Dear Friends,

This is a special time of year to sit back and reflect on the past 12 months and to look forward to the New Year with all its promise.

If we didn’t have beginnings and endings such as the calendar month, things would just plod along with the danger of becoming stale without the prospect of renewal.

We can therefore be grateful to the many civilisations such as the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks and others who developed calendars based on natural cycles such as complex luni-solar systems that aligned seasons and celestial events to create this counting of months.

For the team at the Foundation this break is well deserved. It has been a hectic year – with very hard work hidden behind the outputs and achievements of record numbers of beneficiaries of both education and therapy services, the developing nature of our wonderful 92-acre Mann Wood, and the changes we see in both nature and people that surround us.

We have helped many people in crisis with thousands of hours of therapy outdoors, introduced new people to talks on nature and Bird Ringing with the BTO, delivered a myriad of environmental school visits and special needs programmes, supported those that have struggled to attend school or manage family stress through our Out There Academy, graduated women and children survivors of domestic abuse through our Blossom Programme, and celebrated the changes of our TurnAround young people who gave speeches at their graduation about the changes they have made in their time with us over 9 months – leaving no dry eye in the room.

The break enables us as an organisation to reflect on 2025, what we have done well and what we need to improve on, and what we need to be ready for in 2026. The hard work is going to be securing funding as we believe that the economic climate, reorganisation of local government, and other pressures will make this even harder than before.

However, we are excited that next year is our WF 50th anniversary and we want to really use this moment to showcase our work, our history and future potential.

We are planning a wilderness symposium in the Autumn in Essex to bring together speakers and delegates interested in the world of wilderness and wild land protection, the coming together of human and nature wellbeing, and the overwhelmingly positive impact of nature on mental health. We will highlight the value of how we are committed to protect ourselves and each other, alongside all that is wild and natural.

The symposium will form a part of the Chelmsford Science Week at Anglia Ruskin University which offers a way of growing awareness even further.

We aim to invite our local, national and international friends and key speakers to help us think about these critical issues in wide context. We have so much to learn from each other – especially in taking up a more systemic and holistic view of how we care for one earth and each other – together.

Locally we will be running 50 events, big and small, that everyone can engage in such as locally based forest walks, yoga in the woods, butterfly walks (and many others); and also planning a 50 of something fundraising national campaign that will include 50 miles of running, walking, cycling, swimming – but also baking for example 50 loaves of bread – over the year. etc.

Please do share any other ideas with us and keep an eye out for our notifications of how you can be involved.

We are continuing our search for a new CEO and in the meantime, I continue to stay in post – always happily as I would like us to find the right pair of hands to pass the baton on to. The role is on our website and in our social channels and please do forward to others who you think may be suitable. The closing date for this round will be 1 February. Please find the advert here – https://oxfordhr.com/jobs/wf-chief-executive-officer/

The search has certainly highlighted how much we really do – and how the threads of education, conservation and mental health are woven together in a unique style to give us the depth and effect we have.

I plan at this stage (subject to the CEO) to stay on running the wilderness/outdoor therapy service alongside Angely, Jodie, Elaine and our ever-growing suite of associate therapists, and therapeutic outdoor facilitators. That fills me with huge optimism as I will hopefully have more time to deliver the services I love, continue supervision and teaching, and help grow this work and support the team better.

Whilst there is much to say on the Foundation’s activity – there must be room to talk about the state of wild nature and our role in doing the best we can to protect it. The world, whatever political persuasion one comes from, is at risk as economies stretch too far and decline, and human populations expand, whilst space for nature contracts. I long for the time when nature is seen as the most important resource and everything else has to align with that, rather than the other way around.

Without healthy, functioning, biodiverse spaces, mitigations for climate change and rich ecosystems we as humans have no home to live in. Somehow, we need to keep sharing the message through our social media outreach and our large education activity – but much modern political planning and rhetoric ignores this – to all our peril.

On a positive note, I will end with this lovely meditation of Satish Kumar of the Schumacher College, to dwell on during this time of reflection (after the Christmas rush) that talks of belonging and connection to earth, each other and life itself.

The whole Cosmos is our country
The whole planet Earth is our home
The whole humanity is our family
Nature is our nationality
Love is our religion
We’re rooted in our community and the
Place to which we belong.

(Thanks to Chiara and Hugh – systemic therapists- for sharing this)

As we look backwards and forwards – perhaps these words can stay with us as a way of being, as we enter and live through the new year of 2026.

In the Foundation, we will be supporting this message over the years to come as we think about nature and ourselves as a collective, and celebrate the beauty, awe and wonder that wild nature provides, and give gratitude for giving us a home.

Wishing you all the best spiritual break, Christmas, or other times for family and reflection in your religions.

Thank you for your continued support – we cannot do it without you all as founders, supporters, volunteers, trustees, staff – and of course friends.

Jo and the wilderness team.