With spare land being at such a premium around Wivenhoe, it is with a tremendous amount of shame that the developer that owns the small plot at the base of 58 Queens Road allows it to remain in ruin.
Both requests weren’t rejected - they weren’t even replied to: Shame upon the developer.
The economy may be buggered, but community spirit certainly isn’t. Avoiding the phrase *shhh* Big Society, but isn’t this is what is meant when we are told that we are all in this together?
QRRA isn’t after permanent possession of the small plot - simply temporary access to make the space more sustainable and attractive until funds are in place to build upon the development.
You only need to look across to the splendour of the Station Master’s Garden to see what can be achieved with genuine community co-operation. TTW is now in its second year of voluntarily attending and growing produce around the small patch.
The previous empty space harvests a considerable crop each summer. Commuters are rewarded for persisting with the pain that is a NXEA commute with free random offerings of fruit and veg, whenever it becomes available.
Meanwhile up at Queens Road and the space is starting to look like an eyesore. The AGM of the QRRA takes place this weekend, very kindly hosted in a private garden of one of the residents. How charming it would have been if the barren patch of land could have been cleaned up and used.
And developers wonder why so many locals view their motives with such cynicism…?
The thing about being a Transition Town is that you are always… in transition. So much to organise, so many ideas to spread, so much optimism. And so another month, and another (brief) pause to take in all the wonderful activities and initiatives that Transition Town Wivenhoe is putting into place:
“16th April, Farmer’s Market, Congregational Hall, 9 - 12. Great range of stalls selling local produce. The TTW stall will be offering seeds for swapping or donations.”
I’m a little shy on the photo sharing front for now, but yeah - the seeds that @AnnaJCowen and I picked up at the Farmer’s Market last month are starting to bear fruit. Not literally, but y’know…
A bit more from TTW’s very decent Bob:
Keeping with the faun and flora theme:
“Station gardening on Sundays has shifted to 3pm; bring a mug for some Kelly Kettle tea and hand tools / gloves if you have them, meet at the Station Master’s House community garden, to the left of the ticket office. More info via email.”
And after hard afternoon’s graft in the Station Master’s Garden, what you need is the relaxation of a film, something to fill your pint glass with and some fine social company.
Hang on…
“17th April - in partnership with Moving Image and The Station Pub, we’re wheeling out our Pedal Powered Cinema once again, this time to screen Pixar’s animated super-hero blockbuster The Incredibles in the Station Pub car park at 8pm.”
Another ace idea from TTW - more bloggage over here.
On a more wider economic and sustainable level (steady) TTW are offering guidance on setting up social enterprises. There is crossover here with the fine work that Wivenhoe based @asset_transfer is already undertaking, as well as the many projects currently being put in place by creativecoop over in Colchester:
“Want to learn about setting up social enterprises? Community Enterprise training will be delivered by Roger Saunders of Choosing Change, Saturday 18th June in Wivenhoe 10am to 4pm. This course will be free.”
But it’s not all about ploughing the fields and scattering; sometimes you just want to cut to the chase and cut to the booze:
“25th April Transition Drinks from 8pm at The Station. All welcome for informal chattering and socialising.”
“May Fair Recyclers needed! Bob of the Wivenhoe May Fair Green Police Team writes: We need volunteers to spend an hour or so on the field on Monday May 30th or on Tuesday morning, helping to keep and leave the field tidy and promote recycling and waste reduction. It’s not hard work and a lot of fun, and helps to keep the May Fair running smoothly.”
Volunteers will receive a token of thanks - usually a voucher for a drink at the bar - and some of the food stalls on the day have agreed to give discounts to helpers too. More info / offers of help via email.”
Plus: May 4th @Uni_of_Essex will be having a Green Fair on campus from 10am to 2pm.
To the Congregational Hall on Saturday morning to refresh the mind and body with the goodness of the earth. You can tell I’ve been reading far too much Ben Goldacre of late, can’t you?
But there was no bad science to my logic of lapping up the local fruit ‘n veg. A late, late finish with the lovely @HiddenDingbat’s the night / morning previous, and my eyelids were telling me that organic, rather than alcoholic, was the order of the day.
This was the first spring Farmer’s market for @AnnaJCowen and I since the Great Escape. With enough blue in the sky to make a sailor a pair of underpants (steady,) we skipped down the High Street with an extra kick in our step.
That will be the double JD and coke before breakfast kicking in then.
There is something really rather special about the Wivenhoe Farmer’s Market come this time of the year. The stalls start to slowly, slowly head to the great outdoors (um, the Congregational Hall car park) and the event becomes even more social.
We started off with a decent chat with a herbs chap, who also supplied us with a rhubarb plant that is now taking up the prime growing location in the back garden. With rhubarb being the Celery of the Gods, we’ve high hopes for some crumble over the coming month.
Our herb man then set about the task of sourcing us something a little more exotic. No need to call in the crime squad - we’re simply after a local lemon tree that can make the most of those glorious Wivenhoe rays.
Inside the Congregational Hall and Tony’s Fish was all the fancy for the early morning trade. Fished in local waters, we came close to treating that special little girl in our life with a wet haddock across her little inquisitive nose.
A bit of basic fruit and veg shopping filled the bags, and then we were back outside for a catch up with the ace Transition Town Wivenhoe folk. Promoting sustainability within the town is what it is all about for TTW. For the Farmer’s Market and the group has come up with the great idea of a local seed swap.
I was also fascinated with the Wivenhoe Food Map of free fruit and nuts. Locals are encouraged to pinpoint sources of free food, such as blackberries, rosehips and various nuts. It was a shame to see a now empty and barren stretch heading out towards Alresford Creek.
Many thanks, as ever, to the charming Bob for taking the time to explain and update recent TTW activities.
The shift outdoors continues with TTW over the coming months. The regular Sunday gardening sessions outside the Station Master’s House have commenced once again. Volunteers are of course always welcome.
And so another month, another bumper crop. The next Wivenhoe Farmer’s Market takes place on Saturday 16th April - the fifth anniversary of the event within Wivenhoe. To rent a stall call 01206 367776. For further info or to volunteer help, call 01206 826226.
What does it take to inspire forty or so Wivenhoe locals out to the Loveless Hall on a rather dark and damp Thursday evening to sit around in a circle and introduce themselves to one another?
This question could work on oh so many fronts, but the extra seats needed to accommodate the interested individuals was all the work of Transition Town Wivenhoe.
An informal meeting had been called to talk about the future of the Station Master’s House. This was a public meeting, but the details were deliberately only circulated amongst supporters of the Transition group. Sticking with the sustainability ethos of the group, the plan is for the project to now spread out into the wider community.
But first a little background…
Jo Wheatley opened the series of open space workshops with an enthusiasm that would set the agenda for the following two hours. After a successful summer of taking control of the Station Master’s Garden and growing free fruit ‘n veg for commuters, TTW now has ambitious plans for the empty Station Master’s House.
The ownership of this building remains with Network Rail. Working in partnership with NXEA and Off the Rails, the proposal is for a twenty-five year lease for TTW, and then to open up the space as a local hub that will encourage sustainability within the community.
An initial meeting with Network Rail was held in November. Feedback was positive, with Network Rail recognising that bringing the building back to life can only help to improve public safety.
Having lain empty for two years, there is superficial water damage within. This can easily be fixed. The building has a Grade II listed status and so there is also a heritage angle to consider.
And so on to the Loveless Hall Thursday night open space sessions.
Ah yes - a little more about this process for dialogue…
Open space is a system of organising and aiding democratic local dialogue. The members of the meeting set the agenda, formulate some questions to be answered and then break out into informal discussion groups, before feeding back at the end. Such a transparent and co-operative form of working was perfect for this particular project.
It was encouraging to see some veryfamiliar Wivenhoe faces, working alongside other locals who genuinely want to make the Station Master’s House a central hub within the town.
Our central question was:
“How can the Station Master’s House make Wivenhoe a more sustainable community?”
Each group member was then given a blank sheet of paper in which to come up with a series of questions to explore further. Working together, we then organised these sub-questions into five broad categories, covering the following points:
1. Community involvement
2. Practical organisation
3. Funding
4. Learning and education
5. Sustainability
And then it was pretty much open space, open house. Five discussion tables were set up, with members encouraged to circulate around the room and offer further ideas. What was evident at this early stage is that Wivenhoe has a tremendous knowledge and skills base to drawn upon, and that there is a definite sense of community. These two elements alone bode well for the future of the building.
I spent most of my time in the community involvement discussion. We found it a challenge to decide how to engage the community, when we weren’t entirely sure as yet what we wanted to engage the community with.
Essentially we were talking about engagement, and how to spread the message. It was agreed that online dialogue has worked incredibly well to draw out forty or so locals to the initial meeting, and this should be built upon.
But then there’s the very relevant question of how to involve Wivenhoe locals who may not be online. This soon became a chicken and egg equation, with plans for the Station Master’s House to include online support.
Our group was enthusiastic about a large scale open source meeting within the town, to try and find a sense of direction. If forty people could come up with ideas and support for five broad category areas, imagine what 400 people might be able to achieve. We also liked the idea of an annual Station Master’s House celebration day to raise awareness of the project.
I then flirted (ooh, get you) with the other discussions, observing the rule of open space that if you have nothing to contribute, then move on.
@asset_transfer is probably the country’s leading expert on opening up spaces for community use, and it is by complete coincidence, and to the immense benefit of Wivenhoe that Anne Marie lives in our community. No surprises that the practical organisation session had an incredibly healthy outlook by the end of the evening.
Funding touched upon different grants that may be available, as well as renting out the space for local groups. The learning and education debate addressed what skills we have to offer in Wivenhoe, and how these can be passed on.
This was the perfect collision of the old meets the new. Many folk have traditional skills, which need to be either passed on, or even to be re-discovered. Add to this the burgeoning online and digital awareness in the town (seriously) and you have a new network in which to transmit old skills. Both sides can learn a lot from one another.
But perhaps the most fascinating conversations of the evening came out of the more holistic theme of sustainability. This became a far wider debate about what it means to be sustainable within Wivenhoe, and at what level do you actually notice any results.
A very simple, but practical idea was to use some of the space in the Station Master’s House as a charity shop. This is something that Wivenhoe lacks, with trips into Colchester to offload any unwanted clothes. Keeping it hyperlocal and raising funds has to be an idea to explore further.
And so two hours after a group of individuals rather nervously sat around in a circle in the Loveless Hall, we concluded with a co-operative group that had started to come up with a very real plan for the future of the Station Master’s House.
It is the next stage that will be even more challenging. Assuming that negotiations with Network Rail are positive, some form of social enterprise needs to be created to help steer the project.
The danger here of course is that a committee style operation somehow loses the bottom up enthusiasm that was evident at the Loveless Hall on Thursday evening.
As I wandered down to The Station (rather appropriately) to collect my thoughts and to, um, booze, I couldn’t but help keep on coming back to what still remains my all time favourite tweet:
“If you want to get something done set up network, slow it down, set up an organisation.”
Many thanks to TTW for such an illuminating evening. Much of the workshops were filmed, and will no doubt surface online in the coming weeks. Cheers to Bob for agreeing to the @audioboo below.
Here’s a rather decent project to look forward to in the New Year - the fine folk at Transition Town Wivenhoe have ambitious plans to use the empty space of the Station Master’s House as a community hub.
TTW has been working successfully around the station throughout the year, taking the initiative to tend to the Station Master’s garden, and then offering free veg to surprised commuters.
This next step at the station proposes to take the project to the next level, allowing the house to become a community owned facility, and to offer training and activities to suit local needs:
“Since developing the station house garden with Off the Rails this year, TTW has submitted a proposal to National Express and Network Rail outlining an idea to create a community hub under the Community Rail Partnership Stations Initiatives Scheme. The station house has been empty for two years.
Our initial idea is to set up a social enterprise to offer skills and training courses and activities related to building local resilience, e.g. food growing, crafts skills, renewable energy, energy advice, cycling related activities such as cycle training and bike trailer hire, local skills exchange and share schemes. Also to make hirable space including desk space with internet available to others.
We met with National Express in November and they have offered to set up a meeting early in the New Year with Network Rail in late January when we can present our ideas to them. In the meantime we have secured a [significant] grant from Community Builders to support the development of the necessary skills, training and new organisational structures/business planning involved.
We believe this is a fantastic opportunity to rejuvenate a heritage building and create a buzz in Wivenhoe whilst at the same time giving space to expand our activities and have a permanent base to help create sustainable change.
We now need folk who might get involved in shaping the ideas and developing the project. Interested TTW supporters and friends should come and find out more on Thursday January 6th at 7pm, William Loveless Hall.”
How wonderful. There is already a strong ethos within Wivenhoe of utilising empty space for public use. *cough* @asset_transfer has a hyperlocal Wivenhoe base. TTW would do well to take on the advice and skills that are on offer here.
So yeah - the Loveless Hall on the 6th is the location if you want to help shape this hub. From small projects, grand ideas grow. Who knows - from the Station Master’s House to… the old Engine Shed?
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