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Greg Morgan: My name is Greg Morgan and Iím the chairman of our gardening club at Burnholme
Community College. We applied for a Big Lottery Fund grant which would enable us to utilize
a spare piece of land at the back of the school. Itís enabled us to build several raised beds,
weíve got ten allotments which are rented now to local residents, two allotments used
for school purposes and itís enabled us to introduce pupils to fresh fruit, fresh vegetables
and to taste vegetables in their natural state.
Caroline James: Hello! My name is Caroline James. I work for the Big Lottery Fund and
Iím a policy and learning manager. The approach that Local Food have taken to working with
projects and organisations giving their support that they need and the development and the
networking opportunity is vital to their success. Big Lottery Fund is very muchÖwe work in
a variety of ways, but weíre not set up necessarily give the kind of support and development by
organisations like Royal Society of Wildlife Trust or even Local Foods can give that vital
and important support.
Greg Morgan: I was asked could I pick another project somewhere in the country to go to
Wayland fitted the bill because theyíd been going several years. They itís a stage now
where Iíd hope to be in four to five years time. And so if we can each get something
out of it even if itís something little but will assist us with our gardening projects
I think itís a great idea.
Beverley Page: Hi! Iím Bev Page community education worker here at Wayland Academy.
Five years ago we had no garden we didnít even have an environment group. We just had
four year eleven girls with the idea and weíve come from that we now have over 250 students.
The aspirations I have are some shared learning I mean weíve really overcome some pitfalls
in our time weíve had huge learning curves but real positives have become of that. Hopefully
he can get some ideas from the patch we have and hopefully weíll hear some of his pitfalls
and heights of his project.
Hi Greg.
Greg Morgan: Good morning
Beverley Page: Nice to meet you.
Greg Morgan: Nice to meet you as well.
Beverley Page: Come and have a look around the garden.
Greg Morgan: Thank you.
Beverley Page: We grow for not only our garden, another class The Platinum Group have a garden,
we supply those with flowers and were going to have a sale the first one next weekend
and then weíre going to do a farmerís market in May. This is our veg growing area again
funded with our lottery money, weíve got mostly single raised beds.
Greg Morgan: Yes.
Beverley Page: Weíve got a couple of doubles down the end. They just to enable us to grow
in volume. So basically we grow for our cookery workshops on Saturdays. The canteen has the
surplus to what we donít use.
Greg Morgan: Right yes.
Beverley Page: Is the fair thing to say. The students love taking stuff home. Our tool
shed which again funded by our lottery. Just basic flowerbeds again made by the students.
Our fruit cage with I think we have about nine different fruits in there now. Weíve
come to Little Diggers and this is our community gardening project, the preschool children
to give them the opportunity to come up and do some hands on gardening. This is our cob
oven we built this over a two day period last winter sandy sub-soil, clay and with the outer
layer of straw for strength but itís a fantastic facility.
Greg Morgan: It is.
Beverley Page: Oh letís toast a marshmallow.
Jonathan Clark: My name is Jonathan Clark Iím a regional policy and learning manager
with Big Lottery Fund. A lot of what we see in our business is kind of like a reinventing
at the wheel and if you bring projects together they learn from each other, they can spark
off each other as well, they enthuse each other as in enthusiasm and we end up with
better projects then we have better value for money. As far as the lottery is concerned
this is absolutely fantastic to get projects together. Weíre trying to move away I think
from being just a cash point for projects weíre actually looking at where we can also
add value to the projects and this is a really important area is actually bringing those
projects together that post award learning. So if we can do that the projects can learn
from each other we can end up with better projects, theyíre going to make a bigger
difference to communities and to the lives of people most in need which is really what
the focus of the Big Lottery Funding is all about.
Greg Morgan: The whole experience has been a learning curve for me really seeing how
Wayland and Bev in particular has produced such a lovely learning environment for the
pupils, utilizing different things like tires, old bricks, bits of fall pipes and things
like that. Creating different areas of interest has been great.
Beverley Page: And for me really rethinking what we do with our end produce I mean yes
we use some for cookery we donít provide the canteen with enough, we donít sell enough
produce or plants to the staff; thatís something else that maybe rethinking for the future.
I mean there are huge learning curves and you know itís good to appreciate what each
other has done I think, isnít it.
Greg Morgan: One thing thatísÖI particularly has got out of this is the enthusiasm to carry
forward and extend it and build on what weíve got rather than sticking to the traditional
and say well weíll go along these lines seeing how this takes us and this has given us great
ideas as to what weíre going to be doing.
Children Iím going to read you a poem now that I have written about your garden and
why Iím here.
Our College allotment and garden, are still in their infancy,
we only started last year with the grant from Big Lottery.
I entered a Christmas blog poem in the competition by Local Food
about things that we had done all year, some things were hard to include.
Because I donít usually win things, to come first was a surprise to me.
Now we are here in Norfolk, at Wayland academy.
They have plants and flowers growing in tires, a polytunnel full of seeds,
chicken coups, ponds and bug hotels, in fact everything for their needs.
Our projects run on similar lines, if not in size but in education.
This is to get pupils eating wholesome food, and taking part in its cultivation.
Iím taking back lots of ideas, of things I will try to do.
So to the staff and pupils at Wayland I just wish to say thank you.
To share knowledge and learn from others, is something we all should do.
So big thank you to all at Local Food, this one is down to you.