Outdoor education centre, Hill End is inviting people to join them in a celebration of the outdoors after they were unable to celebrate their centenary year.

The joint celebration of the University of Oxford’s Wytham Woods and the Hill End Outdoor Education Centre was originally going to involve the whole community in a film screening, poetry readings and summer festivals before the pandemic hit.

Last year to compensate for a lack of events Hill End released a short film online and the Wytham Estate published a poetry book celebrating its centenary year.

However, now with a more hopeful summer on the horizon Hill End wants people to celebrate it being 101 with a series of events including Ffennell festival 2021.

The event is named after the Ffennell family, who built the whole of the Hill End centre from scratch, not the vegetable.

The event will see a big celebration of the outdoors with everything happening in the open air. Children and families can take part in crafts including wood carving, see owls, watch live music and play games.

Read also: Action against the climate crisis in Oxfordshire

The festival is set to go ahead on June 12 with tickets currently on sale.

The event will be socially distance and there will be a limit of 30 people at a time for each activity.

Over the past few months, the Hill End centre have managed to celebrate with a variety of outside events including bush craft and poetry workshops.

Lucy Crittenden from Hill End said: “We have been hugely popular because people want to get outside in the open air instead.”

She added: “We will continue to celebrate our 100 years next year; we will stretch it out like a birthday and keep it going for a couple of years.”

Despite briefly closing in the first lockdown, Ms Crittenden explained the centre has remained open for their vulnerable learners. She said: “We have a lot of vulnerable learners here, children who have perhaps been excluded from school for not fitting into the classroom. We help schools with students like that, bringing them into the outdoors to help them reintegrate back into school.”

The centre has also started to welcome back schools and residential trips.

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