The February Project - Our employees giving their work time to give back.

At Aire Logic, we value the growth of our people as much as the company's success

In order to help with this growth we empower our employees to utilise company hours for their own development journey and we call this Aire Time.  

With Aire Time our employees get 12 days to utilise, whether it's learning a new language, exploring courses, or diving into personal projects, their growth matters to us!

Find out from Simon Whalley, one of our Data Architects, what he did with his Aire Time in January of this year with the National Trust.

Background

I actually got involved with the February project with the National Trust via my wife 11 years ago.  She went on their working holidays and one summer was asked by the leader if she would like to join his February Project where work would be carried out in a similar manner to their summer holidays. She has been coming on these weeks since 1999 and it has become an annual reunion of friends.

The February Project Work

England currently only has around 10% tree cover which is one of the lowest levels within Europe. With investment from National Trust, The Forestry Commission, and the Duchy of Cornwall, the aim is to increase these levels to 17% through tree planting initiatives over the next 10 years.

The work involved two key projects:

1. Completing a set of 17 tree baskets of one year old samplings in the Gunwalloe area next to Church Cove in Cornwall. These baskets were being created to increase the wildlife diversity of traditional arable land as part of an overall programme of reducing nitrate levels in the surrounding land.
2. Planting trees on the edge of the Penrose estate to join up two areas of existing woodland to improve the habitat and animal corridors. The trees planted here were more mature being around 2 to 3 years old.

The overall aim was to plant as many trees as possible within the available time. The trees consisted of a mixture of native species like, alder, oak, hazel, elm, hawthorn, and maple.

In completing project 1 and helping with project 2 we planted around 3000 trees in one week which was amazing.  

You might be thinking why The February Project in January?

Sadly, due to climate change the growing season is starting earlier in the year than say 10 years ago.  All tree planting or active work on the land has to be completed by the end of January now.  

Thank you for Aire Logic for giving me the opportunity to get involved with working with the National Trust and making a difference.