Gravel seeding on the River Blackwater, Aldershot – Day 3

Tag: conservation

Gravel seeding on the River Blackwater, Aldershot – Day 3

Activity description: The South East Rivers Trust would like your help with introducing gravels into the River Blackwater at Ivy Road Recreational Ground in Aldershot.

This is the final part of delivering our river restoration plan for this section on the River Blackwater, complementing the in-channel brash berms and deflectors already installed over the past couple of years.

The newly seeded gravel will create riverbed features, such as pools and riffles, providing improved habitat for aquatic species. This habitat is essential for aquatic plants, invertebrates and fish as it offers refuge and spawning areas.

Come and enjoy this fantastic opportunity to put on a pair of waders and gloves, make a big difference to nature and meet new people also interested in conservation!

You will be moving gravel into the river at designated spots, using shovels and wheelbarrows, and spreading it with a rake along the riverbed.

All tools and equipment, inc. waders and gloves will be provided.

Tea and coffee will be provided but please bring your own lunch.

Time: 9.45am to 3pm

Meeting Point: end of Field Way, Aldershot GU12 4UG. Google map HERE.

 What to Bring:

  • Your own gardening gloves, if you prefer (note, they will likely get wet!)
  • Your own lunch
  • Plenty of water
  • Appropriate outdoor clothing, extra layers and waterproofs

Booking essential!

  • Please specify your UK shoe size (for waders provided by SERT)

 Booking for this event will close at: 5pm on Friday 8th March 2024

Please email volunteering@southeastriverstrust.org to:

  • Find out more information,
  • Cancel your space if you can no longer make it.

To read our Health and Safety Guidelines for this event please click HERE.

Photos and video footage will be taken at this event and used by the Trust for promotional purposes (including but not limited to printed materials, social media, newsletters and the website) and potentially shared with our external partners and funders. From time to time, external media agencies could also take photos, film or record our events.

The Trust’s lawful basis for processing this is “Legitimate Interests” under the General Data Protection Regulations. As an individual you have rights. If you wish for SERT to stop processing this data for you, please talk to a member of staff or email info@southeastriverstrust.org.

To read our Privacy Policy and see how we use and look after the information you provide when booking your spot at our events please click HERE.

SERT is committed to becoming a more inclusive, equal and diverse organisation. We value people as individuals with diverse opinions, cultures, lifestyles and circumstances. This applies to our event attendees and volunteers as well as all our staff, trustees and job applicants. To help us maintain accurate data about who is coming to our events, we would be grateful if you would spend a couple of minutes completing our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Questionnaire by clicking HERE.

Gravel seeding on the River Blackwater, Aldershot – day 2

Activity description: The South East Rivers Trust would like your help with introducing gravels into the River Blackwater at Ivy Road Recreational Ground in Aldershot.

This is the final part of delivering our river restoration plan for this section on the River Blackwater, complementing the in-channel brash berms and deflectors already installed over the past couple of years.

The newly seeded gravel will create riverbed features, such as pools and riffles, providing improved habitat for aquatic species. This habitat is essential for aquatic plants, invertebrates and fish as it offers refuge and spawning areas.

Come and enjoy this fantastic opportunity to put on a pair of waders and gloves, make a big difference to nature and meet new people also interested in conservation!

You will be moving gravel into the river at designated spots, using shovels and wheelbarrows, and spreading it with a rake along the riverbed.

All tools and equipment, inc. waders and gloves will be provided.

Tea and coffee will be provided but please bring your own lunch.

Time: 9.45am to 3pm

Meeting Point: end of Field Way, Aldershot GU12 4UG. Google map HERE.

 What to Bring:

  • Your own gardening gloves, if you prefer (note, they will likely get wet!)
  • Your own lunch
  • Plenty of water
  • Appropriate outdoor clothing, extra layers and waterproofs

Booking essential!

  • Please specify your UK shoe size (for waders provided by SERT)

 Booking for this event will close at: 5pm on Friday 8th March 2024

Please email volunteering@southeastriverstrust.org to:

  • Find out more information,
  • Cancel your space if you can no longer make it.

To read our Health and Safety Guidelines for this event please click HERE.

Photos and video footage will be taken at this event and used by the Trust for promotional purposes (including but not limited to printed materials, social media, newsletters and the website) and potentially shared with our external partners and funders. From time to time, external media agencies could also take photos, film or record our events.

The Trust’s lawful basis for processing this is “Legitimate Interests” under the General Data Protection Regulations. As an individual you have rights. If you wish for SERT to stop processing this data for you, please talk to a member of staff or email info@southeastriverstrust.org.

To read our Privacy Policy and see how we use and look after the information you provide when booking your spot at our events please click HERE.

SERT is committed to becoming a more inclusive, equal and diverse organisation. We value people as individuals with diverse opinions, cultures, lifestyles and circumstances. This applies to our event attendees and volunteers as well as all our staff, trustees and job applicants. To help us maintain accurate data about who is coming to our events, we would be grateful if you would spend a couple of minutes completing our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Questionnaire by clicking HERE.

Gravel seeding on the River Blackwater, Aldershot – Day 1

Activity description: The South East Rivers Trust would like your help with introducing gravels into the River Blackwater at Ivy Road Recreational Ground in Aldershot.

This is the final part of delivering our river restoration plan for this section on the River Blackwater, complementing the in-channel brash berms and deflectors already installed over the past couple of years.

The newly seeded gravel will create riverbed features, such as pools and riffles, providing improved habitat for aquatic species. This habitat is essential for aquatic plants, invertebrates and fish as it offers refuge and spawning areas.

Come and enjoy this fantastic opportunity to put on a pair of waders and gloves, make a big difference to nature and meet new people also interested in conservation!

You will be moving gravel into the river at designated spots, using shovels and wheelbarrows, and spreading it with a rake along the riverbed.

All tools and equipment, inc. waders and gloves will be provided.

Tea and coffee will be provided but please bring your own lunch.

Time: 9.45am to 3pm

Meeting Point: end of Field Way, Aldershot GU12 4UG. Google map HERE.

 What to Bring:

  • Your own gardening gloves, if you prefer (note, they will likely get wet!)
  • Your own lunch
  • Plenty of water
  • Appropriate outdoor clothing, extra layers and waterproofs

Booking essential!

  • Please specify your UK shoe size (for waders provided by SERT)

 Booking for this event will close at: 5pm on Friday 8th March 2024

Please email volunteering@southeastriverstrust.org to:

  • Find out more information,
  • Cancel your space if you can no longer make it.

To read our Health and Safety Guidelines for this event please click HERE.

Photos and video footage will be taken at this event and used by the Trust for promotional purposes (including but not limited to printed materials, social media, newsletters and the website) and potentially shared with our external partners and funders. From time to time, external media agencies could also take photos, film or record our events.

The Trust’s lawful basis for processing this is “Legitimate Interests” under the General Data Protection Regulations. As an individual you have rights. If you wish for SERT to stop processing this data for you, please talk to a member of staff or email info@southeastriverstrust.org.

To read our Privacy Policy and see how we use and look after the information you provide when booking your spot at our events please click HERE.

SERT is committed to becoming a more inclusive, equal and diverse organisation. We value people as individuals with diverse opinions, cultures, lifestyles and circumstances. This applies to our event attendees and volunteers as well as all our staff, trustees and job applicants. To help us maintain accurate data about who is coming to our events, we would be grateful if you would spend a couple of minutes completing our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Questionnaire by clicking HERE.

Could you help us this Giving Tuesday?

Posted on by Ian Lamont

Think of us on #GivingTuesday – 28th November

Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 and has now grown into an international movement that is embedded on the social calendar annually, with the simple idea of doing good.

What better way is there to do that than make a donation on Giving Tuesday (28th November 2023) or instead of a physical present this festive season, to help protect rivers – our very lifeblood?

While there are many great causes, one that underpins our very existence – water – is hard to ignore.

Much of our drinking water is abstracted from rivers, supplementing what is stored in reservoirs to supply the needs of our homes and businesses.

However, in the South East we live in an area that is classed as water-stressed. This means that we are already facing a water shortage because of a growing population and climate change, which brings with it erratic weather patterns, from sudden storms from which we can’t capture all the water to drought.

All this puts huge pressure on the wildlife that thrives in rivers. Your rivers. Rivers that have been straightened, boxed in by concrete or boarding along the edges thwarting animal movement between water and land, or restricted by weirs and other barriers – all in the name of convenience for people at various times in our history.

But this has left our rivers unable to function as they should, to allow fish to migrate (some as far as the sea) to better habitats, to allow flowers to flourish to attract pollinators, or to give creatures that move between water and land the chance to do so.

The very habitats that support the wildlife that supports our existence needs help – and we’re on a mission to make that happen.

However, we can’t install fish passes or ‘rewiggle’ rivers to make them places where aquatic life can truly thrive without funding.

By the end of November, many people are already making decisions about gifts for the festive season. Many of you might be tempted by offers on Black Friday weekend (23rd to 27th November). But many of you might be thinking that a gift to nature might be better for your recipients for Christmas-time festivities this year – a year in which we have made inroads in many areas.

Some highlights from this year include:

  • encouraging people in the Medway to take a first step to caring for their local river by addressing their reliance on single-use plastic – 70 people signed up to become official Medway River Guardians with many of them becoming River Champions.
  • working with landowners in the Beult to install nature-based solutions to retain back water in the landscape for the benefit of wildlife and people. We’re now building up similar work on the Darent
  • creating new fish passes, from a baffle weir to improving the wish stream so fish can access better habitats
  • training citizen scientists to map out invasive non-native species on the Wandle and continued our volunteering events at Morden Hall Park
  • starting to create a new wetland at Chamber Mead on the Hogsmill
  • introducing rivers to dozens of schools and hundreds of children through our education programmes
  • Hosting Loddon Rivers Week and contributing sessions to London Rivers Week
  • Setting up a project to reintroduce water voles, eels and trout to the Hogsmill
  • Advising the UK’s largest greenhouse salad crop grower on water resilience

We couldn’t do it without funding.

Please consider making a one off donation to the South East Rivers Trust this Giving Tuesday, or signing up to make a regular donation. Visit our donate page for details.

Loddon Rivers Week has instant impact

Posted on by Ian Lamont

Some of the volunteers who took part in Loddon Rivers Week witnessed immediate improvements to waterways, reports Lou Sykes, our Loddon Catchment Officer.

The annual week of events took place at the end of September. Activities varied from walks and talks to giving people hands-on opportunities to get involved in river restoration.