The new year got off to a busy start at all of our pilot hubs, as they hosted their first ever Green Skills Exchange. The aim was to ensure that community members from across the North could meet each other and share their Green Hubs experience with others.
“The North” is a big place, and it did involve a lot of travel! We partnered hubs up with each other and over two weeks, they visited each other on an exchange.
First up was Friends of Clay Pitts Park, in Morecambe, and they took a trip to Workington. We learnt more about activities that take place in Vulcans Park, and tried our hand at some nature journaling. We also went on a lovely wellbeing walk along the coast, with views of snow topped fells in the distance. The week after the team from Workington travelled down to Morecambe for the “return” leg. In Morecambe Angela, our project facilitator, led a morning session encouraging us all to think about biodiversity in our green spaces, and we learnt about the wildflower meadow that had been sowed in Clay Pitts Park. We also went down to Morecambe Promenade, to check out the new site for the Eden Project North.
Next up was the turn of our second group of hubs, and the team from Bradford came down to West Gorton Park in Manchester for their first day out. Volunteers and participants from Morley Street Resource Centre were really interested to learn about the sensory garden in the park, and take some of their ideas back to their own hub. Our final visit was to Bradford, and teams from both our Manchester hub and West Boldon Lodge in Tyneside came along. The theme this week was all about recycling and reuse, and the groups had a great compost demonstration from our facilitator Lou. We tried our hand at making our own compost mixes, learning about “greens” and “browns”. We also built a mini worm farm for our sites to take home, complete with some worms fresh from Leeds that day!
Participants said that their favourite parts of the exchange included: “Meeting new people”, “Making the wormery!” and “spending time with likeminded people”. We loved the opportunity to visit all the hubs and see the fantastic work taking place – watch this space for the next one!
