Blog

LOOKING BACK 2016

Eco-cabin finally complete, first pupil to get a qualification in Creative Craft, being picked as one of the Mayors charities – its been another great year for Moulsecoomb Forest Garden.   However, the background is that life is becoming increasingly difficult for small charities.   I recently attended a meeting held by Sussex Community Foundation with Vanessa, one of our trustees. Sussex Community Foundation, who have been long-term supporters of our work, were launching their new report ‘Sussex Uncovered‘. In… Read More »LOOKING BACK 2016
pizza making in our clay oven

VOTE FOR US

WE CAME SECOND IN BAGS OF HELP SCHEME WINNING £10,000 AND RECEIVED £500 FROM AVIVIA We need your votes Can you spare a few minutes of your time and help support our work teaching people with disabilities how to cook. Vote ten times so we can win £5,000  (voting ends 17th November) https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/16-2095 We are also up for funding thanks to Tesco’s ‘Bags of Help’ scheme. The money will make a real difference to us, and will go towards improving… Read More »VOTE FOR US

VOLUNTEERING AT THE FOREST GARDEN

Guest post by Stuart Bullen As someone who’d done some volunteering in the dim and distant past I had been feeling that I should get involved in something similar for a while. I wanted to use my background and interest in all things environmental and geographical, so I made the initial step of contacting the excellent ‘Active Student’ volunteering team here at the University of Brighton, to enquire about their Staff Volunteering Scheme. This allows staff the opportunity to undertake… Read More »VOLUNTEERING AT THE FOREST GARDEN
pumpkins

CUT TO THE BONE

Last week seventy people came to our regular community garden drop in days which are open to everyone two days a week for 50 weeks of the year. Some were local residents, students on placements and one refugee but the majority were people with learning disabilities. And all of them have talked about services being cut, centres being shut, benefit forms getting more complicated and general support ebbing away. One of our volunteers works for the council finding placements for… Read More »CUT TO THE BONE
end of year

LOOKING BACK 2015

It’s been another jam packed year with the most important development being the forest garden becoming an open college. Two pupils from BACA are the first students to take our GCSE equivalent course and more schools are contacting us asking about our work and in particular these qualifications.   But this isn’t about being an exam factory but about the quality of the intervention for pupils, many of whom struggle in a conventional classroom. Much of our work is one-to-one… Read More »LOOKING BACK 2015

WINNING AWARDS FOR OUR OUTDOOR EDUCATION

It’s been an award-winningcouple of weeks for the garden culminating in national acclaimfor our educational work.  We won third prize in Brighton’s annual City in Bloom for best wildlife garden and best community charity garden (Moulsecoomb Primary were we run gardening clubs won Gold for best school grounds) winning a national award was the icing on the King Alfreds cake. The People, Environment and Achievement award (PEA) focused on our on-going work in Queensdown Woods backing onto our gardens (turn… Read More »WINNING AWARDS FOR OUR OUTDOOR EDUCATION

LOOKING BACK 2014

It was a busy end of year as staff and volunteers attendedvarious award ceremonies. We were nominated for best Green Project in the Argus Achievement Awards, Small Group – Big Achiever in the Voluntary Sector Star Awards received a commendation from City in Bloom and we won a BBC Sussex and BBC Surrey Community Heroes Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Education.’   Now the garden is twentyit’s funny to think back to a few mates working on a half derelict… Read More »LOOKING BACK 2014

WE ARE 20!

On a beautiful autumn day we celebrated our 20th birthday party. 300 people came along to see our new eco-building, have a nose at our vegetables, make a hat, see the bees, eat some cake, drink a smoothie, even use the compost loo and enjoy the last of the sunshine. Loading up the smoothie bike Compost John deep in compost thought Teresa making sure we’ve been looking after her flower garden Party hat time! Father John of Moulsecoomb comes to… Read More »WE ARE 20!

CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF THE FOREST GARDEN

Well, can you believe it. We are 20 years old and will be celebrating with a party and the grand opening of our ‘shed’ on Sunday 5th October 12 noon till 5pm. There will be tours of the garden and a chance to chat to the people who have built one of Brighton’s greenest ever buildings. You will also be able to find out about bushcraft, bees, make party hats and go on a treasure hunt (the last two are… Read More »CELEBRATE 20 YEARS OF THE FOREST GARDEN

UNMEASURABLE

Schools will tell you that there is a lot more to their work than league tables and brief visit from OFSTED. Education isn’t a football match and there are loads of hidden extras than can’t be measured. The way the forest garden works is also hard to measure. Yes 4 pupils who struggle academically are the latest to receive accreditation from us in the form of OCN level one in woodland skills. One of these pupils spent a lot of… Read More »UNMEASURABLE