Woodland Heritage is delighted to announce that Life Member, Tabitha Binding, has agreed to become a Trustee, attending her first meeting in March.
Tabitha’s background is in softwoods, with 20 years’ experience in garden furniture manufacture, from forest through to trade customer.
When she started a job with Coed Cymru, the Welsh woodland charity, as a Supply-Chain Manager for their EU and Welsh Government-funded project, ‘Improving the supply chain for low value Welsh timber’, she always felt that her hardwood knowledge was lacking.
“Thankfully, I came across Woodland Heritage’s ‘From Woodland to Workshop’ course by chance when I was following up an enquiry and visited the Whitney Sawmill website”, said Tabitha. “I was fortunate to be offered a place on the May 2012 course and encouraged to take up the offer by Coed Cymru director, David Jenkins. This encouragement was astutely judged, as I was so pleased and surprised to be selected as the Prince of Wales Award winner for being the top student on the ‘W2W’ courses in 2012.”
Tabitha remained in touch with Woodland Heritage after moving from Coed Cymru to a new post at Wood Knowledge Wales; most recently Tabitha has joined TRADA, taking over the University Engagement role in early 2018.
Tabitha said of her role at TRADA:
“I have so far found that, apart from a few pockets of real knowledge, timber is hardly taught at all. Most students in architecture and engineering now leave higher education having never visited a forest or sawmill, having never handled a piece of timber – let alone understanding the difference between a hardwood and a softwood.
TRADA aims to address this lack of knowledge by working closely with the timber industry and professional partners, building on and expanding its current engagement with both lecturers and students.”
During the coming year Tabitha is keen to explore other engagement activities and avenues, forging beneficial links between forestry organisations and academia. If you would like to get involved or have any suggestions, please contact her at tbinding@trada.co.uk.