Honing in on the key research question

Late night whatsapp chat… Alise: What are better words for 1) ‘facilitate’ and 2) ‘form’ in the following… How does an organisation effectively facilitate (local) food security in terms of its structure, form, and governance?1) Drive? Catalyse?2) Model? Practice? For new provisional title: The role of an organisation’s structure and form in maximising its social […]

Scoping out the research with Cherry Truluck

A much-needed catch up with Cherry Truluck who founded and runs Custom Food Lab… Research Focus One idea has been to hone in on a particular Intergenerational Growing Project involving a local care home and school, and study the wellbeing impact on participants. Complications due to coronavirus restrictions aside, we agree there’s “already a lot […]

Brampton Lodge – cottage garden

Sunshine at last! Today Alison, Mary and I continued to dig out the neat strips for veg, just wide enough to straddle, with a small path in between each. This is apparently called a ‘Cottage Garden’! We also widened the top flower bed – almost got to the end this morning. We dug sections just […]

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) to the Climate Emergency

https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/natural-environment/ignition/ Really inspiring (EU funded) project called Ignition coming out of Greater Manchester, with UK Green Building Council and Business in the Community Key points: Greater Manchester has a Five-Year Environment Plan!! Worth working towards similar for Folkestone?? I couldn’t find any clear heading on either KCC or F&HDC websites for any overarching policy / […]

Environmental Bill

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environment-bill-2020 https://services.parliament.uk/Bills/2019-21/environment.html This Bill is now being considered again by a Public Bill Committee which is scheduled to report by Tuesday 1 December 2020. From Green Alliance Blog: “It is good news that the Environment Bill will resume its parliamentary journey on 3 November after a delay of more than six months. The not-so-good news is that the […]

Measuring out Brampton Lodge garden

Regular volunteer hours at Brampton House now set as Tuesdays 10am – noon Staff were otherwise engaged today, as the Home Manger, Michelle, reported one of the residents passed away that morning… Mary has now sketched out the grounds for the various plots: wild flowers polytunnel ‘market garden’ (neat rows of veggies) raised beds (including […]

Agriculture Bill 2019-21

Key learnings from Briefing Paper https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2019-21/agriculture.html https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-01/0007/20007.pdf Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes will be a mainstay of future farm support. Key change is phasing out of Direct Farm Support (according to how much land they own (rather than how much they produce, to avoid incentivising overproduction)) to Payment for Public Goods. Phasing out of Direct […]

Business = ‘maximising profit’?

Rebecca Henderson @RSA: ‘can business save the world’ presentation : growing inequality and climate change is bad for business. Eventually, who are these companies going to hire and sell to? One prob is both right and left define ‘business’ as ‘maximising profit’ – either positively or negatively – with little room for nuance. But there […]

Subject Areas and Ideas to explore

Subject Areas and Ideas to explore I want to ensure I:- build upon previous research with Fergus on competing logics: environmental, social and commercial- encompass the individual and the group perspectives re wellbeing and agency- take an active, hands-on part in asset-based community development (whether it’s labelled this way or not) as well as being […]