Frequently Asked Questions

We are Friends of Goit Stock Wood. We are a community group and registered charity formed of residents local to Goit Stock Wood in West Yorkshire, UK. Read more about us.

Yes, we are a Charitable Incoroporated Organisation, a type of registered charity. We are registered with the Charity Commission, the government body that regulates charities in England and Wales, and we have to abide by their rules. Our registered charity number is 1213780.

You can search for our charity number or name using https://www.gov.uk/find-charity-information which will take you to this page.

You can read more about our charity and see our constitution on our About Us page.

We are a form of charity called a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). A CIO is a bit like a limited company in as much as it is its own separate legal entity. That means the CIO can enter contracts and own assets (including land) in its own right, and they are legally separate from the trustees' assets. A CIO is unlike a limited company in that it does not have shareholders. The trustees are the "guardians" of the CIO but they don't own it. The trustees are legally bound to act in the organisation's best interests.

Trustees can of course be replaced (and in future we may decide to appoint more than our current five trustees), which means that Friends of Goit Stock Wood has been set up so it can outlive the current trustees and it could be around for hundreds of years to come! (If you would be interested in becoming a trustee, please contact us).

As a registered charity we are regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. You can find out a lot more about the Charity Commission and the rules we have to follow on the gov.uk website.

Friends of Goit Stock Wood has no paid staff. All our trustees are volunteers and we have more volunteers that help us with other activities such as fundraising. We have kept our administration costs to the bare minimum because we want as much money as possible to go into the wood (our trustees have funded a lot of our administration expenses out of their own pockets!). We don't use paid fundraisers.

Email contact@goitstock.org.uk or use this form. 

Goit Stock Wood is a 70-acre area of ancient woodland which has two becks (large streams) flowing through it, and several substantial waterfalls. It is home to a wide variety of plant and animal species, both on the land and in the water. 

It is open access land and is open 24/7 and is accessible on foot using the public footpaths through the wood. It is, and has been for over a century, a popular spot to visit, for walking and to look at and enjoy spending time with nature. 

See this page for details.

At present we are not accepting donations.

Our charity's purposes (objects) are to support the conservation and protection of Goit Stock Wood and to educate the public about the conservation of Goit Stock Wood. We can do this even if we don't own the wood, so we hope to work with whoever does own the wood to help maintain the wood and ensure it is open for the public to enjoy. We will be monitoring what happens to the wood over the next few months and then deciding how to proceed.

Some people gave us donations that can only be used to fund the purchase of the wood (restricted donations) and we'll contact them to arrange to refund their donations.

Please email support@goitstock.org.uk - if possible please include your donation reference from the confirmation email (it looks something like SA-123).