Covid-19 response

We can all find resilience in outdoor life

London Green Wood is a small, agile business and we work outdoors. These two factors meant that we have been able to adapt to living with this coronavirus and have no fears about the long term risk of the pandemic to our cooperative.

In mid-March, as we realised there was a looming lockdown, we cancelled all our courses with the aim of keeping the workshop open to coop members for as long as we could. A week later, lockdown was imposed on the UK and the workshop was shut, unable to open for over three months.

Once we’d finished cancelling all our courses and sessions, the first thing we did was to write some tips for carving at home. We knew there were a whole load of people taking up carving for the first time in lockdown and we wanted to help people be safe whilst using knives at home. We updated our resources page, with tool recommendations, advice on choosing wood and links to our favourite instructional videos. These were shared widely, as people across the UK took up new hobbies whilst they found themselves at home.

The second thing we did was to negotiate weekly access to the workshop for one volunteer each week. Every Monday one of the coop would saw and split up a box of wood to leave at the workshop gate for people to take home for free. The response was incredible, one week Dave arrived to a socially distanced queue of people waiting to collect spoon carving wood. Despite limiting the offering to three pieces of wood per person, a whole box of wood (sometimes two) disappeared in a couple of hours every week. We still give away bits and pieces of wood for people to carve at home, now it’s by pre-arrangement and we suggest giving a donation to the workshop in return.

After initially dismissing online courses as impossible, we came to realise it was necessary to help people keep creative and busy in lockdown, and to prepare LGW for potential future lockdowns. We created an online wand making class for families and spatula carving class for adults. We teamed up with The Woodsmith Experience to provide knives, and prepared dogwood and hazel sticks and lime spatula blanks at home. We posted wood and the customers bought their own knives. Demand was high, but the post was oh so slow. Still, with a lot of rescheduling, Jo taught basic knife skills online to about 80 people in a three month period with remarkably few injuries.

We started risk assessments for reopening the workshop as soon as lockdown restrictions started to lift. We were finally able to reopen to members only from 6th July and begin teaching in-person courses on 28th July. All our risk assessments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License and are available for other organisations and people to use and edit for non-commercial purposes.

We are currently developing a new partnership with another local organisation, Women after Greatness (WAG), a grassroots social enterprise on a mission to empower and equip young women and girls in East London to conquer negative cycles and build great opportunities. WAG has not been able to deliver their usual programmes because of coronavirus, but the need is greater than ever. We are seeking funding for a unique woodworking project for young women to learn heritage woodwork and bushcraft skills in inner London. Through learning these skills young women will be encouraged to spend more time outdoors, and enjoy the mental health and confidence benefits that are associated with being in a natural environment. Our outdoor workshop will also provide a safe space for young women to meet and for WAG to continue their mentoring support work.

Since the lockdown, interest in our cooperative as soared. We are running more courses than ever and have noticed an increase in people wanting to join the coop and be involved with all aspects of the workshop. Despite the isolation of recent months, we all know that we are stronger together and this is a key time to cooperate.

We have always enjoyed working outdoors but now our outdoor space is more valuable than ever. The workshop provides an opportunity to help other groups and individuals to get outside and be with others in a safe social space. We would like to share our space with others and through basic woodwork and bushcraft activities, help other community groups adapt their offering to outdoor living. We are willing to joint-fundraise to do this. We believe that being outdoors, in a natural environment and working with others (physically but not socially distanced) can give us all the resilience we need to survive this crisis.

London Green Wood is open

After 3 months of coronavirus lockdown
the workshop is open for coop members

From 4th July London Green Wood is open to coop members only. LGW aims to provide a covid safe workspace for members who feel comfortable to attend. Members are under no obligation to attend the workshop and those who are not yet able to, or do not want to, have the option of suspending their membership fee until they are ready to return.

Courses are due to restart from 28th July. Our monthly volunteering sessions are on hold for the time being. There will also be no public access in the near future, although we still welcome visitors by prior arrangement. If you’d like to come in and see what we do please contact us in advance.

We do not require anyone to wear masks, as we are able to maintain social distancing, but feel free to wear one if it makes you feel safer.

All those visiting the workshop are required to sign in and leave a telephone no. for track and trace purposes (for more information on how we will use this data, see our Privacy Policy).

What we ask of you before coming to the workshop:

  • If you have symptoms of Covid-19 or have been exposed to someone who has tested postitive, stay home (how to request a test and what to do if you have symptoms).
  • If you can please travel to the workshop on foot or by bike. Car parking is available (subject to water works outside the park).
  • If you need to use public transport to access the workshop wear a face mask, as required by government guidance.

What we ask of you at the workshop:

  • Wash your hands upon arrival. Please also wash hands before eating, as usual.
  • Cleaning all tools after use and if passing to another person (anti viral wipes are provided). Wash hands before cleaning tools.
  • Maintain a 2m distance between yourself and others.
  • Bring your own PPE is needed (gloves for moving timber, fingerless gloves, masks and googles). Those wanting to use the linisher must bring their own PPE, this is not a excuse not to wear PPE where it is needed.
  • Wash your hands within the workshop before using the communal areas e.g. tea room and toilets.
  • No longer bring biscuits and snacks to share.
  • Until government track and trace system is fully operational, anyone who has used the workshop who subsequently tests positive for Covid-19 is requested to inform Jo Clarke or Dave Evers.

We will:

  • Provide an outdoor handwashing station (soap and water) within the workshop, alcohol gel and anti-viral wipes.
  • Limit the max. no. of people in the workshop, to allow for social distancing.
  • Send anyone home who becomes unwell at the workshop and advise them to follow the stay at home guidance.
  • Make signage in the workshop to remind everyone of these measures.
  • Designate a keyholder each day to take responsibility for Health and Safety, including coronavirus control measures.
  • Clean other objects and surfaces that are touched regularly on a daily basis, e.g. gate, padlocks, handwashing station.
  • If advised that anyone who has been at the workshop has developed Covid-19, we will contact everyone who has been at the workshop at the same time as that person and advise them of track and trace guidance.
  • Print these instructions and our coronavirus risk assessment so that they are available at the workshop.

Our risk assessments are available for other organisations and people to use and edit for non-commercial purposes only (this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License).

Creative Commons Licence

Free wood for distant spoon carvers

Every Monday we are leaving wood out for carving at home.

Although the workshop is now closed, we have arranged with Hackney Council that we can visit the workshop once a week to prepare a supply of wood for isolating spoon carvers. Every Monday we will leave a box of spoon sized wood for anyone who’s carving at home to take away.

Please do not contact us asking if wood is left, the workshop is closed so we are not there on other days.

Please do not stockpile wood. We will leave wood out every Monday if we are able to. Make sure there’s enough to go around.

When the box is empty can the last person to take wood please recycle the carboard box and sign, so as not to create litter in Abney Park.

We’d love to see what you’re doing, please share your creations with us, Instagram @londongreenwood

See our tips for staying safe carving at home and further links to tools and resources.

Tips for carving at home

Whittling and spoon carving are an excellent therapeutic, productive, useful and creative activities and we hope it will bring all those benefits to those who take it up.

However it’s even more important to stay safe when learning at home with no teacher to keep an eye on you, so we’ve written some brief tips for carving at home. Some of these things are obvious it doesn’t make them less important and frankly neither does it make you more likely to do them.

  1. Sharpen your tools before you use them.
  2. Don’t use a folding knife for whittling or woodcarving, even one with a locking mechanism is not fail safe. We recommend Morakniv 120 for adults and Morakniv Rookie or Scout 39 Safe for kids.
  3. Do not carve with gloves on, or any type of kevlar finger barrier. Instead develop safe habits that protect your hands. We think that these kinds of finger guards are dangerous because they encourage bad practice. Instead develop safe habits that protect your hands.
  4. These knives for kids have slightly smaller handles but are just as sharp. The most important safety feature of a knife for kids or young people is a blunt tip. If you have a knife that didn’t come with a blunt tip you can grind it off on a course sharpening stone, the kind that people usually have for kitchen knives. This will drastically reduce injuries, and can be done for adults knives too.
  5. Find a safe space, other people and objects needed to be a full arms length away from you. Don’t work in a space where people, especially children, will be moving about around you.
  6. Obviously whittling outdoors is always better where you can.
  7. Whittling indoors is fine. Wood shavings (unlike sawdust) are clean and easy to sweep up, even on carpet. Just don’t walk through it in your socks or it’ll follow you everywhere.
  8. Kids and young people should be supervised at all times when they’re using a knife. There’s a reason you have to be 18 to buy one. Arguably adults should be supervised at all times when using a knife.
  9. Carving together is better, get into it with your household. Then your partner, family, flatmates won’t mind about wood shavings stuck to their socks and you can keep an eye on each other (see 7.).
  10. Even one drink is too many, make a choice between booze and carving.
  11. Carving green wood is easier because it is softer. The wood will dry quicker if it’s in small logs, has been split already, in near a heat source or in the sun, or a windy spot. You can keep wood in the freezer, this form of stockpiling is a long standing habit of many spoon carvers.
  12. Whilst you are making something you can keep in wrapped up in a damp plastic bag in the fridge in between carving sessions to keep it wet. This is very successful for few days after that the wood will start to go moudly. You can still carve mouldy wood, the wood will be fine once it’s been throughly dried out. You can soak pieces of wood or unfinished projects in buckets of water to re-wet them, but especially for larger spoons, kuksas etc. anytime you soak the wood you are increasing the risk of it cracking as it dries.
  13. Stop when you are tired.

Further links to tools and resources can be found here.

Covid-19

We are closed
from 24th March 2020

Because of the Covid-19 outbreak and following the government’s announcement, London Green Wood is closed to all for the foreseeable future. Really hoping to be back in a few weeks time. Unfortunatly this also means the end of our wood giveaways for isolating carvers. Hope everyone’s got some projects lined up at home.

Stroud Green Christmas Market

Locally grown gifts
for a plastic free Christmas

Sunday 15th December 2019

We were at Stroud Green Christmas Market to sell our wooden wares, including spoons, spreaders and treadle powered turned bowls. Not to mention the antique sock machine.

Thanks to everyone who came to say hello, bought our crafts and joined in making their own locally grown tree decorations.


Stroud Green Market is on every Sunday throughout the year

Address
Stroud Green School
Perth Rd / Ennis Rd
London N4 3H

Hours
10:00am–2:30pm

Abney Park Autumn Fayre

Spoon carving & Bowl turning
(demo all day)

  • Saturday 19th October 2019
  • 11 am – 4 pm
  • Free, All welcome

Abney Park is looking forward to hosting a day of fun at their annual Autumn Fair. Come along and enjoy a variety of arts and crafts stalls, second-hand books, tempting food and drinks for all, arts & plant workshops, kids activities and music in the chapel. Plus – fabulous prizes to be won on the Abney Park User Group tombola! Proceeds raised will help fund future activities at Abney Park.


Lucie Gledhill – Jerwood Makers Open 2019

Art green woodworking
at London Green Wood

For some days, jeweler artist Lucie Gledhill joined us at our outdoor workshop in Abney Park to work on an unusual green woodwork project. Lucie is one of the five artists selected for the biennial Jerwood Makers Open 2019.

Jerwood Makers Open was established in 2010 to promote the significance of making and materials within the visual arts arena, seeking to support exceptional skill and imagination. It supports artists to freely develop creative ideas central to their individual practices. It looks broadly at how contemporary artists are defining or challenging the boundaries of what has traditionally been described as applied arts.

The artists were selected from over 300 applications in response to an open call for self-directed projects from UK-based makers and collaborators within 10 years of establishing their practice. Each artist receives a bursary to support experimentation and the making of new work for this exhibition.

We looking forward to see the final work at the Jerwood Makers Open 2019 exhibition, from the 19th June to the 18th August in Jerwood Space.

Jerwood Makers Open 2019
19 Jun – 18 Aug 2019

Jerwood Space
171 Union Street, Bankside
London SE1 0LN
=> Map

+44 (0)20 7654 0179
jerwoodarts.org