Achievements so far

Fundraising

As a small CIC we are very aware that without the funding, no matter how exciting an idea is it’s unlikely to become a reality. A core element of our work is raising funds through grant applications, requests to trust, corporate sponsorship and crowdfunding.

In 2015 we worked with The Zone (Youth Enquiry Service) in Plymouth to raise £98,000 for a residential barn on the banks of the River Tavy. I gained funding to refurbish the barn to make it a more environmentally sound building through the installation of a log burner, outdoor classroom, pizza oven, and edible planting.

In 2020 in collaboration with Dartington Recreation Association we gained £40,000 funding for a planned playground upgrade to include specialised equipment for children with additional needs at the adjacent special school and older children. This was in direct response to large scale community consultation for a Neighbourhood Plan and a key need identified in the Dartington Open Spaces, Sport and Recreation Strategy.

Capital Investment

Whilst supporting communities to make changes to local spaces there is often a need for capital investment whether it is for an artwork installation, new signage and seating or an entire playground refurbishment. We love to see the impact that this can have on an area and have experience of every stage of this process from defining the initial concept, community consultation, securing planning permission, tendering for the work, raising funds and managing the installation.

In 2019 we were awarded Pocket Parks grant for £25,000 to refurbish Carlton Terrace playground and park. Working in collaboration with Plymouth City Council, Weston Mill Community Primary Academy, local residents and Plymouth Community Homes we resurfaced the neglected playground, removed the old equipment and added several pieces of new equipment that was chosen by the local school children and residents. We funded the clearance of the inner-city creek where resident Big Ern the heron and kingfishers can be seen. As requested by the park users we also fenced off the play equipment from the cycle path and dog walking area. The children also joined us to plant spring bulbs and apple trees as they felt it was important that the space could be enjoyed by wildlife as well as people.

Volunteer Management

Many of our projects involve a community volunteer element. This ranges from support delivering face to face work e.g. outdoor play sessions to developing community networks to care for local spaces and resources. Our hope is that we can enable people to share skills to create a better understood and cared for planet and support compassionate community cohesion that enhances lives.

We currently manage the volunteer programme for The Species Recovery Trust. Volunteers are recruited, trained and supported to survey plant species at the brink of extinction across the UK. This includes for example developing a community wide project in Buckfastleigh recruiting volunteers to survey Deptford pink populations and steer land managers in best practices through a partnership of organisations. We have experience writing Volunteer Policies, Volunteer Agreements and are familiar with current best practice.

Outdoor learning provision

We deliver outdoor learning for primary schools across Devon. We organise CPD events covering many different aspects of the curriculum including literacy and numeracy, mentor staff that are new to outdoor learning in leading sessions both on school grounds and in nearby green and blue spaces, work with Outdoor Learning leads within school to advise on best resources and possible funding opportunities and deliver full school outdoor learning opportunities.

In Plymouth we have coordinated POLEN (Plymouth Outdoor Learning Environmental Network) since 2015. A network of fourteen schools subscribe to a part funded annual programme of support to develop their outdoor learning. We delivered an annual Outdoor Learning Extravaganza working in partnership with over fifteen environmental organisations in the city attended by 22 Devon schools and supported 6000 school children learning outdoors.

We have also been lucky enough to gain funding for creative educational projects. Woods to Waves was one such project; inspired by our sadness at the loss of nature words like ‘blackberry’ and ‘oak’ from the Children’s Oxford English Dictionary we worked with schools to reignite a passion for old Devonian words for nature and the experiences within nature. Through explorations in local nature we created a new printed nature dictionary with words or phrases conjured up by the children we worked with including ‘ocean popcorn’ a name for the sound of the waves turning over the pebbles on the shore and ‘muddiflies’ to describe the feeling we get in our bellies from jumping in muddy puddles.

Creative Play

There is an ever-growing body of evidence that contact with nature provides a wide variety of physical, mental and social benefits as well as a wide range of learning opportunities. There is also substantial evidence highlighting the growing disconnect from nature especially amongst our children.

We offer a variety of school holiday and afterschool play clubs in beaches, estuaries woods, playgrounds, allotments, fields and MUGA’s. Session themes include for example sport and recreation, circus skills, nature learning and bushcraft skills. One such club includes Barne Barton afterschool nature sessions in Redbrick Field where children from neighbouring houses are able to drop in and join weekly activities for two hours. Initially participants dropped litter and didn’t want to learn about nature however after a few weeks bug hunts in the adjacent orchard were the most popular activity and older siblings were being told to put there litter in the bin and not drop it because of the harm it does to wildlife.

Practical Conservation

We have many years of experience leading practical conservation projects with both volunteers, families and children. We have created wildflower meadows, laid hedges, planted trees, established an orchard, created willow sculptures, run community allotments, planted bulbs, cleared scrub and much more.

In 2019/2020 we managed a wonderful community project on behalf of Plymouth City Council and CLAW. Together we transformed a small urban amenity grassland into a gorgeous wildflower meadow, planted a native hedge and fruit trees with the support of the local residents, Poole Farm Volunteers and Austin Farm Primary Academy. The children also created a sign and bench to explain to others what the space was all about.