North Wales Division Awards

Best Student, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor (Glynllifon) 2022: Nick Robert

This year’s winner of the R.F.S shield at Coleg Glynllifon is Nick Roberts of Rhos on Sea.

Having worked for the Forestry Commission Nick decided to come to Glynllifon to study the L3 Countryside Management.

Nick has been awarded this prize for his hard work and motivation whilst studying his Level 3 Extended Diploma in Countryside Management over the past 2 years.

Nick has achieved Distinction in every unit of the course which is testament to the hard work he has done over the 2 years.

Nick is motivated, hardworking, enthusiastic and shows a lot of interest in the industry.

As part of the course Nick has gained additional qualifications, including

• Strimmer
• First aid
• Chipper
• Chainsaw

Nick has also done courses in his own time hedge laying.

Nick is regarded highly amongst staff at the college and we wish him well with his future career.

[Nomination by Jeff Jones]

Best Student Award, Coleg Cambria (Llysfasi) 2022: Rhiannon Bartley

Rhiannon is one of the most dedicated and determined students you could possibly want.  She sets herself extremely high standards and aims to achieve distinctions in everything she does.  If the award was purely for academic achievement, she would be a very worthy winner, on that basis alone.  However, she has brought something much more important to the life of the college as a whole, and to the other students on her course, and that is her insatiable enthusiasm for everything, and her generous and sociable nature.

She is quick to learn, has boundless curiosity, and is not shy to ask questions, or voice her opinions, which you hardly fail not to hear, even from the other end of the corridor, as she searches for ways to make the world a better place for everyone.

Rhiannon is the type of person who sticks a team together, who drags people along in her wake of optimistic ambition, and takes the trouble not to leave them behind.  Everyone is included, and brought together, helped when they need help.

Occasionally a little over ambitious, her plans will go beyond the norm, and she is certainly not afraid of a challenge.

During her time at Llysfasi she studied a wide range of subjects, from farm and woodland habitat management, to ecology, machinery operation, plant and soil science, tree felling and planting, as well as undertaking a specialist project in reducing biocides in agriculture, and taking part in an expedition to explore the history and landscape of Orkney.

Rhiannon has worked at Ecological Land Management for her work placement, and is going to work full time with them at the end of her course, for the time being.

Her friendly nature and enthusiasm will stand her in good stead for whatever she faces in the future.

[Nomination by Andy White]

Bangor Bursary 2022: Will Daniel

Will Daniel’s BSc Forestry Honours Project is titled “The effect of tree shade on the productivity of maize”.  This project was the product of Will’s own inspiration and initiative, based on his observations of variation in crops with proximity to hedgerow trees in Cornwall. Following careful negotiation with the farmer in question, Will implemented a well-structured sampling regime.  Following innovative analysis of the resulting data he obtained robust evidence of the variation in maize height and total cob volume with distance from hedgerow trees with a striking difference of 250% between their south and north sides, reflecting the strong directionality of the shading effect.  While there were differences if effect amongst tree species these were of a much smaller magnitude.  Will then used these results to estimate the economic impacts of hedgerow tree shading on crop yield at a field scale.  All together this represents a remarkable achievement for a BSc project, producing scientific data of publishable quality, whilst also providing important evidence to inform policy and practice relating to the on-going challenge of meeting the twin objectives of combining food security with the benefits of increasing tree cover as a component of agricultural landscapes.

[Nomination by Dr James Walmsley and Professor John Healey]

Previous winners:

Best Student, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor (Glynllifon) 2021: Daisy Bell

Best Student Award, Coleg Cambria (Llysfasi) 2021: James Hughes

Bangor Bursary 2021: Karen Batten