff wellbeing, and 1 space on a family workshop to raise money Columbia Primary School. We also trained 2 Forest School leaders from SuperRoots social enterprise, offering them half price places on our Induction to the Workshop course.

We donated 2 spaces to two members of staff from Homerton Hospital, as part of a drive for staff wellbeing, and 1 space on a family workshop to raise money Columbia Primary School. We also trained 2 Forest School leaders from SuperRoots social enterprise, offering them half price places on our Induction to the Workshop course.

” Everyone at LGW was super friendly and the day was lovely. The location at Hackney City Farm was beautiful, well covered (it was raining all morning) and we were given just the right amount of help vs time / space to go off and get on with making. “

New site
London Green Wood was born out of Woodcrafty, a project that had been started up by Jax Sheedy and Geraldine Smyth, at Abney Park. When Jax and Gerry moved out of London, London Green Wood was founded to keep the workshop going. We have worked at Abney Park Cemetery since 2011, for almost 10 years. Abney Park has been an integral part of London Green Wood, much of our wood has been sourced from the Park (storm fellings and thinning overgrown areas of the woodland) and we were part of a wild and wonderful ecosystem of plants and people that Abney in particular fosters.

However Hackney Council and Abney Park Trust are embarking on a £4m building project in the park, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Realising that these building works would cause a lot of disruption and unpredictable periods of closure for our workshop, we decided to move out for the period of the building works.

20 Members of our coop volunteered at both the Abney Park and Hackney City Farm sites to make the move happen. We needed to clear a site filled with rubbish and rubble from an unused garden space at Hackney City Farm and enclose the space to control public access. We also helped to build a new artist’s studio for our neighbour at the Farm, the sculptor Gary March. An avenue of fastigiate oak trees was felled for the building works at Abney Park, we rescued this wood and were able to replace all our old chopping blocks and carving donkeys.

” The generosity from the board members in particular to share their knowledge is really humbling and creates a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Having this space has been really impactive and makes my life in London a lot better! “

Membership
At the end of 2021 LGW had 49 members, an increase on 40 members at the end of 2020. Membership fees range from £50-150 per year, 33% of our members pay a low income rate (a figure that has remained stable since we launched our cooperative membership scheme in 2018). We also offer free membership to asylum seekers.

Growth in female membership is slowing, only 37% of our coop are women. Our aim is to attract greater representation across all genders.

Through LGW facilitated commissions members: built a bench for a church, assisted furniture maker Gareth Neal to make huge oak peices, made hundreds of buttons for the fashion designer Bethany Williams, had their work photographed for House and Garden magazine and took part in Bovey Tracey Craft Festival, amongst others. We also sold work at Nunhead Cemetery Open Day and the Xmas Pop-up Shop at the Farm.

We are open to members Wed-Fri every week and usually 3 weekends per month.

” I’ve learnt a lot, made friends and enjoy contributing to the Co-Op. LGW makes me feel generally, a lot better; being in the open air and focussed on a creative activity. “

Training for members
We organized 4 training sessions for members:

• First Aid at Work (specifically for outdoor settings), 8 members.
• Two sessions on teaching courses and green woodworking sessions, with the aim of creating new new tutors and volunteers, 10 members.
• Rush seat weaving with guest tutor Rachel South, 10 members.

There were also informal skill shares organized by members for members on: leatherwork, sharpening skills, using hook knives and spokeshaves.

Governance
Seven members of the coop are currently elected Directors of LGW, these are: Jo Clarke, Roger Chapman, Dave Evers, Cyriak Lefeve, Esther Robinson, Sam Downes and Spencer Martin.

In 2021 we updated all our policies and made these available on our website under a Creative Commons license. These 14 documents can be used, amended and copied by any other non-profit organization. We think that creating useful policies can be a disproportionate amount of work for small organisations, so by sharing the work we can help other community organisations to get on with the things the are good at.

Fundraising
Although we are not dependant on funding for our core activities, we do apply for grants for new and developmental activities. In 2021 we received grants from the Worshipful Company of Turners, Comic Relief and the National Lottery Community Fund.

Finance
Our turnover was £42,288, this is made up of:

• Unrestricted income 14% (membership, rent from courses, donations, sales of tools).
• Projects and courses 66%, most of which generate no surplus.
• Grant funding 20%.

” I just loved this workshop with London Green Wood! Super interesting, very well organised, and very kind and relaxing. My main reaction after the workshop was that I needed to find a way to spend more time woodcarving and that London Green Wood was the perfect place to do it! ”