The Operation Farm visioning sessions took place on 21st and 23rd January 2012 at the Park Cafe, Hyde and were attended by over 60 people. Facilitated by Kindling Trust the sessions saw participants from the community, voluntary and public sector as well as volunteers and potential users, working together to pool ideas and articulate a vision for Operation Farm in Tameside and Glossopdale. We want to thank everyone who attended, we’ll be writing up the sessions and circulating them as soon as we can.

An interesting and relevant event coming up soon…

Scaling Up Local Food Enterprises
10^th February 2012 at 10.30 – 3:30pm Romero Centre Macclesfield
(Optional extra …see Food 4 Macc direct pick up evening on Thursday 9^th February at 6pm)

This Event will bring together existing established community scale food enterprises and show case national and international examples

Agenda
10 am Registration and drinks
10:30am Welcome and introduction to the day Mick Marston Northern Development Co-coordinator
10:45 am Presentations and Questions
True Food Anna Batchelor
Food 4 Macc Tim Shercliff
Stroudco Jade Bashford
11:45 comfort stretch!!!
12 noon
Unicorn Supermarket. Debbie Clarke Sustain
European Experience Bico-op/GAS Jade Bashford Soil Association
International Experience Ruth Little ESRC-CASE studentship
1 pm Local Lunch
1:45 Carousel workshops
Producer contacts and contracts Tim Sheriff
Marketing Anna Batchelor
Getting organized..Governance Mark Simmonds Co-ops UK
Each participant will get opportunity to visit each workshop leader
2; 45 Facilitated discussion
Coop.ORG is a social enterprise, a producer-consumer food co operative, linking producers with new customers through a network of consumer buying groups Myth or reality?

To book, contact Charlotte Muspratt, E: cmuspratt@soilassociation.org T: 0117 914 2423

"Pear Face" Fruit Print from the Orchard Planting Day

Well, seeing as this autumn the orchard at Hyde Park, planted last November, is still settling in and we have had no fruit to harvest, we have utilised our time to write a rather chunky application to the BIG Lottery to access funding from their Community Spaces programme. The bid is for nearly £50,000 and if successful we will be able to provide new paths and seating, plant a wildflower meadow, design and install an outdoor classroom, install information panels and create some lovely artworks to really bring the area to life.

We hope that you got the chance to get involved in the consultation that these ideas sprang from – but if you didn’t, worry not as if the grant comes through there will be ample opportunity to get involved in planting, creating artworks and organising a fantastic launch event – keep an eye out for volunteer calls in 2012.

We hope to hear the outcome of the application before Christmas so watch this space…

If you’d like to subscribe for email updates on Hyde Park Community Orchard visit the sign up page

Operation Farm is in the process of developing a plan for a community farm in the Tameside and Glossopdale area.

We are currently carrying out a feasibility study, finding out if there are people or organisations locally who might be interested in getting involved or would like to influence its development in some way.If you would like to participate in some way, please complete our short survey by following this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H56XP95This survey will help us to find out who would like to get more involved and who might want to use the farm. It should take no more than 5-10 minutes.

Our deadline for responses is Tuesday 25th October 2011. Please forward on to anyone you think might be interested.

Many thanks,
All at Operation Farm

email: operationfarm@gmail.com

This Feasibility study is supported by the Big Lottery Fund’s Local Food Scheme

www.localfoodgrants.org
www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

There was another great turnout for the Operation Farm, Autumn Festival 2011 at the Hyde Park Cafe, Hyde, Tameside.

The event featured local food stalls and activities, live music from Single Cell Collective bands and theatre in the Community Orchard.

There were dozens of entries for the annual Scarecrow Competition and a run down of all the winners can be found here.

A big thank you to everyone who took part and came along, here’s some pictures from the day.

Autumn Scarecrow Festival Programme 2011

Take a look at the link above to see everything planned for this year’s autumn festival, taking place 11am-4pm, Saturday 24th September 2011 at Hyde Park, Tameside.

Our vision for Operation Farm is the creation of a space in Tameside that can be used by all the community to get involved in growing food and learning new skills.

From the work we’ve already carried locally out we know there’s quite a demand. We know both individuals and local community and voluntary organisations would use the farm so we’re carrying out a feasibility study to build detailed evidence of this.

If  you think you or an organisation you’re involved with might benefit from a community-owned and run farm then please email us operationfarm@gmail.com if you leave contact details we promise to get in touch.

So get in touch if you’re a local charity, housing association, an interested tenants and residents group, an arm of the council or any kind of community and voluntary group. We’ve not got a specific location in mind at the moment, we’re looking at all areas of Tameside.