Sunday 14 June 2015

LATEST NEWS // Successful application for Capital Clean-Up Grant

More great news – we were successful in our bid for a Capital Clean Up Grant and as such have an additional £1,250 in our coffers to spend on the garden. Thanks to everyone involved in the bid, especially Myanah Saunders who has put an amazing number of hours into applying for funding on behalf of the garden.

LATEST NEWS // Fingers crossed for our pond...

Thanks to everyone who voted for us for money from the Aviva Community Fund for our pond. We got nearly 2,000 votes, which is testament to the brilliant community of Forest Gate pulling together to help make great things happen and support our vision. This means we are definitely in the running for funding subject to checks

See our Facebook and Twitter sites, plus this blog, for more news on this and other funding soon. We're applying for as much as we can from various sources so that we can make the best garden possible.

Go Team Forest Gate! We hope to bring you frogs and newts very soon!

PS If you are good at or experienced in funding applications we'd love to from you as we need all the help we can get – room on the Steering Group for you...

LATEST NEWS // Come help create the garden... every Saturday 10am-1pm

Now we have our lease, we can really get stuck into creating the garden – but we need your help. Come join us on Saturday morning 10am-1pm and let's see how much we can get done over summer





So exciting that we can now organise regular site days in the garden so Members can get stuck into some digging and planting. As long as we have enough free Steering Group Members in town to supervise, we now hope to do this every Saturday morning between 10am and 1pm.

We are also hoping to run a 2-hour session during the week so let us know when would suit you. We will then pick the most popular time. Email info@forestgate-community-garden.org with your days and times.

Our first session went really well and was also great fun as usual (see all the smiling faces in the pics below). Led by Rob Beazley, we cleared a space for a greenhouse and found a perfect piece of hardcode exactly where we wanted it (the sun is smiling on us); we also found a freshly dug foxhole!

The site was also cleared and checked ready for the arrival of our shipping container hub on Monday 15 June, which will serve as our dry area and meeting place – thanks to Lisa Eller for sorting out all the logistics for this, can't wait to see it in place.

If you'd like to join our team or amazing gardeners, you just need to be a Member of the garden. It's easy to sign up and only £2 for lifetime Membership. Simply click JOIN US on our website.

Here's some pics from last Saturday's gardening meet to inspire you including Rob Beazley (top left) and Isobel and Jess (top right). Thanks to Lloyd Jeans for these images and many more over the course of the garden's emergence and creation.

See you all in the garden soon!







Space for our greenhouse, amazing that the hardcore was already there just where we wanted it!



LATEST NEWS // Update from The Big L(a)unch on 7 June

Thanks to everyone who came to our Big L(a)unch on Sunday 7 June – it was a great success including food and fun in the sun, a play street, 30 new Members, site visits, fundraising for Nepal and over 250 visitors over the course of the day









Tying in with Big Lunches around the UK and to celebrate our official launch now we have the lease, we decided to organise a street party and site open day at 136 Earlham Grove. Headed up by Steering Group Member Isobel Matheson, we managed to close off the street around the site and inspire over 250 local residents, neighbour, supporters and friends to visit the garden, bring food to share, buy plants and generally make merry in the sun.

It was a wonderful day, not least for all the hard work that went into the event including liaising with the council to close the street, supervising safe visits to the garden site, preparing and serving food, running kids activities and organising a plant sale in aid of Nepal.

See below for some images of the day – we'll be posting more in our gallery soon plus check our Facebook and Twitter sites for regular updates of this and other events and happenings.

Thanks again to everyone who helped and came along – we can't wait to see you in the garden soon!









LATEST NEWS // We've got the lease!

Great news, we've finally got the lease for the Forest Gate Community Garden site. Check out the images below for the moment when Steering Group Members Lloyd Jeans and Myanah Saunders signed the official document on 21 May 2015. After two years of negotiations, a very exciting moment indeed! Read on for what it all means...

Lloyd holding the official document on 21 May 2015 – at last!
We now have the lease for 5 years with the proviso that after a year – so from 21 May 2016 – we are on 3 months notice from the powers that be at Newham Council. Which means we have a full year to knock our garden into amazing shape, while making it portable to transport to another site if we needs to (fingers crossed this doesn't happen but if it does we want to be optimistic and ready).Thanks to everyone who has been involved in the securing of the lease, both on the Steering Group and at the council.
Myanah signing the lease – a very exciting day indeed!


Saturday 6 June 2015

Big Lunch To-morrow

Come along to Earlham Grove on Sunday June 7th between 11am and 3pm.
The street will be closed for a shared lunch (bring something to share). Enjoy street games for the kids to, as well as free popcorn, a chance to do a tour of the garden site before we start work properly on it, order your FGCG T shirt, and bring a plant or seeds to swap - all donations to the Nepal Earthquake fund.
See you there!

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