OUR MAN DAN ON THE GROUND!
Since joining us back in October last year, Dan has been a great addition to the TreeStation Team – helping out round the office, doing some market research and taking on some of the Social Media we run (check out our new Instagram!) to keep you lovely lot up to date with what’s going on here!
We kindly asked him if he’d like to write a little something for our Newsletter, as he’s now got a good grasp on how things work here and what’s going on day-to-day… and he didn’t disappoint.
“Spring 2016 @ TreeStation – by Daniel Winter”
Spring is finally here at TreeStation, bringing warmer weather and lighter evenings and in our West Gorton timber yard the customary noise of our hard-working machinery has been accompanied by the sounds of birds nesting in the local area, delivering a stark reminder of one of the potential problems we may encounter in our impending tree work.
In the first months of 2016, we’ve been incredibly busy on several large tree work projects in and around the Greater Manchester area, from Gorsey Bank in Stockport to tree work at Manchester Airport – as well as the normality of conducting our usual domestic tree work and timber and firewood deliveries. We’ve also recently been out quoting jobs for the likes of Old Trafford Cricket Ground and Manchester Cathedral – these will surely only help expand TreeStation’s profile and add to our loyal customer base, as well as hopefully providing a high-profile showcase to our dedication to a sustainable arboriculture industry.
At the end of March we had Tony in the yard with his milling machine again, topping up our stock of larch sleepers (we’d almost run out and had some big orders for raised bed projects) amongst other things. It’s enjoyable to watch him at work (albeit rather noisy!) and to see the process of creating our timber products first hand, with the time and care that Tony puts into all the pieces. We had a few bespoke requests by one of our regular customers for some half-sawn larch logs that will be used in a School playground – it’s always nice to know that our wood is getting used for fun & creative projects that will hopefully inspire children to learn about their natural environment.
One of the more pleasing aspects of working at our timber yard is discovering our customer’s plans for the timber they’ve bought. So far in 2016, we’ve had people creating anything from bespoke tables, to kitchen units and art sculptures. A highlight was selling two particularly nice sanded sycamore rounds for use as cake stands for a young couple’s wedding. They were highly characterful and really emphasised the qualities contained in the grain.
Thanks to the ever changing Manchester climate (snow – sunshine – rain – hail – more rain), I’ve had a superb opportunity to photograph our yard and it’s timber stockpiles. We now have a variety of seasonal photographs for our website and social media outlets, which are great for showing everything we do here.
Unfortunately, we had some issues with the kiln at the start of the New Year, as those of you who are regular buyers of our firewood will be all too aware. This limited our supply significantly for a short period of time. Luckily, the problems coincided with an increase in temperatures, during which demand was low, so it didn’t create too many problems for our staff or our customers. Currently everything is running smoothly again at the time of writing & we’re getting stocks back up ready for next Winter!
As some of you may know from our member’s meetings, we are exploring the possibility of expanding our product range into interior timber and architectural mouldings. After conducting some market research into this, it’s obvious that there is a market for both bespoke and locally traced items that are either rare or nonexistent in the current interior timber and architectural mouldings market. Most of the large scale store supplies of these are generic Scandinavian timber or simply can’t be traced back to their source, and we can challenge this which is something that is clear consumers crave. I’m sure that this would be a welcome innovation to our business and would open up further revenue streams. We’ll keep you posted about our plans!
Finally, thanks again from all the staff here for your loyal and continued support and here’s hoping that 2016 will be our most successful year yet at TreeStation!