Author: Steve Dent

Eco Fair, 27 August 2023

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Worcester community garden held its first ever Eco Fair on Sunday 27 August. The event proved a huge success.

Almost 400 people visited the stalls that were on site throughout the day, including Nelly’s Delhi vegan Indian street food, our own pop up café, a freshly pressed fruit juice stall, and stalls selling plastic free products, artwork and bird and bat boxes. Other stalls included Transition Worcester repair café, Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, Worcestershire Vegans and Vegetarians, Extinction Rebellion plus Chris Russell from At The End of the Garden ran a popular wood whittling session.

Thanks to all the stall holders and of course to our amazing volunteers who worked so hard on the day, and in the run up, in order to make it such a successful event.

The event brought in some welcome revenue for the community garden, which will allow us to proceed with important project work on the site.

The delightful video below was put together by Anda, our brilliant social media officer, and it captures perfectly the atmosphere of the day.

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Plant Swap and mini eco fair 2023

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This year’s Transition Worcester Plant Swap took place at Worcester community garden in bright, warm sunshine on 7 May.

We had agreed in advance that the event would have an expanded format, to become a mini eco fair.

We were delighted to have several stalls on site, including PackItIn (selling package-free food, containers, toiletries and cleaning products), RSPB (wild flower plant plugs) and Worcester Environmental Group (bird and bat boxes and insect hotels).

 

 

 

 

In addition to the Plant Swap stall itself, run by Heather from Transition and our head gardener Tony, Gill and Clare ran our own plant sales kiosk, Mandy ran a Worcester community garden information stand, Chris Russell ran a popular whittling workshop, and Jon and Sara ran a busy pop-up café selling tea, coffee, soft drinks, cakes and biscuits.

The event was a huge success, attracting 415 visitors.

Amongst the comments the event received on social media were the following:

“What a brilliant day”

“Awesome!”

“Had a lovely time and great to chat to everyone. Thank you for all the effort you put into things”.

“It was brilliant- such a fantastic event, thank you”

”It was so awesome to see so many people enjoying what’s on offer”

“Thank you for a wonderful day”

“Thank you all. Loved visiting today and chatting and plants”

Transition Worcester plan to follow the same format for future Plant Swap events, and the positive experience and lessons learned from this event will also inform our plans for Worcester community garden’s Open Day on 27 August. Put the date in your diary!

 

defying the floods

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On 21 March 2023) Worcester community garden unveiled its latest weapon in the fight against climate change and flooding.

Our new office and tool store, funded by an award from the National Lottery and a grant from Worcester city council, sits on a giant pontoon. When the garden floods – as now happens on an annual basis – the structure is designed to float above the floodwaters, protecting the tools and equipment upon which our volunteers depend.

Cutting the ribbon at the unveiling ceremony was Keith Slater of Community Boost. Keith had been invited to do the honours by grateful community garden trustees after being instrumental in securing funding for the project.

Chair of trustees at Worcester community garden, Steve Dent, said “the floating office and tool store is an imaginative response to the growing challenge that flooding presents for us. It has been a great morale booster to see the structure going up so soon after the damage caused by the January and February floods. We are enormously grateful to Keith Slater for helping us achieve this ambitious milestone.”

Keith Slater said “I am delighted to be cutting the ribbon today. Ever since I was first introduced to the garden and its volunteers I have said that this is one of the hidden jewels in the city’s crown. If anyone wants to see what a huge and positive difference an ever-growing number of volunteers can make to improve the quality of life for all involved, then this community garden is their place to visit.”