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SOUTHSEA GREEN
PORTSMOUTH
Project
Skillshops 2
Thank you to Awards for All, now the National Lottery Community Fund, for making a difference to our community of gardeners and crafters here at Southsea Green, our community garden by the sea.
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Southsea Green has a well established community on facebook and is a fantastic resource for the audience. Our community space, well established over the last seven years is well loved and used by the community. We wanted to provide activities to make the garden a destination and activity hub. This project was designed to encourage people interacting digitally to interact socially through workshop activities that inform, inspire and involve as well as reaching out to more people and partners across the city.
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Working with colleagues at the Food Partnership we promoted the benefits of growing and crafting to engage the community in activities to be creative and promote personal well being through taster workshops where skills were learned, passions for new activities discovered and friendships were formed.
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If you would like to read in more details what we did please read our report, it outlines exactly what we did and the benefits we saw to our community.
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Having now completed this workshop project are we stopping for a rest? no, we are not. We have lots of exciting ideas to extend our community growth and would love you to be involved in this process. Please bring your ideas, your creativity and sense of fun. We know we are so lucky to be in a vibrant, quirky, creative place. Together we can make great things happen for our community.
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Awards for All: Final Report from Southsea Green Community Cooperative.
About our Project
In total, we were able to offer 30 workshops between June and December 2018, with 15 being devoted to increasing gardening skills and another 15 focusing on crafting skills with a view to promoting mental well being.
What did they say about our Skillshops program?
We collected anonymous feedback using soft, qualitative techniques at the end of the skillshops and encouraged feedback and interactivity via our dedicated Facebook page.
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Harp and singing
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"Enjoyed this workshop so much, lifted my spirits"
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"Feeling full of joy after the singing workshop"
"A beautiful crescendo of sound, harps are angels with strings"
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Bicycle maintenance
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"Excellent, practical workshop, my wife’s bike’s much better"
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"Thank you, after eight years I know know how to fold my folding bike"
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"Brill, learnt so much and so easy"
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Treasure map
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"Such a nice activity, therapeutic and brings us all together"
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"Didn’t know I had this creativity in me, therapeutic and fun"
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Suncatcher
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"Absolutely wonderful, really, really enjoyed it x"
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"Great fun, such lovely people"
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Cooking for healthy eating
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"Was fun to mix with new people and share a morning cooking, great fun"
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"Great fun, such lovely people"
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"Food was delicious, interesting chat about food and ingredients and vitamins, thank you"
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"Plenty of wonderful vegetables, eating a rainbow"
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Drumming
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"Great event, 15 Drums and drummers giving fantastic show and display of their sounds. Crowds gathered enjoying the renditions and the children joining in, beating the play drums provided were a wonderful sight. Parents taking photos of their children and the little ones were delightful. Adults too practising on the real drums with great enthusiasm, all bringing friendship and Community togetherness with interest anew. Even myself, 85 years and my friend Pat, 93 years, enjoyed the experience of being welcomed into the 'fold '. Thank you...."
Here's a few of our favourite moments...
Sue Stokes, Founder of Southsea Greenhouse
"Families; babies; young people with learning difficulties; novice gardeners and makers; It has been a pleasure to work with local people of all ages and backgrounds in this skillshop community programme. We have made new discoveries in what's available for isolated and disenfranchised groups, and had the opportunity to work with other health and skilled professionals in delivering a broad range of activities which were accessible to all. The final skillshop was shared with a wonderful group supporting older people with dementia. What an honour and a pleasure sharing a few hours with them, from which we had as much benefit as they did for sure. Thank you Awards for All - what a difference you helped us make!"
