Improving lives through Social and Therapeutic Horticulture.

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1 Improving lives through Social and Therapeutic Horticulture. Winter 2018 edition In this issue... A good neighbour is a found treasure A day in the life - Nigel News from Thrive s centres In loving memory - John Prest Festive fun! Support Thrive this Christmas Earlier in the year we welcomed some very exciting news from our neighbours at AWE, they had chosen Thrive as one of their nominated charities for the year. Throughout the course of the year staff will take part in fun runs, cake sales and quizzes in order to support Thrive and try to raise as much money for us as they possibly can. So far we have gratefully received a whopping 10,000 from their efforts and look forward to more to come keep up the amazing work! The latest event has been a Team Challenge. AWE held a team building day where 25 teams of 5 people from all over AWE competed in physical and mental challenges to win points. The teams have been fundraising for Thrive to gain extra bonuses on the day hoping that will help them score more points and maybe be the proud owner of a trophy at the end of the day. With raising charity funding more difficult than ever and government funding at a minimum, we rely on the support from local business to help raise awareness about the amazing work that we do here. Thank you to everyone at AWE for your amazing help.

2 A Day in the Life Our Therapy sessions are not the same for each of our Client Gardeners, each session is carefully tailored to suit individual needs and ensure that our Gardeners receive the most from their time spent in the Thrive Gardens. We spent some time with one of our Client Gardeners Nigel and Michele, his Key Therapist at Trunkwell, to see what they have been up to. Michele has been a Horticultural Therapist for 5 years and has spent the last three working with Nigel who has a learning disability which means he can struggle to stay focussed on one task. Working with Michele they have put together a programme to help Nigel to improve on this. With a passion for cooking Nigel is more than happy to reap what he sows and makes the most of all the crops he harvests. Nigel has his own plot in the mini polytunnel where he has been growing tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce and even some choy sum. We went down to Nigel s plot where he was harvesting the last of his tomatoes and lettuces from his summer crop. He then prepared his plot to plant out winter spinach and cabbages with a little prompt from Michele to water them in. Not only does this help Nigel to stay focussed he uses all of his own produce at home so helps promote healthy eating too. Just being with the clients and working alongside them is the best part of my day. Seeing them achieve something and feeling positive and happy at the end of the day, makes my job so worthwhile. Michele, Horticultural Therapist Each day Michele carefully plans the activities using a method called task and skills analysis which breaks down a task into simple steps, and assesses the skills required to achieve each step. This helps Michele know where adaptation may be needed so that everyone is included and can benefit from it. Nigel is particularly good at choosing recipes as he s a very keen cook. His latest choice is a vegetable and vegetarian sausage crumble, which the whole group can cook together and serve for lunch. Michele told us. Spending time with Nigel has allowed Michele to really understand his strengths and challenges and make sure that he gets the most out of his time at Thrive. Since having his plot in the mini polytunnel Nigel has really taken on the responsibility of looking after his crops without too much prompting. This doesn t only help during his time at Thrive, but at home also. Nigel can see the result of his work and this helps him learn how to continue a task from start to finish. Being out in the gardens really helps to improve physical health, mental wellbeing and allows our gardeners to meet other people which in turn can transform a person s life. Thrive Editor: Tammy Noble Design & Print: Phoenix 10 Limited Views expressed are not necessarily those of Thrive. Inclusion of advertisements does not indicate Thrive s endorsement of products and services. Thrive charity number Thrive company number Thrive is registered as The Society for Horticultural Therapy. When you have finished reading this edition of Thrive News, please recycle it by passing it on to friends, family or a local community organisation. Want to know more? If you, or someone you know could benefit from social and therapeutic horticulture, call Thrive on to find out how we can help. 2 Thrive News Winter

3 from the Thrive centres Trunkwell The summer months have been a very busy period for us here in the garden. The glorious summer weather has been fantastic, although the exceptionally high temperatures brought challenges to both the garden itself and the ability to garden. We are delighted to report that these challenges were overcome exceptionally well. We held 3 open garden afternoons which were very well attended. The afternoons provided the public with the opportunity to explore the gardens, enjoy delicious refreshments and purchase plants and produce. Our gardeners, staff and volunteers really enjoy talking to the public about their work here and the afternoons are a wonderful opportunity to showcase the horticultural skills of our gardeners. Our annual flower show took place on the 12th July. Beautiful weather, fun activities and the usual incredibly high standard of entries made for a wonderful day. Our compere for the day was David Domoney, Celebrity TV Our centres always require both individual and corporate volunteers. If you feel that you could donate some time with us, please us on info@thrive.org.uk or call to find out more. gardener, Chartered Horticulturist and Thrive Ambassador. The medals were presented by our chair of trustee s Faith Ramsey. Another highlight has been the arrival of our new minibus. With increasing unreliability and larger repair bills it was time to raise funds to secure a much younger and more reliable vehicle. We are incredibly grateful for the support of the grants and trusts who pledged financial support and allowed the dream of a newer minibus to become reality. Our gardeners have affectionately named the mini bus Sylvie. Their decision based on the fact that the make is a Peugeot and silver in colour! We have been delighted to welcome BBC radio Berkshire to the garden over the summer months. Presenter Bill Buckley has interviewed some of our gardeners, staff and volunteers about the garden. Bill s first visit took place in torrential rain but luckily all subsequent visits have been in glorious sunshine. Battersea As the year at Thrive Battersea is gearing towards the end, our 4 gardens are presenting their final autumnal glory before Christmas. The Summer was celebrated with the Children s Summer Programme running in the Main Garden, enabling children the opportunity to have fun with gardening and experimenting with different plants. The children built bug-hotels, baked lavender shortbread biscuits and made miniature container gardens. Whilst the 12-week Life After Stroke programme finished at the end of July, a new Life Changers programme started to run in September in the Main Garden. This 6-month programme evolved and expanded from the Life After Stroke programme to benefit more people living with life changing conditions. In August, a second Pathway programme started to run on Thursdays in the Old English Garden. This is in addition to the Pathway programme running on Thursdays in the Winter Garden. We received more good news in October for these two programmes, as the London Freemasons confirmed their funding for 3 years towards the Pathway and Working It Out programmes. We have welcomed new volunteers and new clients to our lovely team here at Thrive Battersea. Whilst also welcoming back a previous team member Ellen Hill who has returned from her maternity leave and is now working in her new role as the Client Progression Co-ordinator, which focuses on volunteer coordination. To learn more Birmingham Exciting times are on the horizon for us in Birmingham as we eagerly await the new log cabin for our garden area which will increase the training capacity for the site. Not only this, but we now have a new compositing toilet. This has made a huge improvement on the site as the previous toilet block was 500 meters from the gardens. With the Christmas season fast approaching our staff, clients and students will be enjoying the festivities kicking off with the annual Christmas party. We are really looking forward to it! This year we have seen a huge growth with a fantastic 35 new students joining the programme from Oscot Manor and Chavsgrove as well as Regency High School joining for their second year. We also saw 14 students complete the programme in 2018 leaving with a City and Guilds qualification. Back in Spring the students on the Grow and Learn programme took part in BBC Gardeners World Live and we couldn t have hoped for a better result as they took a silver merit and best outdoor feature. A huge well done to everyone who took part. about the opportunities within our programmes or to express your interest in volunteering, please Ellen.Hill@thrive.org.uk. We at Thrive Battersea would like to thank all our dedicated staff, volunteers and client gardeners for the past year. To be part of Thrive s life-changing magic, please visit our social media pages to see what we are up to. Also join us for our Christmas Open Day on Saturday 1st December in the Main Garden in Battersea Park. You can buy plants grown by our client gardeners, stock up on Christmas cards and buy beautiful, hand-made Christmas wreaths! We look forward to a very exciting flower show in watch this space. 4 Thrive News Winter

4 Have Your Say We would love to hear from you, so please send an to us at to tell us a bit more about why you have chosen to support Thrive. We look forward to hearing from you and will choose our favourite response to share with you in the next edition of Thrive News. N H E L K Y T V C U O E W T Q L U A C Y H H H E J L E H I Q K G R P R W R N A O L E S I W Festive Fun! In Loving Memory When John Prest died peacefully in July, he left his family with many fond memories. Julia, his daughter, and her brothers Charles and Jonathan decided to remember their father by donating in memory of him to Thrive. It is difficult to sum up John s long and rich life, but he was perhaps best-known for his long career as a Fellow in Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford, and for the stunningly beautiful garden that he designed, created and nurtured over five decades at his home in the village of Wheatley in Oxfordshire. Julia told us When Daddy wasn t in college, in the library or working in his study, he was in the garden; when he didn t appear on time for supper, he was in the garden; when he couldn t be summoned to take a phone call, he was at the bottom of the garden tending to his elegantly laid-out vegetable patch or adding to the sizeable compost heap. Gardening was the perfect complement to the cerebral, sit-down existence of an Oxford historian who was otherwise buried in his books or writing about the finer details of nineteenth-century legislation. Daddy would never have used this word, but gardening was his therapy. It brought him relief from a job and a life that could sometimes be stressful; it provided him with a means of expressing his creative side; and it brought considerable pleasure to those around him. Even after John s death many friends and loved ones recalled happy memories and time spent with John and his wife Susan, in their beautiful garden. During John s life he expressed a concern for those suffering hard times which prompted him to give to charity. When friends and colleagues began asking about donating in memory of John, Julia and her brothers were a bit stumped as to where they would like the money to go. As far as they knew, John had no connection with Thrive, but his passion for being in the garden and helping others prompted them to choose Thrive. Julia explained As a charity that uses gardening to effect positive change in people s lives, it ticks the most important boxes. I am sure that he would approve of our choice! From everyone here at Thrive, thank you to Julia, her brothers and everyone who gave in memory of John, without the support of kind people like yourselves we wouldn t be able to continue changing peoples lives through gardening. We really are so grateful for every donation we receive and donating in memory of a loved one is even more special. If you would like to learn more about how you could make a donation in memory of someone please us at fundraising@thrive.org.uk or give us a call on S I A I P I O C T L R R I C U F N V R S Y B L B A C R O P S N E J T D Q M E P S S K Z G U W P M Q I E I Y R A T Z T D T V A K U K N N E I R T Q F Y A S T N T G W W I E R Q R I T F A I Y K J O X E N H O L L Y P O Q D A L E J E J G B K L X P N E O F L U D M M R T Z W S H Z N G J B S Q R O V O G H U M I V F O F W D U W D W F Z C G M F J V W T Y T E Z F L B Q N Support Thrive this Christmas... Thrive uses gardening to change the lives of those coping with the after effects of a stroke, those living with heart disease, people with learning disabilities, mental health issues and physical and sensory disabilities. We've been able to make a real difference to so many people already help us do the same for other disabled people by purchasing a pack of our beautiful Christmas Cards. How to order... For more information please visit or give us a call on We thought we d share with you a word search which includes some festive words and some relating to Thrive. Good Luck! CHRISTMAS CROPS FIR FLOWERS GARDENING HAPPY HOLLY THERAPY THRIVE TREE WELLBEING 6 7

5 Ways to get involved... Make a donation Do a charity challenge Sign-up for E-news Become a corporate supporter Leave a legacy Take a training course It makes you feel better! It s physical exercise It s not just gardening... It s improved mental health It can lead to a new qualification or job It s a way to make new friends info@thrive.org.uk