Timber Festival 2024
Timber Festival was a weekend festival of celebration, debate and reflection in the National Forest - celebrating our relationship with trees and forests through music, art and ideas. In 2024 we partnered with event organisers Wild Rumpus CIC to curate an area of the festival supported by Patagonia.
Our goal was to bring the amazing energy and knowledge of our community into a beautiful outdoor festival setting in the National Forest. Providing the community with opportunities to amplify their work through participating in panels, running sessions and delivering workshops. We also worked with Climate Reframe and YHA England and Wales to support programme elements.
Across the weekend we:
Ran 28 sessions across 2 stages over 3 days.
Supported 34 community members to share their knowledge and expertise.
Welcomed nearly 700 audience members - and had to turn some away because of limited capacity.
Supported 22 community members with free or discounted tickets.
Paid over £7,000 back to our community through speaker fees and expenses.
Brought a new range of voices, topics and conversations to the festival programming.
Our vision for the area was to combine the sharing of lived experiences, skills and perspectives. Demonstrating new ways to engage and empowering ways to be in nature. Bringing together a dynamic range of voices, collaborative workshops and open conversations inviting festival goers to learn, share and see what’s available when you invite everyone in.
Driven by community insights our programme included speakers and facilitators with varied lived experience representing a range of outdoor activities, as well as a plethora of approaches to diversity in the UK outdoors.
Our Timber 2024 Speakers
Allie Mason (she/her)
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Allie Mason is an autistic author and microadventurer with her first book, The Autistic Guide to Adventure, published in 2023. She lives in the English countryside with her partner and their beloved Labrador.
Follow Allie on Instagram
Saturday 6th July - 10:00
Neurodiversity and Adventure
Andrew Wang (he/him)
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Andrew is a fell-runner, data scientist and activist based in the Scottish Borders and founder of ESEA Outdoors UK, a grassroots community tackling racism by celebrating the representation of East & Southeast Asian people in the outdoors, with community members across England, Scotland and Wales. Andrew is also a Trustee at National Trails UK, campaigning for access to nature for all.
Follow ESEA Outdoors on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 11:15
Using Community to Tackle Racism in the Outdoors: an ESEA Perspective
Ani Barber (she/her)
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Ani is a South Asian mixed race disabled outdoor enthusiast with Lupus, Fibromyalgia and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD).
After many years of being afraid to go outside because of her disability, she finally started hiking in 2019 to improve her quality of life. Since then she has been learning to adapt the way she goes outdoors to meet the limitations of her disability.
She has become an outdoor disability campaigner and is seeking to increase disability awareness, accessibility and inclusion in the outdoor sector.
Follow Ani on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 11:30
Disability Campaigners' SocialSunday 7th July - 16:30 Creative Forms of Activism
Becky Lyon (she/her)
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Becky Lyon is an English-Jamaican artist working at the intersection of art and ecology. Her practice dwells in the sticky places between sensing bodies, tactile processes & the touchy-feely, earthly curriculums, power relations, word-world building, softness & slippery edges as rebel strategies, concrete-ologies and ecology as a "sourcebook" for co-flourishing. She makes installations, rituals, objects and moving images. She is founder of Ground Provisions - an artist-led, schooled-by-the-forest for grown ups and the Squishy Sessions research collective. She has an MA Art & Science, MA Art & Ecology and BA Fashion. She is a volunteer London National Park City Ranger and side-hustles as a consultant and researcher for global brands.
Follow Becky on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 10:00
Bodying Belonging in Britain: Tactile Tactics for 'Finding Your Place'Sunday 7th July - 16:30 Creative Forms of Activism
Deon Barrett (he/him)
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Growing up I had a very conflicted childhood due to my identity causing deep depression and anxiety, this led to suicide attempts at an early age. Living in the urban outskirts of the South West of London and due to my surroundings, I found myself descending on the wrong path, leading to being embedded in the local gang culture. Luckily through my mother's passion to travel and bring me along, I was able to be exposed to new landscapes.
Acquiring academic education in school was not my forte in my early years, except for getting into trouble. Learning has always been a difficult endeavour for me, and this continues to be a challenge. After I was diagnosed with Dyslexia this enabled me to adopt an unorthodox approach to learning.Follow Deon on Instagram
Friday 5th July - 17:00
Dream Big: Adventures of Unlimited Scale
Emma Harrison (she/her)
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I am a disabled mountain leader and life coach. Following a spinal cord injury in 2015 I really struggled to return to the outdoors. I struggled to find support or other ambulatory disabled people in the outdoors, I soon realised this was a major issue. And alongside my own physical recovery, have made it my mission to support others returning to the outdoors at their own pace. My starting point was becoming a mountain leader which allows me to facilitate walks and training events. Simultaneously I offer coaching support which allows people to look at their values, and create a happy purposeful life after severe injury or illness. Spending time in nature is often a great catalyst.
Follow Emma on Instagram
Sunday 7th July -14:00
Leading The Way: The Future of Outdoor Leadership
Eva Outram (she/her)
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Hi I’m Eva, I'm a bushcraft obsessive, forager, wild swimmer, qualified outdoor instructor and founder of The Grim Adventure Club.
I started my career journey in the corporate world, unfulfilled and miserable. Then, in 2022 I was selected to take part in Channel 4's survival TV show Alone. Without any prior survival experience I had to survive in the wilderness of North-West Canada.
Returning home, I discovered a desire to share my experiences and newfound skill-set with others. Proud of my Northern roots, I wanted to showcase the stunning adventure opportunities in the UK's North, dispelling any notion that (as the saying goes) it's 'grim' up here. And so, The Grim Adventure Club was born.Follow Eva on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 12:45
Bushcraft for Connection: Wooden Mushroom Carving
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Francesca Turauskis is the Founder of Tremula Network, an audio-first podcast company focused on widening the perception of outdoors and adventure culture. She is passionate about audio as a way to connect to the outdoors and others, and runs The Outdoors Podcast Club and Tremula Festival.
She is a big advocate for active travel, which she was initially steered into by her epilepsy diagnosis. She has been known to walk and run silly distances across countries by herself…Follow Francesca on Instagram
Saturday 6th July - 10:15
The Podcast CircleSunday 7th July - 10:15
The Podcast CircleSunday 7th July - 16:30 Creative Forms of Activism
Francesca Turauskis (she/her)
Frit Tam (he/him)
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Frit Tam is a speaker, somatic healer and award-winning adventure documentary filmmaker whose films solely share stories from underrepresented communities in the outdoors. For the past 10 years, Frit has combined his imagination and creativity, and poured it into his film work. He is now exploring how imagination can support our activism work, specifically in access to the outdoors, and loves to ask questions that will tickle your brain and challenge what we’ve been conditioned to believe.
Follow Frit on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 11:15
Using Community to Tackle Racism in the Outdoors: an ESEA PerspectiveSunday 7th July - 14:15 Re-imagining the Outdoors
Genny Brown (she/her)
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I’m originally from the island of Aruba and have lived in the UK for 15 years.
I contracted Lyme Disease in 2013 whilst hiking on holiday in Turkey. It took 3 harrowing years of misdiagnosis and medical gaslighting before I was diagnosed and began receiving treatment.
During my recovery I became passionate about raising awareness on Lyme disease to ensure that diagnosis and treatment would become more affordable, timely and accessible in the UK.
My recovery has also inspired me to aim to become the first Aruban and first black woman to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole.
My hope is to inspire others to aim high, work hard, and never let themselves be defined by other people’s limiting beliefs.Follow Genny on Instagram.
Friday 5th July - 17:00 Dream Big: Adventures of Unlimited Scale
Hiranya De Alwis Jayasinghe (she/her)
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Hiranya is a singer, mother and adventurer. She was born to Sri Lankan parents in rural England. In 2018, she solo hiked the Welsh Coastal Path. Her experience of race post-Brexit broke down her sense of self, and of country. She moved from England, through Wales, to Scotland and back. She journeyed through grief to love; finding healing in the land. Her debut album, Frangipani and Daisy Chains, was released in June 2023. Part personal nostalgia, part history lesson; it contemplates belonging from the ground up - the plants that are rooted in her country’s landscape. The resultant pilgrimage, crisscrossing from England to the Commonwealth, and back; integrates her ancestral story into its broader political context.
Friday 5th July - 16:30 Songversations: Falling Back in Love with England Post-Brexit
Sunday 7th July - 14:00 Leading The Way: The Future of Outdoor Leadership
Ingrina Shieh (she/her)
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Ingrina (she/her) loves being active outdoors, whether it's running in parks or on trails, hiking, camping, and walking from point-to-point for many days. She is currently working towards a UK Mountain Leader Qualification and leads monthly group walks for London National Park City.
After going on some incredible treks around the UK and Europe, she founded Wayword Treks to promote diversity in and increase access to multi-day and thru-hiking. Through writing and sharing tales from the trails, she hopes to explore how people of colour can find healing, confidence, belonging, adventure, and community through long-distance hiking.
Follow Ingrina on Instagram.
Sunday 7th July - 11:15 Using Community to Tackle Racism in the Outdoors: an ESEA Perspective
Janice Tan (she/her)
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I grew up in Singapore and lived there until 2006 when I moved to Stockholm, Sweden and moved to London in 2015.
I started climbing in 1989 in Sg and have been enjoying it ever since. I have done quite a bit outdoor climbing in the UK and notice the lack of diversity. Fortunately in the last few years the diversity in the more accessible parts of the outdoors like hiking, has improved significantly. While more work needs to be done for trad climbing. Things can change, we just need to keep working at it.
Follow Janice on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 11:15
Using Community to Tackle Racism in the Outdoors: an ESEA Perspective
Jasmine Isa Qureshi (they/her)
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Jasmine Isa Qureshi (they/she), is a journalist (BBC Wildlife, Gaytimes, Metro, etc.), writer and marine/queer ecologist, working as a researcher previously for the BBC Natural History Unit, The Mindfulness Initiative on Climate Youth Resilience, and currently working with grassroots organisation WildCard as Communications Lead.
As a trans, desi, non-binary, and muslim woman, she finds that her need to intertwine her identity in her work is required for authenticity and creativity to thrive. As such, she is a published and spoken word poet, an Ambassador for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, an advisor for RSPB England, and a presenter, speaker, workshop facilitator and wildlife TV Researcher. She is currently working on her first book.Follow Jasmine on Instagram
Sunday 7th July - 15:15
Queer Ecologies
Jason Buck (he/him)
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Award-winning performance storyteller, bringing traditional stories to modern audiences of adults and families.
Follow Jason on Instagram
Friday 5th July - 18:30 Wild Tales: Stories from the Land
Saturday 6th July - 15:00 But Where are you Really From?
Joss McAuley (she/her)
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Along with my colleague Evelyn, I run Peace of Green CIC. Working across the East Midlands but based primarily in Leicester and Leicestershire, we offer outdoor wellbeing and nature connection with a unique blend of bushcraft, Forest School, mindfulness, campfire cooking, arts and craft, designed to improve mental health and wellbeing. Whilst everyone is welcome, our focus is on working with marginalised or disadvantaged groups of people of all ages. We work with local and national charities, community groups and service providers, as well as running our own, National Lottery funded Wellness in Nature programs.
Follow Joss on Instagram
Saturday 6th July - 14:00
Make Friends with Nettles!Saturday 6th July - 18:00 Nature Poetry Celebration
Lise Wortley (she/her)
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I'm an adventurer, writer and presenter on a mission to redefine what it means to be an explorer. I believe that the outdoor industry needs new representation right now, to show that everyone has a place in the outdoors, and that adventure is not just about conquering or winning, but about connecting to the natural world. My on-going project, Woman with Altitude, has received widespread media attention, and my writing has featured in outlets such as The Guardian and The Telegraph :)
Follow Lise on InstagramFriday 5th July - 17:00 Dream Big: Adventures of Unlimited Scale
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Mary-Ann is an anthropologist, archaeologist, broadcaster and proud member of the All the Elements network. She's passionate about helping more people from all backgrounds feel confident and welcome to explore the outdoors and get involved with heritage. Mary-Ann writes books, presents TV and radio, and live events.
Follow Mary-Ann on InstagramSaturday 6th July - 15:00
But Where are you Really From?
Mary-Ann Ochota(she/her)
Merle Ochota (she/her)
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Artist. A lover of life, nature, art and craft, my passion is for creating and upcycling. It excites me to use preloved fabrics &/or garments, and items to recreate something unique to use or to wear or for children to play with. My Indian heritage and life in beautiful Cheshire inspire my choice of colours and textures; imagination and skills gained through my life’s journey do the rest.
I’m currently running a Trash to Treasure after school club for a primary school. Utilising what would otherwise go into landfill, the pupils create utility and fun items. My desire is that seed of thought will take root in the youngsters through this experience. They will look at waste in a creative way so in the longer term, reduce waste.
Follow Merle on InstagramSaturday 6th July - 15:00
But Where are you Really From?
Nik Elvy (she/they)
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Nik is an outdoor teacher, outdoor cook, practicing artist and director of Curious School of the Wild CIC.
Nik has been described as a pracademic and has a research interest in the relationship between poverty and the outdoors. Folklore, folktales, food and nature are threads that run through their art practice. Nik belongs to the AuDHD community.
Saturday 6th July - 13:45 Go Outdoors on a Budget
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I’m a Creatrix with a practice which manifests through poetry, storytelling, image and the unfolding histories of black people. I engage audiences around black women’s voices and bodies, black feminism, ecology and memory, nature, grief and healing . I advocate for black women’s voices, facilitating national and international creative workshops and retreats in the landscape, encouraging and supporting women on their journey of remembrance back to their bodies and authentic selves.
Follow Sheree on InstagramSaturday 6th July - 17:30
Exploring Palimpsest: Layers of Life WorkshopSunday 7th July - 16:30 Creative Forms of Activism
Dr Sheree Mack (she/her)
Siddrah Aslam (she/her)
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I am the founder of ClimbMuz a group which supports Muslim Women and Women of Colour to access climbing in a safe and inclusive space. We support women from all walks of life to come and join our socials.
I am British Pakistani and I started climbing in my early twenties. I started my journey to work towards my Climbing Wall Instructor (CWI)
Follow Siddrah on InstagramSunday 7th July - 14:00
Leading The Way: The Future of Outdoor Leadership
Steph Wetherell (she/her)
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Steph Wetherell is an enthusiastic hiker with a passion for long distance paths. She is plus size, and a passionate campaigner working for plus size inclusivity in the outdoors,
co-founding Every Body Outdoors in 2022.Over the last few years, Steph has co-run a series of Hill Skills courses specifically for plus size people, as well as working with a number of brands and retailers on increasing and improving their range of clothing. Her favourite specialist subject is plus size outdoors clothing!
Follow Steph on Instagram
Saturday 6th July - 16:30
Plus Size Kit Try On
Stu Watson (they/them)
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Stu is director of 3 social enterprises converging on the fact: Nature is Neuroqueer.
In Ethical Activities CIC first year Stu worked with Allie on the Mountain Biking section of The Autistic Guide to Adventure. Running this social enterprise it became apparent that business support, services & training didn’t quite work for Neurodivergent & Queer entrepreneurs. Enter NeuDICE CIC & Queer Out Loud CIC. These organisations help people develop their own advocacy skills, get their needs met whilst embodying their whole identities, & work with other organisations wanting to make authentic change. Stu is also a trustee of Plymouth Octopus Project & a visiting lecturer on the Plymouth Marjon University outdoor adventure education degree.
Follow Stu on InstagramSaturday 6th July, 10:00 Neurodiversity and Adventure
Sunny Elvy (she/they)
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I am a youth leader for Curious School of the Wild, studying Outdoor Adventure and Environmental studies at Uni of Cumbria. I am also a youth ambassador for the DofE award and British Exploring Society.
I have grown up in a deprived area in a single parent family, and as a result faced lots of barriers to outdoor opportunities. Now as a leader and and participant in different outdoor worlds I advocate for access to those opportunities that I didn't have. I have Autism and ADHD.
Follow Sunny on InstagramSaturday 6th July - 13:45
Go Outdoors on a Budget
Suzanne Hill (she/her)
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I am a Hill and Moorland Leader, navigation tutor and have just completed my training as a wilderness therapeutic practitioner. I was drawn to outdoor leadership following a career in marketing and communications, after nature became central to my postnatal wellbeing. After being involved with outdoor communities for several years as a volunteer, my outdoor work now mainly consists of working with diverse community groups and charities, creating experiences tailored to their members' needs. I'm passionate about democratising access to nature and the creation of safe spaces. My outdoor work is balanced around freelance marketing work and two high-energy young boys!
Follow Suzanne on InstagramSaturday 6th July - 11:30 Introduction to Navigation
Sunday 7th July - 14:00 Leading The Way: The Future of Outdoor Leadership