As we approach the 4^th anniversary of the Friends group, we look forward to becoming a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) and preparing a National Lottery bid to enable us to expand our efforts to make the reservoirs more accessible to a broader range of people, building on last year’s successful Wellies in the Woods programme.

Over the past months we’ve continued working with Welsh Water to provide a range of volunteering opportunities while progressing with the Digital Memories project, guided walks and the Guide in our Hide initiative.

Please visit our website: friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org for more information about the group. For information about the attractions at the reservoirs and how to book onto activities, please visit the lisvane-llanishen.com site.

Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO)

Following approval at last July’s Annual General Meeting, the Friends Committee has submitted an application to the Charity Commission to become a CIO. This will enable us to bid for more grants, claim Gift Aid, have cheaper banking etc. CIO status will bring a new constitution which adheres to a standard Charity Commission template.

The Friends Committee will be replaced by a group of Trustees. Four of the existing Committee have agreed to become Trustees initially. Once the CIO is established, there will be elections for all Trustee posts. We are looking for more trustees to join us to help get us started – so please let Fiona Liddell (secretary@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org) know if you would be interested in joining the initial group of Trustees.

National Lottery bid

Once the CIO arrangements are in place, we plan to submit a bid to The National Lottery Community Fund’s “People and Places” programme. This bid will seek funds to develop a pilot programme aiming to extend the benefits of the reservoirs to the wider Cardiff community. The donation from the Reservoir Action Group would also be used to support the programme.

The Friends group would lead the Lottery bid and we have had some initial discussions with potential partners such as Welsh Water and Action in Caerau and Ely. We would also seek to extend the Wellies in the Woods initiative where we worked with Groundwork, Oasis and the Welsh Refugee Council. We would welcome help from any members who would like to contribute to this initiative. 

Digital memories

The project to capture digital memories of the reservoirs is being developed in partnership with Welsh Water, Digital Communities Wales and Peoples Collection  Wales (PCW). The material collected from our initial pilot collection day in November is now on the PCW website ( https:/www.peoplescollection.wales ). We held a further collection event March and gathered more fascinating insights into the reservoirs’ history among the community. If you are interested, there are several opportunities to volunteer to help with this project. If you would like to volunteer or share your memories please get in touch by emailing memories@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org.   

Volunteering opportunities

With Welsh Water, we have continued to offer a wide variety of practical activities that help to manage the woodland areas as well as develop new opportunities.

Recently we have developed a new “Guide in our Hide” role to help visitors appreciate the bird life on site. We have also offered more Guided Walks, including those we have led along with a volunteer from Sight Life Wales, concentrating of the great variety of birdsong heard in the woodlands.

Volunteers have also act as site ambassadors, raked grass, set trail cameras, cleared paths and brambles and helped with numerous other activities. Since the Friends group was set up in 2021, over 4,700 hours of volunteering time has been recorded by members.

We now have around 330 on our mailing list, including close to 200 on the Volunteer Management System. However we have recorded only 77 have paid subscriptions for 2025, allowing full participation in activities, so would be grateful if members could check if theirs are up-to-date. We plan to continue with the same level of subscriptions for 2025.

We are grateful to Welsh Water for organising two “Thank you” events in January and during Volunteering Week in June. Focus groups with the Rangers have also proved valuable in developing new opportunities and improving the site for visitors. In June representatives of the Friends Committee were also invited to a visit by the Welsh Government’s Deputy First Minister Huw Irranca-Davies to talk about the work of our volunteers. 

We continue to schedule regular drop-in sessions in the Visitor Centre café from 10am to 12 noon on the last Saturday of each month. These sessions allow members to drop by and chat and for people to find out more about the Friends group and the volunteering opportunities offered.

Details of how to join the Friends group are on the Membership section of our website and costs just £5 per year (or £10 for a household).

We try to email members about all volunteering opportunities on a regular basis. These opportunities all appear on the volunteer management system (Team Kinetic). The best way to book onto these opportunities is by logging on to the system (Login Page (teamkinetic.co.uk).

Please email membership@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org if you wish to enrol on Team Kinetic for the first time.

If you have any difficulties with Team Kinetic, Richard, our IT support, is happy to help (email: ITsupport@friendsofcardiffreservoirs.org ).