Get Ready to Grow 2.0 – A year of Achievements

Get Ready to Grow, a support programme funded by Co-op Foundation, was delivered between 2020-2022.  The programme helped 22 different groups to improve, protect and reconnect with the environment. The second year of the programme is just ended and we would like to publicly thank Co-op Foundation for their support. In this final year, we worked with some very interesting projects. Here they are:

– Azora Community Farm: two volunteers attended the online training course on community farming we run in April and May 2021 with Jubilee Farm and then they decided to set up their own very BenCom. The second community farm in NI!

– Ecological Design Association NI: we helped them to organise and promote two demonstration projects on using hemp as a natural insulation material and demonstrate on a real wall of the hosting organisation (in both cases Men’s Shed groups) how this can be applied and what it is needed.

– Tullygarley Allotments (also Tullagh the Scullery, Ballymena): we help the organisation to develop 8 new policies ranging from Volunteering Policy to Equal Opportunities to GDPR to Health and Safety on the Allotments. We worked with the Board members.

– Good to Grow: we helped them to develop a membership policy and pay for some pressing start-up costs such as website development and PL insurance.

– NICE: We helped them to research Slow and Rapid Charges for EV Cars. We encouraged them to explore the possibility to have EV charges in community ownership and connect them to existing solar panel installations that they run. NICE presented the findings of the research in a public webinar. Existing new thinking came out of this!

– Carrickfergus Community Orchard: Positive Carrickfergus and Eco-Rangers are two voluntary communities operating in Carrickfergus. They came together to revive an old public orchard on the fringe of a public park. We helped them organise the initial meeting with a tree specialist and they then organised community events to clear and prune the growing tree.

– Carrickfergus Community Greengrocer: Positive Carrickfergus also applied for a different project. This group wanted to explore the feasibility of a community shop. We are currently continuing working with them on a pro bono basis. Watch this space!