We want to:
- Build Compassion for each other and nature.
- Nurture Connections between our health, nourishing food and the soil.
- Grow our Collaboration with other organisations, to encourage more land into community ownership and to share our values and approach.
Read our full Appeal for Change letter to find out more.
By restoring connections between hearts, minds and the soil, we will encourage and create meaningful change, which helps build health and resilience within people and planet.
We will encourage all the positive things that have come out of 2020, and we want to help create a better future, which is supportive and nurturing.
Some of the things this appeal will help us to achieve include:
- accessibility improvements to ensure people of all abilities can access green space.
- improvements in our own ecological footprint and impact to ensure we are adding real value back to the planet.
- cookery classes/workshops to share a love of food, impart skills and provide the means for people to nourish their families as best as possible.
- natural crafts to bring nature into every part of our life e.g. basket weaving, natural print making, drawing.
- seasonal celebrations that ensure no change in nature goes by without us noticing and appreciating what it gives us.
Plus, many other many wonderful activities and project that will nurture a culture of appreciation and compassion for our natural world and everything that is contained within it.
You can help from home too. Here are the Appeal for Change Fordhall Four!
We would love to know if you can pledge to support one or more of the following:
- I commit to shopping local with small independent shops as much as possible
- I will share my love of food and cooking with family, friends and neighbours
- I will grow some of my own fruits or vegetables
- I will spend at least 5 minutes being present outdoors or next to an open window at least 3 or 4 times a week, listening to the sounds of the birds or the wind and watching nature simply do its thing.
To make your pledge and let us know about your own Vision for Change, please follow the link below. All ‘Visions for Change’ will be entered into a competition and the winner will have their vision hanging around the neck of our huge Piggy Bank onsite!
Or if you have little ones in your family then take a look at our Children’s Mission.
We look forward to sharing the journey with you all.
Charlotte x
See here what some of our staff team, young people and clients of the care farm noted as their vision for change.
How will we monitor and report on the success of this appeal?
A great question! As you may have noticed, we have some broad ideas for utilising this fund, but we don’t have a detailed proposition to put to you. This is because the need for this has come about very quickly. We are responding to the issues being faced by our planet and our communities now. We know we have an obligation at Fordhall to encourage a better normal – and most importantly, we want to!
We will be drawing up detailed proposals for spending this fund in the New Year to present to our Board of directors for discussion. These will be presented at our Members AGM, May 2020, for comment, and shared through The Grazer newsletter.
We will apply appropriate measures of success to each approved activity, and these will be reported on at Board meetings and successive AGM’s. Providing you, our members with the opportunity to critique and hopefully share our successes.
Evidence for the success of this appeal will be based not on bricks and mortar, not in the number of paths built, but instead on the extent to which we have encouraged change, both within the lives of those in our community and within our planet.
We are placing a large focus this year on measuring our impact better – many new processes are being implemented. It is not an easy thing to measure, but we will do it. We have a great team with the right skills to ensure we implement it successfully.
We have always succeeded with our aims at Fordhall, from saving the farm from development, to building the Straw Lodge. This appeal is just as purpose driven. A fund to expand our delivery and to focus those activities on encouraging a better and more sustainable normal for us all.
If you have any further questions, please do drop me an email or give me a call charlotte.hollins@fordhallfarm.com / 01630638696
