Celebrating 400 members on Facebook

We reached a great milestone this week - reaching 400 members of our Facebook group which we started just 3 months ago. The OVA committee would like to thank everyone for showing the interest in joining and to all of you who have been contributing with posts, comments and likes. Thankyou.

The OVA is a small volunteer-led charity that has a clear charter to promote and conserve the environment, landscape and history of our Valley  We run a variety of different projects that we believe contribute to the wellbeing of our area and are always on the lookout for additional help and volunteers. For example:

• we continue to work with Clinton Devon Estates on the LORP project (having been on the steering committee from when the work started over 10 years ago).
   
• we partner with various other groups such as Pebblebed Heaths, Fairlynch Museum, East Devon National Landscapes (previously East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), Devon County Council, Civic Society, Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) and others.
   
• we review planning applications across the region.
   
• we monitor water quality levels in the Otter
   
• we are working with the local schools on providing bird boxes for children’s awareness and understanding.
   
• we organise walks and talks.
   
• we are looking to continue our historical litter-picks with other groups, and assist with the Himalayan Balsam eradication campaign.
   
• we have published, and plan to further publish, a number of booklets and leaflets outlaying aspects of the area.
   
• we will be running a member-event in the Spring (and will plan more beyond) to showcase our work and enable our members to meet.
   
• we publish quarterly newsletters with sourced articles from experts across the region
   
• we maintain historical records of the area through the digital archive called OVApedia (accessible to anyone via our web).

Volunteers

In today's post-Covid world we, as all charities, are looking for more volunteers. If you are interested then please contact us via the contact form on this website. If you can spare any time, we would be delighted to hear from you - we need people to help arrange events, organise our schedule of talks and even help publish new materials on OVApedia. There is plenty to do!

Membership

We ask our members for an annual contribution of £10 (per individual) or £15 (per household). This helps us fund our programs and organise our activities. If you are not a member of the OVA, please do consider joining - you can do so online via 'Join' on this website. Only members receive our printed newsletter through their letter-boxes.

Thank you everyone for your interest and your participation and your engagement. Here's to the next 400 members.

Chris Boorman