7 Tonnes of Raised Beds!
The Growing Ideas raised bed construction team took delivery of nearly 7 tonnes of wood to kick start raised bed delivery for 2012. That’s enough wood for 100 or so brand new beds. As well as installing them as part of our award winning Growing Spaces project we’re taking an increasing number of orders for [...]
Posted in Community, Engagement, Growing Spaces, Raised Beds, Regeneration | Tags: Housing Association, Local Food, Low Carbon Life
Growing Spaces 2011 Training Events
Growing Ideas are currently running the autumn community drop-in support sessions for Growing Spaces 2011. Six sessions in locations across the Isle of Wight (Ryde, Newport and Cowes) will include training and advice on healthy cooking, preserving and pickling – all focused on the produce from residents’ own raised bed. Fruit Tree Giveaway Project participants [...]
Posted in Community, Engagement, Growing Spaces, Learning, Raised Beds | Tags: Healthy Living, Housing Association, Local Food
Growing Ideas Wins Growing Homes Funding Bid
Growing Ideas has been awarded grant funding by the Isle of Wight Council’s Adult and Community Learning Service to deliver a training project in a hostel for the homeless. The project, provisionally named Growing Homes, has been put together in partnership with Southern Housing Group and will achieve the following: Conversion of an underused and [...]
Posted in Community, Engagement, Growing Ideas, Housing Association, Learning, Raised Beds, Regeneration | Tags: Growing Homes, Homeless, Housing Association
Raised Beds for Community Centre
The Growing Ideas raised bed team today installed a selection of raised beds at the Downside Community and Learning Centre, Pan Estate, Newport. The raised beds include a couple of our double-height design, specifically aimed at supporting the disabled and elderly during their gardening. These raised beds were put in as part of our award [...]
Posted in Community, Engagement, Growing Spaces, Raised Beds | Tags: Healthy Living, Local Food, Low Carbon Life
Growing Ideas and the NHS Change4Life campaign
We ran our first ever day of activities for the Isle of Wight’s Passport2Fun programme. The programme is part of the NHS Change4Life campaign and aims to help children and their families achieve a healthy weight as part of a healthy, active lifestyle. A day of outdoor Survival sessions made sure that everybody concerned got [...]
Posted in Community, Corporate, Education, Growing Ideas | Tags: Family, Family Learning, Healthy Living, NHS, Survival
Really Wild Fridays
The Growing Ideas annual Really Wild Fridays collaboration with Robin Hill has started for 2011. A Growing Ideas team of six spent the day putting on a range of educational, creative and (most of all) fun activities for the general public. We worked with hundreds of families throughout a long and rewarding day. Activities include: [...]
Posted in Corporate, Environment, Growing Ideas, Wildlife | Tags: Corporate, Dance, Family, Fire-lighting, Survival
Isle of Wight School Trip Activities
The Growing Ideas primary school team ran our first set of Isle of Wight School Trip Activities today. An exciting morning of adventurous, team-building activities for the staff and 55 children from Worplesden Primary School, Surrey, made this a really memorable day of their trip to the Isle of Wight. All the children and staff [...]
Posted in Education, Environment, Growing Ideas, Schools | Tags: Creative Learning, Isle of Wight, Outdoor Education, School Trip, Survival
Growing Ideas on the Big Screen in Portsmouth’s Guildhall Square
Apparently the Growing Ideas team have also made it onto the big screen in Portsmouth’s Guildhall Square thanks to our creative learning project with Gomer Infants School, Compulsive Productions and Creative Partnerships back in January and February 2011. We haven’t managed to see the video on the big screen yet but if you do please [...]
Posted in Education, Schools | Tags: Creative Learning, Creative Partnerships, Exploration, Survival
Yet More Community Raised Beds
After our absolutely fantastic May during which we installed 76 brand new raised beds and supported 76 new households as part of Growing Spaces project, we are (very) pleased to announce that a further 30 beds will be created in June. Target areas are Newport, Cowes and Ryde on the Isle of Wight. That’s going [...]
Posted in Community, Engagement, Growing Ideas, Growing Spaces | Tags: Healthy Living
Growing Ideas Business Challenge for 6th Formers
Kevin McNamara of Growing Ideas and Richard Quigley (Corries Cabin, Cowes) went to the Isle of Wight College today to work with a group of 6th form Business A Level students. Kevin and Richard have been assigned a group of budding marketeers who have just three weeks to come up with a real-world marketing strategy [...]
Posted in Education, Growing Ideas | Tags: College, Creative Learning
A New Community Raised Bed Record
The Growing Ideas team broke all previous records when they installed and filled the 76th bed of the month (May) today – that brings the running total for this year to nearly 150 beds and that’s an annual record too. We have now given some 400 island households the chance to change their lives via [...]
Posted in Community, Environment, Growing Ideas, Growing Spaces | Tags: Healthy Living
South Today and Growing Ideas
The Growing Ideas team were on the BBC’s South Today programme while delivering our award winning community project, Growing Spaces. Sadly, the programme is no longer available on BBC iPlayer but feedback has been coming in thick and fast, particularly from the students at Medina High School, Newport, where Kevin McNamara and Danny Giblin have [...]
Posted in Community, Growing Ideas, Growing Spaces
Record-Breaking May
Growing Ideas will be aiming to make, install, fill and support 80 new raised beds during May 2011. This represents the largest number of raised beds ever installed in a single month during the four years that we have been delivering the award winning Growing Spaces project. New staff have been taken on to enable [...]
Posted in Community, Environment, Growing Spaces
West Wight Problem-Solving
As part of our ongoing collaboration with the Ways Forward Extended Schools organisation in the West Wight the Growing Ideas team put on a special, Easter holiday, Problem Solving Challenge Day today. Ways Forward runs the Extended Schools programme for West Wight and brought us in to run a series of challenges designed to test the [...]
Posted in Education, Growing Ideas | Tags: Extended Schools, Holiday Activities
Growing Ideas New Website
At long last we are testing the new website – please be patient while we discover and work out the bugs!
Posted in Community, Education, Environment, Growing Ideas, Technology
More Resident Training
Today we ran our second day of resident training activities for South Wight Housing Association and Medina Housing Association. Our theme was DIY and we covered simple electrical work, smoke alarms, plumbing, painting, wallpapering, shelf hanging and answered a wide variety of other DIY related questions from a large crowd of eager residents. Our focus [...]
Posted in Community, Education, Engagement, Housing Association, Learning
Resident Training for Local Housing Associations
Today, at the community flat in Preston Close, Ryde, The Growing Ideas team completed our first residents training day. A collaboration between Growing Ideas, South Wight Housing and Medina Housing, the two biggest housing associations on the Isle of Wight, led to this training opportunity for residents We put together two days of training designed [...]
Posted in Community, Engagement, Growing Ideas, Housing Association, Learning, Raised Beds | Tags: Corporate
Growing Spaces Latest Video
The latest Growing Spaces video is now available – it’s been created by Sassy Productions and can be viewed here: or by clicking here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joGIutZNK2w Growing Spaces is a community raised bed project Growing Spaces delivered by Growing Ideas Limited in partnership with Medina Housing Association.
Posted in Community, Environment, Growing Spaces, Housing Association, Raised Beds