Friends of Eastwood Farm Newsletter No. 58

We love Eastwood Farm!

Remembering Jo Moore
We’re very sad to inform you that Jo Moore, our fantastic longstanding Chair, passed away on 9th July. This is our 58th Newsletter – sadly the first that is not from Jo. At the foot of each she wrote, Love and Care for your local nature reserve, and she certainly did, not just as a regular dog walker, but also as a force to maintain and improve it as a resource for the community. 
She was one of the founder members of this Friends group in 2015, going on to become Chair soon afterwards. The first major project of the Friends was to produce the 2016 Community Action Plan, arguing the need for a new playground on Eastwood Road. It was finally built in 2022 and has been a great success. 
She represented us in the Parks Forum and was awarded Volunteer of the Year in 2021 for her core role in improving Eastwood Farm for the community. As well as leading and inspiring our group, she also led walks around the Farm, as part of Walkfest, passing on her knowledge of the nature reserve and its history. Of course, she also passed on the day-to-day news of our group through the newsletter, using her light literary style to make it a pleasure to read for our more that 150 subscribers. 
Jo was a very gentle force at the heart of our group – thoughtful, caring and persevering. Through this she was key to creating the character of the Friends group, which we’re sure will remain both a positive force in the community and a wonderful group to be part of. 
We’ll all miss her greatly. 

Her funeral will be held on Monday 10th of August at 11:00 a.m. at St. Lukes Church Brislington. The invitation can be found here.

Eastwood Farm Calendar 2027 
Keep sending in your wonderful photos
2027 will be 6th edition of our calendar. Money raised from the sale of each calendar goes towards improving and enhancing the nature reserve, and also towards the cost of installing the new lower playground.
We have had some lovely photos entered so far but are always looking for that eye catching photograph. Yours could be the one!
The closing date has been extended to 15th August. You don’t have to be a professional photographer and entries from children are welcome. The guidelines are here.
Calendars will be on sale in October at £9 each.

Friends of Eastwood Farm AGM 2026
Please put 24th September in your diary for our AGM – 7:00 pm at Beeses. There will be a short formal part, reports of the year just passed, hopefully a speaker – to be confirmed –  and then drinks and snacks. It’s a great way for us all to spend a bit of time together and have a chat, though inevitably tempered by the sad absence of Jo.

Work Party News
This year, a lot of work has gone into Himalayan balsam and bramble control in the wildflower meadow. Over the last few months, we focussed on Beeses’ Meadow, which has been identified as an ecologically valuable site. Wandering through the now much-enlarged meadow you can see lots of different flowers, grasses, butterflies and other insects – and no balsam! This is thanks to a joint effort between the Council who removed the encroaching brambles (thanks Nicky Hodge and team), and the Balsam bashers, consisting of a corporate group and the tireless work by Friends of Eastwood Farm, including 3 Saturday and 3 evening sessions (approx. 90 hours – or about 3 weeks’ worth – of full-time Balsam bashing for 1 person😊).

Himalayan Balsam is an invasive species that would rapidly displace most other plants in our nature reserve, if left unchecked.

Upcoming FoEF- led events
Thu 13 Aug 2026: Green Drinks, 7:30 in the Langton. An opportunity to have a friendly informal chat and learn about climate-related issues and actions locally and beyond, as well as any other topics (every 2nd Thursday in the month).
Sat 22 Aug 2026: Jo Moore memorial walk, we’ll meet at 11am by the playground and retrace the last walk that Jo led through Eastwood Farm as part of the Walk Fest, earlier this year. This gives us time to reflect on Jo’s wonderful contribution to Eastwood Farm, our Neighbourhood and to all our lives. We conclude the walk at Beeses, a place also much cherished by Jo. 
Sat 5 Sept 2026: FoEF workparty, 10am. Work programme to be confirmed.
Thu 10 Sept 2026: Green Drinks, 7.30 in the Langton. 
Tue 24 Sept 2026: FoEF Annual General Meeting (AGM), 7:00pm at Beeses.
Sept/Oct 2026: Bat walk, details to be confirmed.

Social Media Update
Our Facebook and Instagram presence continues to grow, helping us reach thousands of local people beyond our existing membership and bring in new volunteers sharing our passions for Eastwood Farm. We are truly blessed with rich material to work with – the wildlife, nature, volunteering and community activity at Eastwood Farm always giving us lots of content to share. We will always be grateful to our late Chair Jo for all that she did to promote and grow our presence on Facebook over the years.

Highlights from recent months include a post on fire risk following the small fire at Eastwood Farm which reached 10,000 views across Facebook, our sound of Himalayan balsam snapping video which got 3,000 views on Facebook and 1,100 on Instagram, and a Great Big Green Week celebration video posted collaboratively with four other local organisations. We have also taken advantage of all the beautiful butterflies at Eastwood Farm to put out a series of posts dedicated to our butterflies, also helping to promote our annual calendar competition.
Thank you to our volunteers Courtney and Karn who manage our social media, and everyone who contributes photos, shares our posts and engages with our content — every like and share helps us reach more people and raise awareness of this special place. 💚 Some examples of our videos:
How was Big Green Week?
Meet the locals
Help record nature

The above image was a poster for the July workparty. If you’re not already following us we’d love to see you there:
📘 Facebook: @friendsofeastwoodfarmbristol
📸 Instagram: @eastwoodfarmbristol

Eastwood Road lower play area update

I’m afraid there has been no progress from the council and no indication of a time plan. We’re doing our best to get it moving.

St Anne’s and Broomhill Great Big Green Week 2026
From Balsam bashing to bio-blitzing, from green art exploration to seedling swapping, from a young people’s meet-up to Green Drinks, and from a book talk to solstice celebrations, we indulged in all that is green in our neighbourhood. The June 2026 event was the 5^th GBGW co-ordinated by FoEF together with Bricks (St Anne’s House), Friends of Brislington Brook, Friends of St Anne’s Park, Woodcroft Community Orchard and the BS4 Art Trail.

Hundreds of local people and families engaged in 18 in-person events and one app-based Wildlife Survey (i-Naturalist). We came together to bring the Brislington Climate Action Plan to life through meeting up, connecting local communities and together work towards a greener and fairer future. Thanks to everyone who contributed and participated! We formed part of 1.6 million people who took part in over 10,000 events UK-wide.
The next Green Week will be 5 – 13 June 2027.

National Plant Monitoring Scheme
Eastwood farm are working with Bristol City Council to implement the National Plant Monitoring Scheme at Eastwood Farm Nature Reserve.
This is an exciting opportunity to get involved with a new local scheme, which will collect valuable information on the wildlife found in Bristol’s parks and green spaces. This will help us to learn more about the distribution of different plant species, monitor the condition of habitats, and guide suitable management practices.
Data collected over several years could also contribute to the Bristol Wildlife Index; this is a statistical tool being produced to monitor changes in biodiversity in Bristol over time and is one of the actions of the One City Ecological Emergency Strategy.
More information will follow. If you are interested in getting involved, please drop us an email or join our WhatsApp group. 

Recording local wildlife
Another initiative  to better understand bio-diversity on our local patches is the Eastwood Farm i-Naturalist project. Please help us record species around Eastwood Farm whenever you’re out and about in our nature reserve. Together, we can monitor and learn more about the rich diversity, so we can better protect it. Are you one of the 85 observers who recorded species in Eastwood Farm Nature Reserve? A snapshot on 23 July 2026 shows that Susie is the clear leader of this project. Can anyone top her 105 observations, including 77 species? 

I-Naturalist is a global, free, nonprofit, community-powered science project. To record a species download the app on your phone from https://www.inaturalist.org and start recording. To see what has been sighted in Eastwood Farm Nature Reserve click here . Ask at one of our work parties if you need help setting this up.

Summer Days

When the sun is blazing
And the heat is oppressive
Sweat is trickling down your back
The cool shade of a tree is like heaven
Better with friends, on a blanket, sharing a picnic

The ground maybe hard and cracked
But the sound of laughing and joy rings out
Make sure to absorb this moment
Winter dark months will be here shortly

Catch every memory
Lock it away tight
Be open to this marvellous world around you

Big as the endless sky
Small as the ant eating your apple
Nature is a balm
And is there for us always

Sam Slade