Seed Swap and Potato Day – Saturday 7th March 2015

Get your growing year off to a great start…

Seed Swap and
Potato Day

Saturday 7th March 2015
10am to 1pm

Newsome Scout Hall
Newsome Road South
Huddersfield HD4 6JJ

Huddersfield Potato Day – choose from 30 different types of seed potato, including popular easy-to-grow varieties and some more unusual types. All seed potatoes are 20p each or £2 per dozen (pick and mix).
Potato picker – full list of our 2015 potato varieties (pdf)

Seeds galore – We’ll also have vegetable and salad seeds, sprouted garlic, onion sets and shallots on offer. You can either swap, or pick up some seeds in exchange for a small donation. Try our seed starter packs – ideal for growing in small spaces.

Recipe Corner – Please bring along your recipes and pics for a chance to be featured in the first Growing Newsome Recipe Book.

Activities – Seed planting and crafts for kids.

Local food – Jam, pickles, chutney etc. made from fruit and veg grown in Newsome.

Books – Reading Circle book stall with all sorts of books.

Refreshments – Tea, coffee and home made cakes available all day.

Potato Guide – Find out more about those weird and wonderful potato varieties by picking up a copy of Alan Romans’ Guide to Seed Potato Varieties.

Local food research – Find out what we’ve learned about food in our community through our research projects.

Help with growing – Please ask for advice.

Protect your plants – Low-cost, good quality plant protection materials on sale.

Plant pot & jam jar amnesty – Bring along your spare small plant pots or small jam jars (1Ib or less).

Join us for lunch:
served from 12 noon to 1pm

Enjoy a warming cooked lunch, including fruit pudding, with some local ingredients.

Free admission. All welcome.

Seed Swap 2015 leaflet (pdf)
Huddersfield Potato Day leaflet (pdf)
Organised by Growing Newsome

Our special thanks to the
West Yorkshire Organic Group
for supporting our Potato Day.

 

Are open spaces in Kirklees important to you?

Do you value local open spaces such as allotments, parks, wildlife sites, community orchards and other green spaces?

Kirklees Council are running a survey to find out how often people use open spaces, how important you think they are and whether you’re interested in helping to look after our open spaces.

Make sure you share your views.

Our council are facing huge financial challenges and the results of this survey will help to determine policies about our local open spaces. If you value open spaces, please get involved.

 

Please fill in this short questionnaire to give your views about open spaces in the area where you live. Anyone who uses open spaces in Kirklees is welcome to take part.

Open Space survey

 

Autumn Gathering – Saturday 4th October 2014

Love local food?
There’s lots for you to enjoy at this event…

Autumn Gathering

Saturday 4th October 2014
10am to 1pm at
Newsome Scout Hall
Newsome Road South
Huddersfield HD4 6JJ

 

Jam, chutney, pickles and other goodies made from fruit, vegetables and herbs grown in Newsome.

Kids crafts – get creative by making a clay creature with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

Guess the weight of the veg – win a Stirley Farm veg box.

Reading Circle book stall (with all sorts of books).

Recipes – bring along your ideas for our first Growing Newsome Recipe Book.

Produce swap – please bring along anything you’d like to share.

Tea, coffee and home made cakes available.

Food In Your Community – see the results of our community research in Newsome.

Information about local volunteering, training and activities.

Plant pot and jam jar amnesty – clean, small pots & jars (1 Ib or less) welcome.

 

Autumn Planting:

Autumn planting vegetables for you to take home – including a selection of garlic, onions, shallots, seeds and winter greens.

Protect your plants – good quality plant protection fabric on sale by the metre.

 

Souper Soups:
served from 12 noon to 1pm
Enjoy a choice of seasonal soups for lunch at the Scout Hall, made with local vegetables and served with fresh bread from the Handmade Bakery in Slaithwaite, followed by a hot pudding made with local fruit.

How you can help:

• Display a poster:
  Autumn Gathering 2014 (pdf)
• Bring something along for the cake stall.
• Bring along all the kids in your family or bring a friend.
• Please get in touch if you’d like to come along and help out on the day.

 

Organised by Growing Newsome

 

Food in your community – share your views

It’s almost five years since we ran a community research project in Newsome to find out how people feel about food growing. You might have filled in one of our questionnaires at the time.We’ve now started a new survey to find out what’s changed over the past five years.

Food is of course a part of all our lives, but what do you think about local food?

* Do you grow your own?
* Are you interested in cooking?
* What do you consider when choosing what food to buy?
* Does your household waste too much food?
* Do you want to sell homemade food?

These are just some of the questions in the ‘Food in your community’ survey which is running in March 2014. Please take part to share your views.

The survey asks questions about growing and eating local food, including what kind of activities you’d like to take part in and whether you’d like to be able to buy more locally grown food. It’s your chance to tell us what you wish for in Newsome and areas nearby – we’ll do our very best to act on what you tell us.

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How to take part

> Take part in the ‘Food in your community’ survey online now

Please also pass this link on to your friends and neighbours.

The survey is only open for a short time, so please take part soon if you’d like to have your say. It will take up to 20 minutes to complete. There are three prizes on offer as a thank you for those taking part.

You can also look out for our team of fieldworkers from IbyD knocking on doors across the Newsome Ward (and in Almondbury, Honley and Netherton) who have paper copies of the questionnaire. This map shows where our team are working:

Map of food survey area (pdf)

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This is a joint project between Growing Newsome, Kirklees Environment Partnership and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. We will use the results to help plan future activities in the local area. If you have any questions, please email growingnewsome@gmail.com

Have your say about your local area

Newsome Ward Community Survey

Your chance to share your views – February 2013

• What do you like about living here?
• What’s the one thing you’d change about your local area?
• What would you like to see more money spent on in your community?

Please tell us your answers to these and other questions by taking part in our Community Survey – you’ll also be helping to plan for the future of our area.

The survey is being run by Newsome Community First, who are a group of local people working together to support and encourage community projects. We have almost £40,000 of funding available over the next two years, and the survey results will help us decide which projects to support.

We are keen to get the views of as many local people as possible – from all the different neighbourhoods right across the Newsome Ward.

Please take part now:
Newsome Community Survey – take part online now

the survey is open until Monday 25th February 2013.

Other ways that you can help:

• Share the link with your friends and neighbours in the Newsome Ward.
• Are you part of a local group?
  Can you hand some paper copies of the survey out to your members?
• Are you involved with a community venue?
  Can you hand some surveys around in your venue?
• Do you live in Ashenhurst, Springwood or Primrose Hill?
  Can you hand some surveys out to your neighbours? (We already have a team of people knocking on doors all over the area, but we could do with a few more helpers in some places).

To request paper copies of the survey, please email Diane at: Newsomeward.Huddersfield@gmail.com or call 07941 652836.

The Newsome Ward area includes:
Armitage Bridge, Ashenhurst, Aspley, Berry Brow, Bluebell Hill, Broadgate, Folly Hall, 
Hall Bower, Highfields, Lockwood, Longley, Longroyd Bridge, Lowerhouses, Newsome, Primrose Hill, Rashcliffe, Salford, Springwood, Stile Common, Taylor Hill and Huddersfield Town Centre.

Newsome Ward Community Plan workshop

Community Plan workshop
Saturday 17th November 2012
from 1pm to 4pm

Newsome Scout Hall, Newsome Road South, Newsome HD4 6JJ

Help us to plan for the future of our area & decide what kind of community projects should receive grant funding

Newsome Ward Community First are a panel of local people who have funding available for local community projects. The panel are looking for residents of the Newsome Ward to help create a Community Plan. The plan will say what is important to local people and what our aspirations are for the future of the Newsome Ward. 
It will help the panel to decide what to spend their funding on over the next two years – and will also help our communities to look to the future.

Would you like to help? Come to this free workshop to find out what the project is trying to achieve, talk about what skills and resources we already have in our communities, and decide how we can work together to find out what local people think about our area. The workshop will be run by our community research partners, IbyD, who will provide training and support to help Newsome residents develop their plan.

For more details email: NewsomeWard.Huddersfield@gmail.com
or call Diane on: 07941 652836

Workshop leaflet:
Newsome Community Plan workshop (pdf)

Organised by:
Newsome Ward Community First & Newsome Ward Community Forum.

Stirley Farm consultation results

In 2009 the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust asked local residents for our views about restoring the buildings at Stirley Farm and providing a range of community-based services at the farm. They worked with research company Information by Design (IbyD), who previously worked with Newsome residents on the ‘Grow your own food in Newsome‘ survey.

IbyD ran a door-to-door survey in Newsome, Hall Bower, Netherton, Honley and Almondbury, which are the areas around the Stirley farm site. In total, 519 questionnaires were completed.  Of these, 401 were completed via face-to-face interviews and 118 were completed online.

The survey results show that local residents are very supportive of the proposals for Stirley Farm, and a third of the respondents (33%) said that they would be ‘very likely’ to attend activities about food growing at the farm.

Summary of the survey results

• Overall, just under half (48%) of residents in the consultation reported that they had heard of Stirley Farm before completing the questionnaire, and of these, almost all (93%) claimed to know where Stirley Farm was geographically.

• Overall, almost a half of residents (48%) used the land belonging to Stirley Farm a lot or a little.  Those living close to Stirley Farm (for example in Hall Bower) were more likely to say they used the land a lot or a little.

• 62% of respondents from the least affluent areas said they used the land belonging to Stirley Farm ‘a lot’ or ‘a little’.

• Respondents indicated that they commonly make use of the Castle Hill area: roughly three-quarters (76%) of them said that they visit Castle Hill at least once a year.

• Almost all (98%) of the residents said that they would either ‘support the restoration a lot’ (76%) or ‘support the restoration a little’ (22%).  There was only a small difference in the level of support for the restoration of Stirley Farm between those living in areas of high and low deprivation – 80% of respondents from areas of low deprivation said they ‘would support the restoration a lot’ in comparison to 76% of respondents from the least affluent areas.

• A large proportion of all residents (89%) stated that they thought that Stirley Farm was either in a ‘very good’ (57%) or a ‘fairly good’ (32%) location in regards to access from the surrounding communities.

• There was a strong indication that several of the services proposed in the consultation were in high demand amongst residents.  For example, roughly half of the residents consulted said they ‘definitely would use’ self-guided or guided trails, wildlife conservation, walks in the countryside, and a farm shop.

• Residents included in the consultation were generally positive about attending various ‘educational’ activities if they were provided at Stirley Farm.  For example, a third (33%) indicated that they would be ‘very likely’ to attend activities about growing food at the farm.

• 92% of residents said they ‘strongly agree’ that Stirley Farm should be entirely self-sustainable.

• There was some consensus amongst residents completing the survey that ‘Area C’ on the map shown to residents (see Appendix 3 in the full report) was a preferable location for an allotment area to be established.

• Less than a third (30%) of all residents said that they would be either ‘very likely’ (11%) or ‘fairly likely’ (19%) to use gardening equipment provided by Stirley Farm if an allotment area was made available.

• 72% of all residents said they would ‘definitely’ (23%) or ‘probably’ (49%) like to buy more organic food.  Of these, over two-thirds (71%) said they would be ‘very likely’ (37%) or ‘fairly likely’ (34%) to buy organic beef produced at Stirley Farm.

• Almost three quarters of those residents who said they would like to buy more organic food pointed out that they would be willing to pay ‘a little more’ for organic beef from Stirley Farm than they usually pay for normal beef, while 10% said they would be happy to pay ‘a lot more’.

• Almost a third (31%) of all residents stated that they would be either ‘very likely’ (9%) or ‘fairly likely’ (22%) to volunteer at Stirley Farm.  The most popular aspects which these residents said they would like to volunteer to help in were ‘nature conservation’, ‘wildlife recording’ and ‘education’.

• Roughly a quarter of all residents consulted said that the provision of ‘training schemes’ would make people most likely to volunteer.

Full report

You can also read or download the full survey report here:

Stirley Farm Consultation – Final Report, March 2010 (pdf)

Stirley Farm consultation

farm buildings

The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust plan to restore Stirley Farm and to provide a range of community-based services there.

 

Stirley Farm consists of a farmhouse, barns and outbuildings. It is situated just west of Castle Hill but its land stretches all the way over to Newsome, Almondbury and Honley.

 

 

barn

In the past, the farm was used for dairy farming, but it has been vacant for a number of years and now it has become run down.

 

The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is working with Kirklees Council and local residents (via Newsome Ward Community Forum) to develop plans to restore the farm and some of its surrounding land.

 

 

land

The idea is to get it up-and-running as a community farm and open it up to the public, offering a range of community-based, community-run facilities for the benefit of local residents.

 

The plans are not yet decided and the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust would like to know your views on what you think is needed or what you would want to see put into the restoration of Stirley Farm.

 

To take part in the consultation, please visit:

http://www.consultkirklees.org/participate.html

 

(consultation closes at 9am on Thursday 27th August 2009)

Food Expert says: “We are Nine Meals from Anarchy”

Dr Martin Caraher

Dr Martin Caraher, a food expert from City University, says we have only three days food in the UK to feed us during a crisis. Speaking at a meeting in Huddersfield (sponsored by Kirklees Environment Partnership), Dr Caraher challenged the audience to estimate the food stocks held by the UK. He suggested that most food supplied to supermarkets, where most of our food is now bought, is delivered “just in time”. As a result we hold little in reserve stores or in warehouses and are vulnerable to disruptions such as oil shortages. Food that is grown locally would be more secure.

Dr Caraher also challenged the audience on which form of retailing is most effective for investing in local areas – local and regional shops, or the large supermarkets. Recent research in this area by the New Economics Foundation, an independent think tank, has confirmed that £10 spent at local shops is worth £24 to the local economy – since local takings, wages and so on are then spent locally. For international supermarkets, however, the value is only £14. Furthermore, “For every 20 jobs created by the ‘big five’ supermarkets – 30 jobs are lost!” said Dr Caraher.

At a second meeting organized by Kirklees Environment Partnership, Dr Caraher listened intently as 18 members of various local food groups across Kirklees described their work and the issues they face. Members of the Growing Newsome group took part in the discussion. There was a rich sharing of ideas and achievements including the development of Food Co-ops in Batley, a Local Bakery in Marsden, a Fruit and Veg Co-operative shop in Slaithwaite and the prospect of local small-holdings to supply local shops.

Dr Martin Caraher is Reader in Food and Health Policy: Department of Health Management and Food Policy at City University, London. He works extensively on issues of food poverty, cooking skills, local sustainable food supplies, the role of markets and co-ops in promoting health, farmers’ markets, food deserts and food access, retail concentration and globalisation. He is an active grower of fruit and veg!