Welcome to West Dunbartonshire OWL Group

We are a small team of volunteers who work within West Dunbartonshire and the surrounding areas, and we want to help connect everyone working to get groups outside locally to share ideas and experiences. We’re in the process of trying to relaunch the group as it only got going just before the pandemic and then fizzled out a little because everything was restricted and people’s circumstances changed.

As we try and get things going again please be patient with us.

For the time being we are keeping people up to date via our Facebook page and the occasional email to those that have completed the membership sign up form and confirmed we can keep their details on file (see more information below).

Your temporary committee is:
Chair: Caroline McNair
Treasurer: Mary-Anne Collis (MAC)
Secretary: Lindsay Theobold

Membership to the group (free) is open to practitioners, teachers, early years practitioners and organisations who deliver Outdoor Learning in and around West Dunbartonshire. Becoming a member will give you access to courses, skill sharing events (to both learn from and share knowledge with others) and network events to improve your skills and confidence in working outside with your groups. It will also give you access to borrow equipment that we have.

We are actively looking for more members. If you are interested in joining you can get in touch through our contact details below and/or join us on our Facebook page.

You can sign up as a member here: WD OWL membership sign up form

Events

Birding Basics

January 18 @ 9:30 am - 11:00 am

Balloch Castle Country Park
Family Halloween Networking Session

November 1, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Balloch Castle Country Park
Family Halloween Networking Session

October 29, 2025 @ 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm

Balloch Castle Country Park
Halloween & The Lost Words

October 23, 2025 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Balloch Castle Country Park
Halloween & The Lost Words

October 18, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Balloch Castle Country Park
Amphibians, reptiles and pond dipping workshop

October 5, 2025 @ 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

Balloch Castle Country Park
The Lost Words

June 22, 2025 @ 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

Balloch Castle Country Park
Relaunch and Reconnect

August 29, 2024 @ 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Head Quarters

Title	Publish Date
250116.new committee meet	28/1/2025
250326.committee meet	10/04/2025
WD OWL Privacy Policy	15/05/2025
260118.new committee meet	25/02/2026

The Lost Words

In 2020 the group received funding to run sessions and create a shared resource based on The Lost Words book created in 2017. www.thelostwords.org

It is a ‘book of spells’ (poems) that seeks to conjure back the near-lost magic and strangeness of the nature that surrounds us.

It partly came about as nature related words were being taken out of children’s dictionaries and it’s hard to connect with something if you don’t have a name for it.

They are called ‘Spells’ rather than poems – designed to be spoken (or sung!) out loud in order to summon back these words and creatures into our hearts.

Due to a few different things this project was delayed and was picked up again in 2025. During this year we’ve:

– Run Skill share/CPD sessions of activities – mainly based around creativity, expressive art and literacy and highlighting and using items from the community resource.

– Created a Community resource which can be borrowed by members. This resource focused on 5 of the spells that groups were most likely to see around their homes and local area:

Bramble

Dandelion

Fern

Ivy

Magpie

Each resource box has a different set of equipment to use to explore the natural world. Each kit has been designed so that it can be used with a class of 30 children either working in small groups or pairs. Examples of some of the equipment are: flower presses, hapa zome/leaf bashing, cyanoprint kits, binoculars and bird resources, these can all be linked with Literacy, Numeracy, STEM and an aspect of the Expressive Arts.

We’re still organising the physical resources but you can see what is available through the digital Lost Words resource we’ve collated. This also highlights some of the things learnt from the CPD/skill share sessions.

Click here for the Lost Words resources

We also ran an Autumn Art competition where groups submitted an artistic creation linked to a Lost Words poem to win a prize.
Art competition entry from Haldane Youth Services showing the results of harvesting blackberries to make ink and then using it.