It can be compared to Scouts and Guides in some ways, I suppose, but it is built on thoroughly Green values. It is a movement for children and young people, open to everyone from birth to adult. It offers a place where children will grow in confidence, learn about the world and start to understand how to value our planet and each other. At Woodcraft Folk they believe passionately in equality and co-operation everyone is welcome to join their groups.

Every week thousands of volunteers and young people meet in school halls, community venues and a host of other places to learn about big ideas through fun activities like singing, playing and debating.

The aim is to have great fun, but also to try and develop childrens self-confidence and build their awareness of society around them.

Through the activities, outings and camps they help the members understand important issues like the environment, world debt and global conflict and, in recent years, they have increasingly focused on sustainable development.

By encouraging children to think, they hope they will help build a peaceful, fairer world.

See what I mean about thoroughly Green values? Find out more here: http://www.woodcraft.org.uk/

Currently, the nearest groups are in the Cardiff/Penarth area ( http://www.woodcraft.org.uk/where/district/27376 ), but I would certainly love to see it branch out in our direction. Any takers?

Even the camp concept has strong socialist values and sustainability at its core. Its big camp event is called Co-camp. I believe it is partially sponsored by the Co-operative movement. Find out more here: http://www.woodcraft.org.uk/cocamp-2011 . The video on this page was produced by Phin Harper, a fine young man who has been brought up with the movement and now studies at Cardiff University. Delyth and I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with him at Conference in February. He is an excellent ambassador for the movement.

This posting will disappear down the blog as as time goes by, but to keep details readily to hand I have added their homepage to the Networks list in the column to the right.

Let me know if you have any questions. If I don’t know the answers, I know a young man who does!