A group of our members recently attended a presentation at the Veolia base at Four Ashes. Veolia have given our group £560 for us to purchase tools for the maintenance of the hill.  We were one of 8 groups who were given a grant. 41 groups had applied for the grants so we feel this was a huge achievement.Veolia have been keen to hear about our work and their communications manager may join us on a future litter pick.
Veolia have open days and we will pass on details of these when we know the dates as their waste management plant is very interesting and worth visiting to find out what happens to waste that is put into the non recyclable rubbish bins. The plant generates electricity. Veolia stressed that recycling is always preferable and using the non  recycling bins should be a last resort even though they generate electricity from the non recyclable waste.

We have been successful with a bid to Tescos bags of help scheme for a heathland restoration scheme project on the hill! 

Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants of up to £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 – all raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores – being awarded to local community projects.
Bags of Help offers community groups and projects across the UK a share of revenue generated from carrier bag sales in Tesco store. The public will now vote in store during 2nd January to 28th February on who should receive the awards.

www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp
We will need votes during January and February so folks keep asking for the plastic tokens and putting them into the section with our name on it. Votes mean money to help us with this stage of restoring the heathland.

The following message was received from the clerk to the Trustees
I am writing to thank you and all the volunteers who supported the recent spreading of the heather brash.  It was a pity that the weather wasn’t good but I am sure that between us the remaining brash will be spread at some point.  Perhaps you  would be good enough to pass on our thanks and also best wishes for Christmas and New Year to all the members of Friends of Etching Hill.  Regards - Shirley

The work on the heathland restoration laying heathers on our trial area went well. We managed to avoid the rain as it started just as we were finishing!
Thank you to everyone who turned out to help.

Heather planting work party for restoration of the heathland.

We have been asked to help with laying the new Heather on the patch that we cleared over the last few weeks.

We will be organising a work party on 

Tuesday 21 st November at meet 2 pm at the church hall. 

We will provide refreshments after the work tea and cake.

We hope you can come along and join us as we need as many helpers as possible.

Looking forward to seeing you.

(Note the time as we usually meet in the mornings and this is an afternoon event.)

The Friends of Etching Hill have been working closely with the local Police, the Cannock Chase Council and the Trustees to the hill and have replaced a notice board recently damaged by vandalism. 
The Chairman of the Friends of Etching Hill said he can't understand why someone would damage anything on the hill as it has been enjoyed by people of all ages over the years and he hopes that it will remain a beautiful place for future generations to visit and appreciate. 
The police have reminded people that if anyone finds any antisocial behaviour they can ring 101 or if there is any criminal damage or vandalism taking place they can ring 999.

The work party for the preparation of land before the heathers are planted. We had around 10 volunteers who turned up for the event. Thanks go to everyone who came along.