John Evelyn Community Garden + Allotments
We hope everyone’s doing well and looking forward to Spring properly springing. There are already daffodils around! This is a food growing special.
GFL Survey to get your ideas for GFL priorities over the next 3 years
We’d love to get your views as we plan our priorities.
If you fill in all the questions and send this back by the deadline of 28th March, you’ll enter a prize draw to to win a £50 voucher that you can spend at a local good food business of your choice (featured on Good Food Lewisham's Good Food Directory).
More information and to fill in the survey:
Introducing GFL Volunteer Josey
We’re very happy to welcome Josey Crane Burrows as a GFL volunteer.
Josey has been supporting people with their health and wellness since 2007. She's a trained Sports Massage, Abdominal-Sacral Massage and Myofascial Release Practitioner and more recently qualified as a Yoga Teacher whilst living in Singapore. She's hugely passionate about health and wellness and a big advocate of food and daily movement as medicine. Josey grew up in Lewisham and is currently volunteering with Good Food Lewisham, she’s keen to help promote a more local and sustainable food system for all.
FOOD GROWING UPDATES
GFL Volunteer Josey’s Community Garden Blog Series
Would you like a visit to your community garden and a write up on our website/socials? If so, please contact Josey on josey@stimulate-response.co.uk.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Forster Memorial Park Sensory Garden
Community Food Grower’s Network Being Revitalised
The Community Food Growers' Network (CFGN) is hosting a Spring Gathering bringing past, current and future members of the network together to start plotting the year(s) ahead.
The role of grassroots networks is vital now more than ever, but how do we organise, resource and structure our network so that it can sustain its members equitably and be a space of collective action, solidarity, care, cooperation and revolution?
This gathering will be focussed around organising systems and structures, proposing an exciting new organising model for the future of our network of growers, gardeners, organisers and community kitchens. We invite all members, including those interested in joining, to come and shape this with us in an interactive session facilitated by Zahra Dalilah. Some of this learning will be applicable to other projects and groups, so do bring your questions, challenges and strategies to share if you would like.
Spring Gathering on Saturday 6th April.
GOOD FOOD EVENTS HAPPENING SOON
Bee Keeping Course at Besson Street Community Garden
Lewisham Growing Network: Seed Saving, Seed Swapping + Cultural Foods Event Sunday 25th February
PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE FOR THIS EVENT HAS CHANGED! IT'S NOW AT BESSON STREET COMMUNITY GARDEN
Talk about food-related ill health: another way to shift the conversation
Tuesday 27th February:
The Sharing Plate Part 1: Lewisham Growing Network Session - Therapeutic Gardening
Join us on Tuesday 5th March for Part 1 of our Sharing Plate sessions. This one focuses on Therapeutic gardening and is co-hosted with Sydenham Garden.
These sessions will be monthly on Tuesdays 12.30 - 1.45. The next dates will be: 16th April, 14th May, 18th June and 16th July. If you’d like to suggest a topic or if you’d like to host at your garden, please contact Josey on josey@stimulate-response.co.uk.
Lewisham Gardens of Imagination RHS Sessions
We are happy if people would like to just attend one or two session. Below are the dates.
Alice Cornwell, Community Outreach for the RHS, is running an arts project this year with an amazing textile artist called Alice Burnhope, to connect people together, connect community gardens and growers. We had our first consultation session last week, and it’s a rally lovely bunch of people.
We have a few spaces available, so Alice just wanted to share the dates with you all in case you wanted to join to develop your own skills in textiles and plants, and be part of a lovely outcome with fellow nature love. The dates are below, timings for the other dates are tbc:
29/02/2024 | 11:00 – 14:00 (ish) | Group research trip to RHS Lindley Library |
28/03/2024 | 11:00 – 14:00 | Group research trip to Sydenham Gardens |
04/04/2024 | 11:00 – 14:00 | Group research to the Horniman Museum |
25/04/2024 | 10:00 – 16:00 | Natural Dyeing workshop– Cockpit Studios & gardens |
09/05/2024 | Brainstorm presentation outcomes – Cockpit studios & gardens | |
23/05/2024 | Rope Making – Cockpit studios & gardens | |
06/06/2024 | Mending & applique– Cockpit studios & gardens | |
13/06/2024 | Making outcome – UHL Wellbeing Garden | |
27/06/2024 | Making outcome | |
11/07/2024 | Making outcome | |
18/07/2024 | Making outcome |
Monthly Food Giving Zooms
The next one is on Thursday 7th March 1-2pm and will be focusing on community meals and how to set them up. Let us know if you’d like to be a speaker for this and say something about your project.
Other dates here too:
Next GFL Quarterly Network Meeting: Save the Date
Wednesday 27th March at Forster Memorial Park Sensory Garden and Goldsmiths Community Centre roughly 10.30 - 2.30 with free vegetarian lunch and garden tours.
More information and Eventbrite to follow. In the mean time if you have any questions, please email Helen or Allan (GFL volunteer) on helen@lewishamlocal.com and/or allan@lewishamlocal.com.
RHS Campaigns and Events
Tuesday 26th March – ONLINE Peat Free Workshop at 6pm to 7:30pm on Zoom sign up will follow soon. This is an opportunity for In Bloom, Community groups and It’s Your Neighbourhood groups to find out more about Peat Free and find out how other groups are coping using Peat Free compost. You will also meet community growers from around the South, South East and South West of the UK!
22nd – 29th April ‘Grow with it’ This year’s seasonal programme being delivered by the RHS. You will receive free seeds, and information packs. Here is the link to the page to register your interest and where you will receive updates. https://www.rhs.org.uk/get-involved/grow-with-it
Wild About Gardens - Each year the RHS team up with the Wildlife Trust to highlight an aspect of wildlife gardening, encouraging growers and wildlife lovers to pledge their outdoor space to support a certain species or habitat. This year the spotlight is on slugs and snail, and how to live and grow alongside them. The campaign will highlight the good work some slugs and snails do in the garden, how they fit into food various food systems, and how you can co-exist with your gastropod pals. Find out more information here: https://www.wildaboutgardens.org.uk/ If you would like a hard copy of the booklet, please let me know!
Other RHS campaigns:
Britain in Bloom celebrates 60 Years this year and their theme for 2024 is Friendship. We would love to hear of stories from your groups, gardens and projects around the theme of Friendship. You can share them with me or send them to communities@rhs.org.uk . If your groups uses social media then tag the RHS on your posts. Instagram: @rhsgrassroots. X: @rhsbloom. F: @rhscommunitygardening
This would be the perfect time to sign your groups up to ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’. This will put your group on the RHS Map of Community Groups. Here is the link. https://www.rhs.org.uk/get-involved/its-your-neighbourhood Have a look at the map and find more groups near you. I have noticed that the Channels Community Allotments are displaying on the map.
Regarding any of the above, please contact:
Alice Cornwell (She/ Her)
Community Development Officer – South East London
T: 07971595146
TRAINING + RESOURCES
Food Ethics Council Communications Toolkit
This toolkit sits alongside our report ‘Harnessing the power of food citizenship’. It is aimed at organisations working across the UK food sector, although it is relevant to anyone wanting to engage citizens, rather than consumers.
OTHER NEWS
‘Is a coop right for you?’ event in Peckham
Sister Midnight, Community Shares Company and Coops UK bring you this exciting event on Wednesday 28th February 6 – 9pm.
