ASHS News
Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers
Scottish Wood are members of ASHS, an independent cooperative of small companies, supplying Scottish grown hardwood timber, premium softwoods and timber products to the U.K marketplace. More info on ASHS can be found at www.ashs.co.uk.
Working Woods Scotland Course
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After a successful launch of the Working Woods Scotland Course in October 2021 and 2022, the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers (ASHS) are hosting the 3rd ever course of it’s kind in September 2023 on the Scottish Wood yard.
The course is set to run from Wednesday the 27th of September – Friday the 29th of September.
The course is run by the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers (ASHS) with support from Scottish Forestry and Scottish Forestry Trust.
To apply for this year's course please see: www.ashs.co.uk
Or email: coordinator@ashs.com
Applications close July 21st 2023
Beren Yeshua, Tiny Temple - Cabin builder and sawmiller
“The course was fascinating, and I met so many likeminded people who I hope to keep in touch with. Taking part has given me so much more confidence with setting up my own Sawmilling business.”
Gwen Raes, Woodland Trust - Estate ranger at Glen Finglas
“It’s been a tremendous experience, providing to be very educational and informative. Enjoying the company of a diverse, although kindred-spirited, group of participants who became like family whilst being taught by passionate and inspiring speakers.”
The first ever Working Woods Scotland course was run by the ‘Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers’ in 2021 at Scottish wood yard and was designed to bring together workers from across the Scottish hardwood industry (from woodland managers and foresters to sawmillers and furniture makers – with many variations in between!). Over the course of 3 days the trainees were put through their paces as they were taught about good silvicultural practices, how to grade logs and standing timber, how to process and dry hardwood timber, timber pricing and end use markets of processed hardwood. The course was a great success, thanks to amazing organisation by Nick Marshal, and the help of Kelly Morss who offered her years of experience running Woodland Heritages ‘From Woodland to Workshop’ course to help fine tune our delivery of WWS, and of course not to mention the amazing trainers: Gavin Munro, Rick Warrell and Jim Birley, plus guest presenters Neil Aitchison and Paul Hodgkiss.
Latest News
Storm Arwen Steering group
While we're sure everyone remembers the destruction caused by the swathe of storms over the last few months, ASHS (Association of Scottish hardwood Sawmillers) took an active role in the Storm Arwen steering group, at the behest of Prince Charles - the steering group has brought together members from across the UK and Forestry/hardwood sector to help come up with a solution to increase the market and utilisation of the large number of hardwoods - in particular Beech, which have come down in the storms.
Many of these trees will be left where they fell to rot or removed for Firewood - though many of these trees will yield beautiful, useable timber that has been growing for hundreds of years!
Current actions of the group includes guidance for land owners on how to make the most of their wind blown hardwoods as well as increase the links and awareness between timber suppliers and ASHS members, this includes the development of an ASHS 'Buy and Sell group' to help increase timber buying opportunities.
More info on dealing with storm blown hardwoods can be found at www.ashs.co.uk