The Forest Bee is a free brochure, complemented by this our new website, originally created to share information about the numerous and wonderful courses, workshops, groups, activities and one-to-one learning opportunities available to us here in the Forest of Dean. With the continued theme of ‘keeping it local’ we have more recently added local services and village halls to our repertoire. We also have regular contributions from local experts, charities and voluntary organisations. The project is run by volunteers and is a not-for-profit organisation.

Our first issue of 1,500 copies hit the streets in September 2014. It proved extremely popular and we have over the years, with the help of grant funding from the Forest of Dean District Council and Coleford Town Council been able to increase our print run to 5,000 copies per issue.

The brochure, which is issued 3 times per year in line with academic terms, is available from local
shops, cafes, pubs, leisure centres, libraries, doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, Tourist Information
Centres, cycle and other tourism centres across the Forest of Dean and surrounding towns of Ross-on-Wye, Chepstow and Monmouth.

We have been financed predominantly by our advertisers but after 10 years we desperately needed a new website. Our pleas for funding resulted in some generous donations via our crowdfunding page with GoFundMe and very welcome grants from Coleford Town Council and the Co-op Community Fund. Our heartfelt thanks to all who have helped and supported us in this endeavour.

Now in our 11th year with the launch of this new website and with the support of our advertisers
and contributors we look forward to providing continued information to our wonderful Forest of
Dean communities in the years ahead.