Time for nesting

We've had a few snags since we last did much with the yurt (which you can read about in earlier postings to this blog) - but now that spring is coming, and the EcoMinds lottery money is about to start - we're picking it all up again.

Next Saturday, 26 March we are going to 

• finish putting the yurt up
• furnish and decorate it
• see what needs doing to our teepee
• (if we have time) decide what sort of site we need to ask the council about for the City Farm project

Here’s the rough plan for staffing and running the project now we have the Lottery money. It is NOT written in stone – this is only a first draft, and we’re open to anything at this stage.

But we need to make sure we spend the money as allocated each quarter, or it gets complicated asking for variations (or we risk losing what we haven’t spent).

So we need to hit the ground running, and fortunately – it’s the right season for getting going now.

• Stay at Wexham nursery for this year, and do most of what we grow in pots etc.
• Finish putting the yurt up, furnishing and decorating it
• Ditto for the teepee
• Change the Wexham programme so people are free to come every lunch & afternoon if they want
• David continues his Thursday and Monday afternoons with the project, and Sheena Mondays
• We add six three hour XBX sessions over the week (six is my estimate – we need to get figures for what the costs are to make sure it is accurate for using the grant at the right rates. 
• Plan to start doing all this in April 
• Connect with Linsdey and the funding she is raising for the City Farm (which will only partly be for us to use) 
• Get back to John Rice with details of what we need
• Have three non-horticultural task groups of staff + XBXs + volunteers: 

1. Planning and organising the launch event (which we have good funding for)
2. Recruiting volunteers and participants
3. Publicity and website (with help from the EcoMinds publicity office)

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