Penny Simpson
Penny Simpson with the Dartmoor Society Award plate that she created
Each year, the Dartmoor Society recognises the work of people who make a significant contribution to Dartmoor. This year the Dartmoor Society Award goes to the Sticklepath and Okehampton Conservation group (StOC).
Alan Endacott, vice chair of the Dartmoor Society, explains why StOC is unique: ‘StOC volunteers work in all weathers, every week of the year, to tackle vital conservation tasks and their affiliation with Ian Brooker and the Dartmoor National Park ranger service allows urgent work to be carried out. Many of these tasks would not otherwise be possible’.
The group was formed following a community project at Finch Foundry Sticklepath in 1991, initiated by Norman Dunn from the Leaze Centre for adults with learning difficulties in Okehampton. Its first project was the rebuilding of a double drystone wall taking a footpath through the back of the Finch Foundry to Billy Green in Sticklepath. Tuition was arranged and volunteers from amongst local residents, from Okehampton College, Kelly College and the Leaze Centre all helped to complete the task. Little did they realise that 30 years later the group would still be going strong.
StOC has worked with the Dartmoor Commoners, Butterfly Conservation Trust, the National Trust, Woodland Trust, Devon Wildlife Trust, parish councils and schools. The relationships it has forged with so many different groups is remarkable and it has been able to use the skills and experience built up within the group over many years to respond to calls for help from any one of these organisations.
‘A lot of our work involves gorse and bracken control and the maintenance and improvement of rights of way in the north Dartmoor area’, team organiser Mike Watson explains: ‘But we have also been involved in construction work such as building bridges over the River Taw, preventing erosion and maintaining and improving wetland sites for threatened species such as the marsh fritillary and the southern damselfly.’
Winners of the Dartmoor Society award are presented with a plate made by Dartmoor potter Penny Simpson and inscribed by Michael Edwards, an artist and print maker based in Moretonhampstead.
Caya Edwards, secretary of the Dartmoor Society, said: ‘We feel lucky that two talented local artists collaborate to make the Dartmoor Society Award plates and we look forward to presenting the award to StOC at our annual meeting in South Brent on May 7.’
Past recipients of Dartmoor Society awards can be found on the Dartmoor Society website www.dartmoorsociety.com