While the experience of Natural Agriculture begins in the vegetable rows, it extends throughout our lives.

"While the experience of Natural Agriculture begins in the vegetable rows, it extends throughout our lives."


Natural Agriculture as a Way of Living

At its core, Shumei Natural Agriculture is the process of rebuilding our relationship to nature, using a foundation of cooperation and gratitude. Farming and eating are the mediums for learning that approach to life, but at its fullest, Natural Agriculture is a way of being in the world no matter what you’re doing. For instance, it can be a child in a Natural Agriculture garden. There he or she would discover the interconnectedness of all the living beings that make up that garden. The child would learn to treat the plants and soil with care—as partners rather than possessions. But then the child would carry that lesson outside the garden, applying the newfound sense of respect and partnership to all the relationships in his or her life. In another case, it can mean revitalizing the traditional farming culture of rural communities that were relying on conventional farming methods over the wisdom of nature. The practice of Natural Agriculture can help restore the respect for nature and natural resources in communities that enables them to develop in environmentally sustainable ways. While the experience of Natural Agriculture begins in the vegetable rows, it extends throughout our lives.

Ask a Natural Agriculturist what he or she is trying to accomplish, and the answer is often surprising: “World peace.” And yet if it sounds like a lofty goal for a person who appears to simply be farming in a unique way or eating with particular awareness, consider that there is more to their actions than meets the eye. When Natural Agriculture’s founder, Mokichi Okada, conceived of these ideas, he was not just looking for an alternative food source. He was responding to larger themes in the world, particularly to the way human beings treat the environment and each other, to a culture that leads to disregard, conflict and violence. His vision was that one by one, person by person, we could use Natural Agriculture to build new relationships with the people and nature around us—just as that child in the garden or a rural farming cooperative would. With enough people, that change would spread to the community, and with enough communities that change would spread to the nation. Ultimately, the renewal of compassion and respect would span the globe. And war would become a thing of the past.

  

Farming to Create Heaven on Earth

more at http://www.shumei-na.org/farming/index.html

Dont miss - workshop in Hadlow about household sustainability

Our work goes on - an experience for young and older alike - learning, teaching, sharing

Welcome to Communigrow, www.communigrow.org

Our charity provides learning experience for students of all ages and abilities in a varied and stimulating garden of nearly 6 acres.

We currently provide:

• over 3 acres of cultivated 'market' garden
• an acre of developing natural habitat
• a field 'education centre' for schools and groups free of charge
• a 'Kent Shed' project for wellbeing (click here) 
• a growing team of voluntary amateur gardeners 
• organic or better (sustainable)
• resources on site 
• plant propagation
• 'Field Kitchen'
• workshops and discussion of low carbon living.
• new conservation study and environment care
• appropriate technology, 
• corporate sessions

As a charity you may help us via 

We desperately need your old seeds, pots and trays to plant up for this season. As you can imagine with that much ground to cover we need a lot!

You Donate direct via our Charities Aid Foundation page at: Communigrow donate HERE

Do not forget to complete the Gift Aid as this makes a huge difference.

For our latest newsletter CLICK HERE

Thanks

Our education centre is taking shape. With over 5 acres of land leased from East Malling Research available for our use as a charity providing educational opportunities free of charge to schools and groups in Kent.



Communigrow is all about food and farming. This season our garden (more a field) shall give over 100 students of all ages and abilities new facilities for growing and experiencing nature. As a charity (registered Charity 1159534) and with our dedicated team of volunteer gardeners our aim to provide a broad scope of experience from growing vegetables and craft produce such as hops and herbs to creating new habitat for wildlife and caring for the planet with low carbon, zero pollutant techniques.

We welcome new partners to expand from our 12 students and 20 local volunteers who currently benefit and may have facilities for up to 60 students or more over 10 sessions per week.

One of our new projects to to match Chelsea Flower Show with our own 'show gardens. These are pocket gardens created by each school or group and are built-up over time to reflect the interests and abilities of the session members and for further information to get details on how we may include your school or group email us at pocket@communigrow.org

For further information on our education sessions for your school or group please contact bonnie@communigrow.org

Registered Charity 1159534 Communigrow
c/o Helen Turner
(Secretary)
1 Wesley Close
Barming
ME16 9HT

Please donate to our education centre. CLICK HERE 

£50 will enable us to include conservation in all our sessions. £100 gives us the ability to include one new 2 hour group session for 6 students. Other amounts will mean we may run up to 10 two hour sessions per week on site and additionally mean we may provide workshops and demonstration sessions within schools and groups in the community.

The single best way to help us with our work is to eat our veg, not only do you support our charity - you get to have it on your plate! Our boxes of seasonal veg are available to order for a local rate of £10. Other areas are by quote and further afield are by our overnight delivery service.

Every order directly provides us with funds to run our school sessions FREE OF CHARGE and expand our range of crops for later in the season. Not only do you support the young people we work with but also our team of volunteers that enable this to happen. Call us to order today or drop into our barrow-the-green, Ditton, every Saturday from 12noon or at the Brassey Centre from 10am.

NEW

Our larger boxes of local produce may now be delivered to any UK postal address overnight for £6.60+VAT. Email overnight@communigrow.org to place your order.

These would normally include this week, as an example, at least 6 veg items, 1 dozen eggs, 1 honey, 1 jam, 1 chutney. Including overnight postage and packing this totals £22.50.

In summer this would be up to 12 veg items,  2 craft items, 1 dozen eggs, 1 honey, 1 jam, 1 chutney. Including overnight postage and packing this totals £29.50.

learning, teaching and sharing
up to 5 acres available for cultivation as an educational charity, providing learning and land based experience
We provide field based sessions on growing and conservation for schools and groups free of charge.
Such a wide range of crops all grown by our small but dedicated group of amateur local gardeners may be of help for young and old to learn about growing. We are a 'Kent Shed' promoting wellbeing through involvement in all our charity work. The system of 'Skillshare' where members offer their own knowledge and skill as volunteers, pooling our combined experience to help other who may have few ways to learn about how the natural world works.
All that helps towards reducing the impact we have on the planet. Understanding Climate change and a healthy, active, lifestyle are very important to the future and may need to be explored in new ways. We aim to grow more but also learn more through sustainable, organic or better methods using natural systems.
Let me know as it would all contribute to our educational work on field and in the community. We are a charity based on providing field sessions (growing and outdoor classroom) for schools and groups Free of charge on our 5 acre field and later in the community. Our veg is purely seasonal and boxes are available for our suggested donation. We shall also have proper eggs from scratch roaming hens, bees and more.
Get in touch if you may be interested
Growing veg for the people of Ditton, Larkfield and the Mallings.
Also lots of other interests such as ethnic crops, cut flowers, hops and curious crops such as linseed and soya beans and many more.
All grown using organic or better, Permacultural, natural methods & techniques with expanding habitats for conservation and environmental study.
Ask for more details, call:
07806 708 386
email join@communigrow.org
read our news at www.communigrow.org
like us at www.facebook.com/
EastMallingCommunitySupportedAgriculture

Our garden provides seasonal veg, herbs & spices, unusual ‘ethnic’ crops and craft plants including cut flowers, hops and aromatic oils. All good, healthy produce for people who may otherwise not consider this currently. We encourage a healthier diet of fresh food targeting lower income families, unskilled people and older generations and our aim is to get as many people as possible to contribute in some way in the growing which should bring health benefits of an active lifestyle.
To this goal we continue the work on the ground to create a productive yet bio-diverse landscape.
Formed a new Charitable Incorporated Organisation, essential to take on all operations to create more awareness of our project and encourage membership, enabling us to employ local people on our growing team. Once we have this with active members and our team have the produce we shall consider the role we may contribute to more specialist educational and training work on and off the plot in the community.

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award

Dear Laurence,

We are delighted to announce the finalists for this year’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEYA). As a fellow social entrepreneur it would be fantastic if you could help support the finalists by voting in and sharing #SEYA15 with your networks and on social media (tweet to @SchSocEnt with #SEYA15).

Over 230 entrepreneurs applied for the 42 places on this year’s Scale Up Programme and the finalists have beaten off tough competition from their peers to be in contention for the award. The award comes with a top prize of £10,000, with second and third places receiving £6,000 and £4,000 respectively.

Click this link to Vote now or visit www.the-sse.org/SEYA.

You are also able to vote for by text. You can do this by sending SEYA + finalist name to 67076. This is a free text.

To watch the meet the finalists video click here: https://youtu.be/1XFWfieyL2E

The finalists are:

Nick Green, West Yorkshire. Incredible Farm: A community project based on 1 acre of land. The farm may be small but £5000 worth of vegetables is sold each year. In addition, volunteers, children and apprentices are educated how to deal with food security issues and environmental damage

Michelle King, Peterborough. Little Miracles: An enterprise that supports families that have children with additional needs, disabilities and life limiting conditions. Little Miracles supports over 1,500 families and 5,000 children.

Simon Short, Grimsby. Inspiring Intelligence: Helps those released from prison overcome their social and economic difficulties by offering training and support, delivered by reformed offenders.

Jem Stein, London. The Bike Project: Provides second-hand bikes to refugees in and around London. By attending workshops and helping to fix their own bike, all refugees get actively involved in the process as much as possible, teaching them basic bike maintenance and forming long-term supportive relationships.

Caroline Tomlinson, Wigan. My Life: Supports children and adults with disabilities, people with ill health or age-related problems as well people who generally feel lonely or isolated within their communities. Workshops, meeting areas, outings, fun days and training opportunities are provided as part of the programme to combat loneliness through community activity

Voting closes on Friday 30th October.

The winner of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 will be announced on the evening of 4^th November at a ceremony at Lloyds Banking Group HQ in London.

Best wishes,

St James Centre in East Malling

This message has been posted on behalf of Liz Simpson: -

Hi everyone

As most of you will know I am Chair of Trustees at the St James Centre in East Malling. We are a Charity and provide a community hub where we run a variety of different activities for the people of all ages. We also have a cafe which provides good value healthy food daily as well as running classes on healthy eating for parents and children during the school holidays and opportunities for volunteers to learn skills to support them into work. There are keep fit classes, yoga, craft and chat, street games (for youngsters), discos for primary age children, Young Parents Groups, Brownies and a woodland play area and allotments. We also provide classroom space for children from two local secondary schools who cannot cope in mainstream schooling so that they can take their GCSEs. We are also the regional centre for Sport Relief and tomorrow morning (Friday) are holding a Macmillan Coffee morning (9 - 12 - all welcome). A children's nursery is also due to open soon.

Our only income currently is from renting out the hall and other spaces and fund raising. Our latest venture are a series of music events where, as well as some really interesting and enjoyable live music, we will be serving some delicious food.



It would be fantastic to get some support from fellow Rotarians for these events. Please have a look at the attached flyer and let me know if you would like tickets.


Liz



BOOK THE SAINT JAMES CENTRE FOR YOUR EVENT


The Saint James Centre has full event and conference facilities, from live music through to a conference for up to 100 people we have the space, great staff team, friendly atmosphere and full catering facilities.


Some events we put on ourselves (see here for details) you can also book the centre for your event or party at great rates.



Events at the centre include:

Children's birthday parties (we have a large safe hall, tables and chairs for 100 people, toilet and changing facilitates, full catering facilities and cafe, our own professional children's entertainers, PA and music if required)
Family events (such as wedding anniversaries, birthday parties etc...)
Bands and music events (we have full PA facilties, stage area with lighting and seating (if required for up to 100 people)
Charity fundraising events
Conference events for your organisation (we have full catering facilities, stage area with lighting, projector and screen, Quality PA system, seating for 100 people)
Clubs and activities, these include keep fit, weight management, art club, photography club, music and arts courses, youth clubs, yoga, cooking, healthy eating and much more...
Jumble sales, boot fairs and community events
Contact us if you would like to hold your event at The Saint James Centre.

field kitchens through September and October - For dates 'accept' and request a calendar.

Field kitchens through September and October - For dates 'accept' and request a calendar.

A chance to discover more of our fresh sustainably grown veg and our session work with schools and groups.

For dates and times 'accept' and request a calendar. Theses are not events for the general public and  we work on an invite basis for this development work.

email Richenda at kitchen@communigrow.org

call 07806 708 386

Wed 23rd September      16.00
Thurs 1st October             16.00
Tues 6th October               16.00
Friday 9th October            10.30 – 14.00 
Saturday 10th October    15.00 
Tuesday 13th October     14.00 – 16.00

We have our key field workers to talk to along with charity secretary to discuss support and donations
As for the food, it entirely speaks for itself. Seasonal, Fresh & grown/distributed with both environment and social care in mind throughout. 

These include the new Bradbourne Low Carbon, Wildlife habitat and study, our all weather classroom and inspiring social enterprise and development ….. and more that our field of 5 acre may provide such as craft and creative arts.

A reminder that we provide all our developing sessions for schools and groups entirely FREE OF CHARGE - it is our charitable purpose to provide such and all support for our essential funds is most welcome. see below.

As a charity you may help us via 

We desperately need your old seeds, pots and trays to plant up for this season. As you can imagine with that much ground to cover we need a lot!

You Donate direct via our Charities Aid Foundation page at: Communigrow donate HERE

Do not forget to complete the Gift Aid as this makes a huge difference.

Registered Charity Number 1159534 COMMUNIGROW

We aim to introduce 'themes' for events such as............

• instant kitchen recipes - recipes to test and trial at our kitchens at the field to showcase our fab quality veg
• Seasonality of vegetables production and how it creates natural opportunities for variation of diet and awareness of natural systems that may be taken away by imported goods. This naturally drifts into food miles and use of large volume - high carbon heated growing.
• Mario's 'Language of Food'
• Demonstrations in food and craft
• social enterprise
• Flowform water sculptures
• appropriate technology
• Bee and bee care
• Wildlife habitat creation and study
• our education strategy
• development of our market garden and 'Larkfield and Ditton Local Food'

A few ideas for field kitchen menus, all using Communigrow produce:

Warm Salad of Squash and Mushrooms

Squash, Sweetcorn and Bean Soup

Carrot burgers

Tomato and tarragon soup

Spinach and feta wraps

Kale and gorgonzola with pasta

Courgette fritters

Squash/courgette curry

Rhubarb Drop scones

Squash and celery risotto

Panzanella – tomato and bread salad

autumn grower needed part time - voluntary - local - Ditton/larkfield/the Mallings