Hello one and all and welcome to the final blog update of 2014! What a busy year we have all had here at the Centre with many changes, certainly the most I have seen in my time here (nearly three years), as, you can re-read from the years posts, with plenty more promised for the beginning of the new year! Anyway, let me fill you in on what went on in December…and I’m not going to say what a busy month we’ve had, just so I don’t sound like a broken record. In fact, this post will be a little shorter than usual due to being shut over the festive period, a lack of pictures taken this month (sorry!) and one activity taking priority over anything else…
We started the month having to say a sad farewell to our project/training officer Sheila who is relocating to south Somerset. The gang gave her a great send off and she will be sadly missed, we wish her well on her new adventure and hope she pays us many visits in the future to see the transformations she worked tirelessly to help put into place. It’s fair to say Sheila oversaw more changes in her short time at the helm than I have seen previous during my time at the Centre and it is certainly more organised now than when she started! Taking over is Jason Leck from the Bristol Conservation team so we are running both groups out of the Centre, so please do contact us for your conservation and horticulture needs!
During the month we were busy making many a wreath and rustic Rudolph to sell to visitors, which again we were very successful again. A huge thank you to everyone who bought one, all the money gets put back into the charity. We also attended the annual Carols in the Barn festive event at our home of Grimsbury Farm. One noticeable thing from attending was the amount of people who came to our stall and commented how their Rudolph’s were still doing strong and are a big part of the family, which is always great to hear!
The whole month was spent preparing the site for the further redevelopments in the New Year. The public area has nearly been cleared, with only the herb garden staying of the growing beds, even the sandpit has been demolished and moved to a new home! To make up for the loss of growing space more beds have been built in other areas around the site ready for a mammoth re-planning of the beds over the forst few weeks back in January.
Finally, we have continued to have bare rooted tree orders, fulfilling and delivering them have taken up the rest of our time. Don’t forget you have until the spring to plant bare rooted trees so if you require any native species or apple trees then please do contact is and we will try and try meet your needs.
We all hope you had a great festive period and look forward to seeing you all in 2015!
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