Welcome to our third newsletter of the year!

    Our major activity for March is our Walk for the Woods fundraising event on Saturday, 17^th March, starting any time between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. We will be walking the distance between Warley Woods and Tipperary. It is indeed a long way—80 miles. The more people that you can get to sponsor you, the more money we can raise to help look after our beautiful woodland. More information is available on our website.

    The Sunday volunteers planted two beeches and an oak last week. This was thanks to the money from the Big Tree Plant and to Lisa and Gordon Whitaker, whose friends gave money for the big trees instead of for their wedding presents. Thanks to everyone who took part.

    There were 15 volunteers at the Oral History Training Day which was led very ably by Julia Letts. The group will be meeting again and will start to interview the local people who have offered to tell their stories. We are happy to hear from others who would like to be interviewed about their memories of the Woods for the project. If you or anyone you know is interested, please call Viv Cole at the office. This project is financed by Heritage Lottery Fund.

    There was a huge response to the Forest Schools activities held at half term. These will be held again during the Easter holidays on the following dates: 4^th April from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for over 8s. On 12^th April from 10 a. m. to 12 noon, there will be a Teddy Bears' Picnic for the under 8s. All these must be booked in advance.

    Finally, don't forget the Easter Egg Roll on Bank Holiday, 9^th April, starting at 11 a.m. Bring your own hard-boiled and decorated egg to roll down the hill in the woods. The first past the finishing line will win a large chocolate egg! This year, due to popular demand, there will also be an Adults' Easter Egg Roll following the children's competition.

    We look forward to seeing you all soon, at one of our many events!

    During his first week as a new Atlanta police officer, Officer Che Milton answered a call for shoplift at the nearby Family Dollar store. When he arrived, Milton found a 12-year-old girl in tears over trying to steal a $2 pair of shoes. Crying, she told Milton that the shoes were supposed to surprise her 5-year-old sister.

    Milton, instead of arresting the girl, asked her to take him to her home instead. When he arrived, Milton's heart sank. He found a house nearly empty, with only a sofa and sheets on the floor instead of beds. There was no food in the kitchen and the kids were there. The girl's mother told the officer that her husband worked but didn't make much money and that she couldn't afford to do the same with several children to take care of and no daycare money to spare.

    Moved, the officer drove to a restaurant and bought four pizzas for them and he called the Division of Family and Children Services and asked if there was a social worker who could help.

    When the police department found out about Milton's trips, instead of punishing him, the department decided to share his story on Facebook and added that “not only is he here to enforce(实施) the law but also to go the extra mile and be a bigger part of the community he is policing.”

    Hundreds of citizens liked the post, asking how they could help. The department followed with posts including the six children's sizes and mother's clothing sizes. It also called for blanket and furniture donations. Visit the posts to learn how you can help and find more useful ways to donate your old things.

    For twenty years, I saved all my college course notes and textbooks: that's a lot of paper.  Worse, it wasn't easy to carry them around—and trust me, they weren't light — on at least seven moves. Yet I never once looked at them. They sat in our basement, covered in a thick layer of dust. If books and papers could wonder, they'd wonder why they were still under our stairs after all those years. What were my plans for them? When would the Big Day come?

    Well, the Big Day eventually did arrive; only it was different than expected. My wife, always more accepting changes than I am, finally convinced me to clear out the entire mess.

    The pain I experienced was also unexpected. I didn't feel nostalgia(怀旧的), or suffer pains for long-lost magical moments of my education. No, what hurt me was to come across those terrible papers I'd written, reminders of poor study habits, immaturity(不成熟), and an embarrassing lack of comprehension. It was great to get rid of them. I won't have to carry those dusty, filthy(脏兮兮的) things on our next move. But it was also a clearing of personal history. Initially, I struggled with this. My books, my notes, and my papers were primary source materials, documenting an important time in my life. To clear them out was to clear out the truth. What I've learned since taking this leap is that the lesson is more important than the truth. I feel as if much of my real education during my college years isn't in the documents but now in me. So I am glad to free myself of this physical burden of carrying them around. And what's better is that I don't need to look back on those painful moments. They belong to the past.

    You might want to consider doing something similar, either under the stairs of your basement or in your mind. Not so long ago, a very smart person created a new holiday—Discardia!—to be celebrated four times a year. It's a great idea, and every time I clear things out, I feel better physically and psychologically. Discardia's slogan is “Let go of everything that doesn't make your life awesome!” What is the personal rubbish piling in your life? Clear it out and make your life awesome.

    Of the several films Hirokazu has made about childhood and children, this one is the most modest, but no less pleasing for its delicate style and small setting. I Wish was originally called Miracle, and the change is for the better. The two-word title makes you want to know who's wishing for what, while the single word sounds plain and self-praising. This wise and funny film works small miracles in describing such a moment when kids turn from the wishfulness of childhood into shaping the world for themselves.

    The sweetly reflective hero, a sixth-grader named Koichi, starts out by wishing for a volcano to erupt. Not just any volcano, but the one that towers above his town, smoking heavily and giving off ash. An eruption would lead to a withdrawing, which would lead, at least in his mind, to a reunion with his father and kid brother, who've been living in Hakata while Koichi lives with his mother and retired grandparents in Kagoshima. The volcano, knowing nothing of this, refuses to erupt, but Koichi hears of another approach to realizing the desired miracle.

    One of the pleasures of I Wish is watching how kids behave—how Koichi attacks his dinner, for example. Another pleasure is rediscovering how kids think. These kids can be logical and ever so tricky. But children's thought processes can also be fancy. A boy wishes he could play baseball like one of baseball stars, who eats curry for breakfast; so he, too, starts eating curry for breakfast, instead of practicing on the field. Another boy tries to wish his dead dog, Marble, back to life. And what does Koichi finally wish for? I wish you'd see this delightful film to find out.

For hundreds of years, Africans have preserved their history through storytelling. But some Africans worry that oral traditions will be lost to the Internet connections and social media.

This has led a Nigerian woman named Elizabeth Kperrun to create a mobile phone application as a way to preserve African folk stories. She calls her mobile app AfroTalez, which tells children's stories that teach moral lessons.

"We can't teach kids something by telling them, 'Don't do this'. I think kids need context to understand. In a story somebody stole something and then something bad happened to them. Alternatively, somebody else did something good and they ended up happy or rich."

"Hello children. My name is Liz and I'd like to tell you a story about tortoises, elephants, and ..." The voice of "Aunt Liz" narrates the story, while a full-screen animation appears. An arrow signals when it's time to move on. There are also quizzes on object recognition and counting throughout.

Kperrun asks her older relatives to help her collect stories for the application. The stories come from an ethnic group living in southeast Nigeria and northwest Cameroon. "I want to keep it centered on folk stories, not the ones that Walt Disney has made really popular... It's fair and respectful to keep certain cultures alive because folk stories are part of the tapestry that keeps cultures together." Kperrun once said.

Kperrun writes and reads the stories. Her business partner and husband Idamiebi Ilamina-Eremie does the animation (动画).

AfroTalez is available for Android users and can be downloaded for free. So far, AfroTalez has more than 50,000 users. Funding for the app has been a major challenge. Kperrun hopes to use a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the next version of AfroTalez to be released soon.

Kperrun believes technology doesn't have to destroy or replace traditions. Her goal is to combine them to keep African culture alive. She says "Africa is our home, but we are so eager to become Western that we are forgetting things that are really important and should be passed on of who we are, and I don't think that's right."