Are you are popping in into the cemetery on Mothering Sunday? Why not call into the Lodge between 11am and 1pm as Josie will be running a FREE quick CRAFT SESSION, to decorate a star or cross that could be displayed on your loved one’s grave or taken home as a memory.
Another forward date for your diary. Please visit our events page and watch this site for more information. 2023 is a busy year for events in Brandwood End.
Bat walk
Friday May 19th
20:00pm- 22:00pm at the farm gate Bayston Road, Opp Kinsey Grove
Explore the night with Brum Bats and the Ranger Service on a Bat walk through Jasmin fields and along the canal to finish at Brandwood Pool.
All are welcome but you will need to bring a powerful torch and wear suitable outdoor clothing including sturdy footwear.
Under 18’s must be supervised
The Friends will be taking part in Heritage Open in September this year so keep the week 11-17th free.
We will be hosting Caring for God’s Acre and their Stories from the Stones on the 13th and then a Lichen specialist will be leading a walk on the 15th. Watch this site for additional events and booking instructions nearer the time.
Earlier this month the Friends of Brandwood End enjoyed working with Our Scene CIC on their latest project Bench to Bench, to promote ‘walking, laughing and sitting chatting in lovely our door settings in Brandwood. This project, which includes our neighbouring Friends at Dawberry Fields Park, is also aimed at recommending accessible walks for people with mobility issues.
The poster below invites the very people this is aimed at to come along and share their thoughts on what is needed to entice them to visit, sit and chat in these areas more often. The first meeting has taken place but Suze Carter is still keen to involve anyone with mobility issues to become involved in the designs. The next get together will be in the Lodge at a date to be arranged so watch this site and our Facebook page for more information.
The Cleaner Greener campaign week is a little while off, but in Brandwood End we started today at our scheduled quarterly litter pick. It was great to see so many familiar faces but we did welcome a few new ones today who swelled our numbers to 20 including 4 little people ! There were 23 bags collected, and yet again a lot of the litter was flower paper. This March Litter pick is always our last chance to seek out wind blown litter under shrubbery and tangled in brambles. Once everything starts to grow it is all lost till next winter. Thank you to everyone that came along. The Friends really appreciate your support.
Happy smiling faces! That’s what the outdoors does for your mental health.
The Moseley Society History Group present an illustrated talk:
Bomb Alley: the World War Two Blitz and Home Front in
Moseley, Balsall Heath and Kings Heath,
by local historians Ian Binnie, Peter Streets and David Vaux.
Tuesday 21st March 7.30pm
There will be two talks each lasting about an hour:
2.00pm at the Moseley Exchange (149-153 Alcester Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8JP).
This will be a live, illustrated talk. There will also be a display, produced by Matt Felkin, which
includes many unique photographs and documents about the Blitz in Birmingham and the local area.
There is no need to register in advance.
The talk will be repeated on Zoom.
The talk will include recent research done by the four historians but will also be based on the
mass of work done by many groups and individuals. If you have done research on this topic or have
personal knowledge join in the talks, either live or virtually and make a contribution.
To register for the Zoom talk email rkt16@btinternet.com . You will then receive the Zoom link a few
days before.
Winter is a quiet time in Brandwood End but the Friends have been working away in the background on a number of projects.
We are creating a number of ‘Trail sheets’ that will cover Heritage items, trees, interesting graves, fascinating memorials, quiet corners to rest and take in the wildlife and trees plus measured routes to stroll, with distances and surface types to encourage the less able to enjoy them as well.
The sheet below, kindly produced by committee member Lisa Fair, highlights some of the cemetery heritage- both historical and ecological.
Come along to our last Winter shrubbery removal session and help clear Holly and Ivy from the cemetery, so we can uncover graves that have been shrouded with greenery. This will be the last opportunity before nesting starts and all clearing stops. This is a joint event with The Friends and Bereavement Services.
Our sincere thanks for all the help we have received from members and supporters over the last year. We would not have been able to undertake many of the projects without your support, financially and physically.
This year has been wonderful with projects being supported by so many different sections of the community from Corporate groups to individuals. We have welcomed Josie Wall on board as a member of BCC, tasked with supporting Cemetery Friends Groups and much more ! Members of the public and staff from AVOVE have worked hard to remove large areas of Holly on graves and shrubbery in one section of the Cemetery, we have led walks , Josie has offered on line talks via Caring for Gods Acre and we have taken part in Heritage Open events.
Supporters have gardened, litter picked, provided planters and seeds, crocheted fantastic themed displays by the Lodge, spent hours recording memorial inscriptions, arranged to refurbish benches, searched for graves, supported our Remembrance Service, provided historical information and generally worked along side us to make 2022 a fantastically busy year. No let up yet as lots planned for 2023! Thank you all again but a special thank you to my Poppy Project team and the other organisations that have shared their research with us. Apologies if I have missed you out but I thought this list was worth recording.
Caring for God’s Acre, Balsall Heath History Society, Kings Heath History Group, Mat Felkin (BARRA), AVOVE, Severn Trent, Our Scene CIC (Brightening Brandwood), Ian Binni (Gallipoli Assn), Lukas (Natural History Museum) Josie Wall and Birmingham Bereavement Services Department…..and especially Tony and the Ground Staff Team and our Patrons.
Looking forward to 2023 and the exciting things we will be planning.
We were heartened to be joined by 13 supporters of FBEC in our final litter pick of 2022, especially when it would have been inviting to have stayed in the warm and dry! December days seem to be bright and sunny or dull and dank- today was the latter.
The total collection of 18 bags, again mainly windblown flower paper, took some finding under hedges and behind gravestones. It was noticeable today that there were many artificial flowers blown around the cemetery or redeployed and nibbled/pecked by squirrels and crows. Please do check your family graves, as we try to pop the newer flowers back on graves but have no idea where they have blown from so it could be that we have placed them on other graves nearby. Apologies, but they really do need to be secured against wind, Squirrel and Muntjac attack !
Thanks again to our volunteers.