Steve Bullman

Hot sun and dry weather welcomed a record 23000 visitors and 300 exhibitors to APF 2022 which took place on the 22-24th September at Ragley Estate, Alcester, Warks. Visitors flocked through the gates full of excitement and anticipation after the four year wait since APF 2018 caused by the pandemic. Exhibitors were delighted with the attendance and reported excellent sales with one saying they took over £3 million of orders over the three days. The new traffic management system worked perfectly and visitors commented on the ease of getting both in and out of the show, despite the record numbers. Over £80 million of machinery was on show during the event and much of it had ‘Sold’ stickers on it when it left. 850 local school children and their teachers, as well as groups of university students, were given guided tours to learn all about a modern working woodlands and forests and the possible exciting career opportunities that exist. Exhibition Secretary Ian Millward commented “We are absolutely delighted at how successful the show was. We have been deluged with emails and comments on social media from both visitors and exhibitors about how good the show was and how much people enjoyed it. It makes it all worthwhile. It is a huge credit to our team of staff and contractors, many of whom were new to the show, that they come together for the first time in 4 years and put on a show of this scale, complexity and quality. People cannot believe that the APF show has no full time employees, just a team passionate about the forest and arb industries. I would like to offer our thanks to all our sponsors who enabled to stage so many events and competitions” New features such as the UK open tree climbing and British Open fencing Championships attracted big crowds. The World Poleclimbing and European Chainsaw Carving Championships continued to be big crowd pleasers with one carving attracting a show record of £5500 at auction. Full competition results can be found in the Competition and Events page of the website Dates and location for APF 2024 are to be announced shortly For more information contact APF Exhibition Email: [email protected]. Tel: 01428 723545 Website www.apfexhibition.co.uk

To celebrate the company’s 75th anniversary, 50 employees from professional machinery and service provider, Lister Wilder pledged to cycle 55 miles by taking part in this year’s London to Brighton Cycle Ride. The event took place on the 11th September with over 4,000 participants taking part on the route that began in Clapham, London and finished at Brighton’s Madeira Drive. Lister Wilder set an ambitious target of £20,000.00 back in May 2022. With the event now finished the final total raised stands at £22,250.00 which was officially donated to LMRUK this last week. (pictured), with Service Director Neil Davis who chose the charity handing over the cheque. LMRUK invest in specialist research into stem cell therapies as a more effective treatment for blood cancer to help protect the next generation. The charity actively raises awareness of the signs and symptoms of blood cancer and encourages expectant parents to bank their newborn baby’s umbilical cord blood stem cells through its Model Cell Biobank service. “On behalf of everyone at the Charity I would like to say a huge thank you for the amazing amount that Lister Wilder have raised for us! Thank you to everyone who took part in the event, to those who supported them and those who donated, we can’t thank them enough.” “We would like to allocate the funds raised for one of our research grants. We fund researchers to advance their understanding of stem cells and how they can use them to treat blood cancer patients, particularly through stem cell transplants. All applications are assessed by the Research Review Committee to ensure that they are relevant to the Charities objectives, blood cancer and its treatment using stem cells. We would be honoured to call the grant, the Lister Wilder Research Grant.” Dr Joanna Tilley, Interim Operations Director “It’s been a real pleasure organising and taking part in this event” said Phill Hughes – Sales Director “We are delighted with the amount of money that we’ve raised for LMRUK, and are grateful to everyone that donated to us, both corporate and individually. To have a grant named after us is a real honour and made all the hard work and time that the team spent training for this even more worth-while.”