Sign Up To Our E-Newsletter For Updates

To keep up to date with all the things we are doing to improve the park in Bevendean, please sign up to our email newsletter. I've just written the first one and eager to send it out!

Don't worry, we wont write them very often!

To sign up simply complete this tiny form.

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You Can Now Donate Online

We have set up a donation button on this blog so you can make donations to use,  no matter how big or small, whenever you like!

There is the option to set up a regular payment, or to donate as a one off.

It is via Paypal, so providing you pay using money you have in your Paypal account, or with a debit card, no charges are made.

To find it, simply look at our main blog page on the top right, or donate using the button below.

Thank you!

We Were Nominated For A Community Works Award!

Last week Community Works held their annual awards ceremony at Brighton Komedia.

Some of our committee members attended because we were nominated for an award!

We were in the category for Small Group, Big Achiever. We didn't win, but as a very new group in Brighton we were just excited we even got nominated!

The 2016 Winners

Community Works elected new CW Reps the following day and our chair Claire Jacobs was elected as a rep for small groups, so will be representing us and all other Brighton small groups.

This is exciting because some of these meetings she will be attending will include CityParks and other departments of the council, and will cover relevant topics such as parks and green spaces in the city.

What a successful week for us!

Please Vote For Us For More Funding!

We have been chosen as one of the groups that can be voted for in order to win funding from the Aviva Communiy Fund, so please vote for us!

We have until 18th November 2016 to get as many online votes as possible, so please share this on your Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp the link to your friends and family. 

Voting is now live and the link is here. 

Here is a flyer one of our members have kindly made so please share it online!

We are aiming to get between £10-25,000 so this is a big one- any help much appreciated!

Our Green ASDA Box Raised £200!

Today we collected a cheque for £200 from ASDA's community scheme to add to our fundraising pot.

We were runners-up, but we did well as everytime I looked the box seemed to have got a lot more coins in it!

Thank you to everyone who put the green coins in our box during the couple of months it was open, and if you know of any other fundraising schemes please get in touch as we have a lot of money to raise in order to renovate the park.

FFG and BevFest Community Picnic

On Saturday 13 August we hosted a community picnic with the BevFest group.

The purpose of the event was to get the community to socialise on the green outside the park and talk about their hopes and ideas for Farm Green.

Hannah (committee member), Sara (Forest school) and Claire (Chair of FFG)

We had a few families come to have picnics and the Bevendean Community Garden group also joined us along with some of the yummy veg from their garden.

Just some of the yummy food from Bevendean Community Garden 

Sara from Fernee Forest School did some arts and crafts with the children, and there were plenty of activities from a bouncy castle, table football to face painting and a book swap.

It was lovely to see those of you who attended, and we hope to run some more of these events over the coming months.

There were suggestions of setting up a healthy cookery class in conjunction with the Community Garden group, having pizza social events at the gardens and running more activities on the green for residents.

So watch this space for more events!

We've Won 2 Funding Applications!

The group is over the moon that we have managed to get two of the funding bids we put in!

We have secured £4,032 from the Sussex Community Foundation to go towards things such as park benches, fixing the fencing and funding the admin side of this group (we need to create banners, event posters etc).

We've also been awarded £2,500 from the Biosphere Grant specifically for creating a butterfly and bee-friendly planted area within the green areas of Farm Green. This will also include creating a handful of nature workshops for the Bevendean community, so if you know anybody who can help please get in touch!

There's still a long way to go, but this has been the boost we needed to continue our fight to improve the park .

If you can spare any time to help us please get in touch by emailing friendsoffarmgreen@gmail.com

The more people that help means the less work that each person has to do!

Complete Our Survey: Tell Us What You Want In Our Park

In order to try to make changes to the park we need to hear from you, the park users themselves, what you want to see in the park.

So we've set up a quick online survey you can fill in to let us know what you like about it currently, what you don't like and what you would like to see us do to it once we have raised enough funds. 

Please share the survey with as many kids, teens and adults who use the park as possible so we can make sure we create something you will all love!

To complete the survey click on this link. 

We Now Have An Asda Donation Box!

Our Asda Community Box

Yesterday one of the committee was at Asda Hollingbury and spotted our group on one of the donation boxes.

Asda run a Community Scheme where they feature three local projects who are trying to raise money.

When you're buying your shopping at the checkout you just ask for some green plastic coins and then you put them in the box that you want money donated to, so please put them in our box!

We Were On ITV Meridian Tonight!

Our Secretary, Jayne Van Rensburg, was featured on ITV Meridian News tonight to promote our fundraising for Farm Green.

You can see the clips on the Meridian website here. 

Our Fundraising Page Is Now Live

We have created a fundraising page for anybody to donate (every penny helps) and we are still going to keep applying to charities and organisations for funding in the meantime.

Please share our crowdfunding page wherever you can!

The link to the page is here.

Thanks!

Our First Consultation Event- Please Join Us!

We are going to be at Bevendean's Health Event to find out your views about Farm Green, and to also offer face painting to the kids!

Please pop in and say hi as we would love to hear your thoughts, and to see if anybody else would like to get involved.

FFG Management Committee Established

Today our Constitution was written and agreed and the Friends of Farm Green management committee was formally established.

There are 12 members of the management committee and the group nominated and elected the following people in the management roles:

Claire Jacobs as Chair
Mitch Alexander as Vice Chair
Jayne Van Rensburg as Treasurer
Holly Hayes as Secretary

These 12 people will be responsible for making the final decisions for things including marketing, fundraising, budgets and expenditure.

By formalising the group and procedures they have to abide by we are now able to start applying for various funds so watch this space...

Our Petition Was Submitted to Brighton and Hove Council

On 24 March we submitted our petition to a Brighton and Hove full council meeting.

FFG committee member Jayne Van Rensburg took the petition to council and said the following speech:

“My name is Jayne Van Rensburg and on behalf of the residents and friends of Bevendean, we would like to thank you for receiving our petition today.

In less than a fortnight 460 people have signed the e-petition on the council website – and 323 people have signed our paper petition.

We are simply asking for the council to treat our children in the same way as it treats the children who use just about every other park in Brighton and Hove and help us improve the Farm Green playground.

Brighton and Hove’s statement in 2015 was that "we recognise the importance of play in the development of children and young people and we're committed to improving play spaces around the city to make them more exciting and challenging"

Jayne Presenting Our Petition To Council

Welcome To Our Page

The Friends of Farm Green community group was created in March 2016 after Jayne Van Rensburg and Claire Jacobs collected more than 770 petition signatures from local residents.

FFG consists of a 12 member management committee and more than 140 'friends' who live in or near the Bevendean area who want to help improve the park and it's surroundings.

The purpose of this blog is to provide updates of our progress to anybody who is interested in following our work.

If you want to get involved with FFG please visit our How To Get Involved page for more details.