What's On Out There? The Bill's Mother's Links & Listings Post - Early Jun 2025
What’s On Out There? Links & listings for everyone in the Outdoor City. And a celebration.
Thanks to all our recent subscribers, we now have over 305 full members of this unique publishing social enterprise. Thanks so much to all of you.
(And yes, as per our target, the latest paying subscriber signed up just before the first Sheffield Swift sightings came in a few days ago).
After over two years of fingernail biting optimism and countless days and nights of writing, photographing and hustling, those wonderful three hundred+ readers who’ve reckoned up that our publication is worth £4 of their digital pocket money a month have made us officially sustainable, and very very happy.
This month, special thanks to local artists taking part in Open Up Sheffield, who are sharing their artworks with us. Why not pay them a visit this weekend or next? (I’ll be posting more about their work over the next two weeks, so do subscribe!)
What’s On Out There shares events and news in brief, with links and short news stories as they come in. If you find all this interesting or useful, help keep the service going by sharing, and subscribing to It’s Looking A Bit Black Over Bill’s Mother’s, the wild and wonderful magazine for the Outdoor City.
It’s very simple: reader subscriptions cover the costs of this social enterprise. We have no advertisers, no wealthy benefactors, just you to help us pay the bills and put in the many hours to collate and write these posts.
Chipping in a £4 a month subscription shows us you like what we’re doing, gets you access to the full out there listings, and our huge archive of over 230 features covering wildlife, walking, riding, running, wandering about, and general creative wildness in and around Sheffield and the Peak District.
Try us out for free for a few weeks, or upgrade to a full membership for less than the cost of a Nigel Farage wooden spoon:
WOOT comes in two versions:
Free Trial Readers: Very brief roundup of the next week’s listings, and a few news and links, emailed out once a month.
Full Subscribers: All the above, plus over a month of listings in the web version, regular updates to the news and links service if you’re on the Substack app (or save the page), and a bonus What To Look For feature about wildlife to see this month. Plus access to the whole archive of 230+ features, and special features every now and then. (The online version for you will be updated in a big way tonight.)
Use the free Substack app (or just reload in your browser) to see the latest version of this post, and feel free to share (below) with all your friends and colleagues.
June
Mon 2nd - Fri 6th June - Daily health walks in parks and green spaces from Step Out Sheffield, 10 am start
Weds 4th - RSPB local group walk - Greno Woods
Thurs 5th - SRWT Volunteering - Moss Valley Woodlands
Thurs 5th - Green City Action Grimesthorpe community allotment
Sat 7th - Friends of Loxley Cemetery Open Day including ecological tour
Sat 7th - Sheffield CTC Cycle Ride - Calver Bridge
Sat 7th - Friends of Whirlow Brook Park volunteer session
Promoters & Organisers: We can only publish your outdoor events if you tell us about them. Email us at bbobillsmothers@gmail.com as follows: Subject line - WOOT Event, with an email containing a 1 line event description, Include - day & date, and an online link so readers can find out more details.
And taking out a full subscription or two (as over a dozen local organisations have, so far) would be a very helpful way to keep this service running.
Also Out There (News & Links)
Migration Matters - the 10th annual celebration of migration in Sheffield (the first City of Sanctuary) includes music, art, food, walks, talks & lots more - 20th-28th June
Hidden In Open Sight - another plug for Calvin Payne’s eye-opening local Substack looking at the history of his adopted city, often in the grimy places most of us ignore. His latest post takes George III, Horace Walpole and George Orwell to task.
The Royal Horticultural Society show will be at Wentworth Woodhouse from 16th-20th July, while experts from their fruit and veg group will be touring a variety of local parks and allotments on Sat 14th June, including Whirlow Brook Park, Roe Wood Allotment Society: and Whinfell Quarry Gardens.
Springwatch - is at Longshaw until 12th June. Our stories about Longshaw & the Sheffield Moors are here, while my Longshaw post for the Sheffield Tribune is here.
Green Belt and Local Plan - the council consultation on the new local plan and associated new building sites runs until the 11th July.
Swift Diaries - Sheffield poet Chris Jones is writing pretty much every day about the Swifts swirling (and maybe making their nests) around his home.
Small Park Big Run - Entries now open for the city’s famous running endurance event, in support of women’s education and health and play facilities for children in Palestine
Grouse Moor Parliamentary Debate - There will now be a debate in parliament on 30th June after the petition from Chris Packham & others calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting reached over 100,000 signatories.
Sheffield Environment Weeks - Six (or so) weeks of summer environmental events this year are listed by the organisation that started its work 40 years ago.
Peregrine Cam: Watch the (sometimes gory) progress of the Sheffield University Peregrine Falcons, thanks to the university and Sheffield Bird Study Group.
Right To Roam - Sign the petition asking the government to make good its intention to bring England and Wales into line with Scotland for countryside access.
Our full listings for the next six weeks or so will be below for full subscribers, who also get all of our features, our archive of over 230 fairly interesting posts, and the warm glow of knowing you’re supporting the new local journalism for less than the price of a pint of beer a month.
