The sun shone brightly on Brookburn Primary School's Summer Fete on Saturday 3rd July (2010), children and parents were out on mass to have fun, taste three of the delicious range of organic, local and seasonal soups, and meet the growers who had grown the vegetable ingredients!
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Greater Manchester Council of Voluntary Organisations (GMCVO) are taking part in MERCi's Sustaining Change audit and programme. As one of the programmes trail blazer organisations they will support other voluntary and community groups to become more sustainable, showing what's possible and how to overcome obstacles they have faced. Kindling is supporting GMCVO in looking at changes they can make in relation to food.
Exciting plans are afoot at Work for Change the co-op managed workspace where we're based. We had a visit from Ewen from Love Solar to help us to scope up the options for installing a Solar PV array on the roof.
Kindling will be promoting a new range of organic, local and seasonal soups at Brookburn Primary School's Summer Fete on Saturday 3rd July (2010).
The soups are made of organic and local vegetables grown at Glebelands Organic Growers (just three miles away); Moss Brook Growers; Dunham Massey Organics and the Rigby's organic farm in Warrington. All the vegetables are grown within thirty miles of Manchester and dry ingredients (pulses, beans and grains) have been sourced as close as possible and within Europe.
Amateur historians from across Greater Manchester are benefiting from a number of training workshops in preparation for Forgotten Fields: Kindling's food heritage project. A few weeks ago we held an 'ownership & copyright' course. The second workshop (held today: the 14th June 2010) covered oral history techniques and the third will explore how we can collectively evaluate this unique project over the next two years.
After spending a year in Guatemala working with Peace Brigades International: Guatemala, Kindling's Helen and Matt have continued their involvement with the human rights organisation. Twice a year Kindling makes a small contribution to this amazing organisation by hosting PBI Guatemala's training and selection process.
Over a week in June, Kindling will once again be providing logistics: travel, accommodation, catering etc. to enable the training and selection of new volunteers from across the world.
The 4th FeedingManchester took place on the glorious summer evening of Friday the 25th June 2010 at Hulme Community Garden Centre. The evening combined a networking and social event with the opportunity to discuss how we collectively encourage other organisations to adopt our definition of Sustainable Food and prepare for a possible sustainable food manifesto for Greater Manchester.
Six Community-focused growing projects came together for the first Strong Roots training day in late May (2010) to explore ways of making their food growing projects more sustainable and meet others who share their passion for their communities and are facing similar challenges & opportunities.
Groups who attended included Friends of Platt Fields Park, Manchester Methodist Housing Group, Victoria House (a homeless project), Crumpsall & Cheetham Model Allotment as well as Children and Families Services in Wythensawe.
Forgotten Fields has begun the first of six inter-generational food heritage projects with the communities of Heyes Lane in Timperley, Altrincham.
Until relatively recently, Timperley was a thriving area of market gardens supplying Manchester and beyond with fruit and vegetables. The project will work with people who have first-hand experience and knowledge, including three local residents (in their eighties) who still remember the commercial growing of the famous Timperley Early Rhubarb.
Manchester Fayre has begun experimenting with local produce from regional farmers to create a local and seasonal organic soup for a primary school pupils in South Manchester.
With support from The Kindling Trust and supplied by members of the newly formed Manchester organic growers and buyers collective, the soups will be piloted from September 2010 at Brookburn Primary School in Chorlton.