Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who runs Growing Communities?
A: Growing Communities is a not-for-profit company with a constitution and a voluntary management committee. Box scheme members can stand for and elect the management committee at our Annual General Meeting. Current management committee members are:
- Penny Walker (Chair)
- Piers Vimpany (Treasurer)
- Kath Dalmeny
- Nick Perry
- Nick Saltmarsh
- Sarah Havard
- Emma Gittings
- Esther Boulton
- Andrew Ferguson
Growing Communities has 26 part-time staff - some of us work occasional shifts and others work a regular 3 or 4 days a week.
- Julie Brown (Director)
- Kerry Rankine (Marketing and development co-ordinator)
- Nicki East (Box Scheme co-ordinator)
- Rachel Stevenson (Office Manager)
- Sara Davies (Grower)
- Fiona McAllister (Box Scheme Assistant)
- Richenda Wilson (Marketing Assistant)
- Pip Bromley (Assistant Grower)
- Tim Watts (Packing Manager/General Support Worker)
- Sophie Verhagen (General Support Worker/Microsite Grower)
- Giles Narang (General Support Worker)
- Annie Stables (General Support Worker/Microsite Grower)
- Nicole David (General Support Worker/Market Manager)
- Helen Carey (Market Manager)
- Michael Appau (General Support Worker/Cafe Worker/Accounts Asst)
- Alan Wilkinson (General Support Worker)
- Ximena Ransom (General Support Worker/Delivery Worker/Apprentice Grower)
- Maisie Kendall (General Support Worker)
- Carene Campbell (Veg Sitter)
- Ida Fabrizio (Microsite Grower)
- Emma Brodrick (Apprentice Grower)
- Marcus Cope (General Support Worker)
- Phil England (Emergency General Support Worker)
- Frank Newby (Emergency General Support Worker)
- Amy McWeeeny (Emergency General Support Worker)
Q: How did Growing Communities start?
A: Growing Communities was set up by a group of friends including Julie Brown, (now the director of Growing Communities) more than thirteen years ago. Growing Communities started life as a Community Supported Agriculture scheme which linked members up with a farm in Buckinghamshire. The box scheme started in 1993 with only 30 families signed up to it. "These were the early days of box schemes," says Julie, "and it really felt very subversive to be unloading vegetables fresh from the farm at 6am right under the nose of the local Sainsburys!" At the same time Julie began organising weekend working trips to the farms supplying the box scheme so members could help with the watercress harvest, plant plum trees and pick caterpillars off brussels sprouts.
The success of these trips helped inspire Julie to find sites in Hackney which could be transformed into flourishing organic vegetable plots with the aid of a grower and volunteers. "I started looking for land in Hackney by cycling around and peering over hedges and under fences". In 1997 Growing Communities got its first site: a tiny piece of land by the butterfly tunnel in Clissold Park. This was followed by the Oaktree site on Bethune Road later in 1997 and then the Springfield site in Springfield Park, Clapton. Our most recent site at Allens Gardens on Bethune Road, Stoke Newington was secured after we lost the Oaktree site to a housing development.
We wanted to provide more people with access to locally produced, organic food and to help more small, sustainable farmers in the areas around London. So in 2001 we began working to set up an all-organic farmers market. In May 2003 the Stoke Newington Farmers' Market opened with just 6 farmers. Initially the market took place next to Growing Communities' office at the Old Fire Station - but a need for more space thanks to the market's popularity led to a move to William Patten School on Stoke Newington Church Street in April 2005.
Q: How is Growing Communities funded?
A: We've been financially self-sufficient since 2005, generating our own income from our community-trading projects: the box scheme and the farmers' market. The urban food growing also generates income through sales of the produce, (we buy the salad from ourselves for the box scheme),however we still cross-subsidise the food growing to the tune of £17,000 a year. Our turnover last year was just over £348,000. Full accounts are available from our office. We have received small grants from Capital Growth to pay for tools and equipment for our micro-sites. We have also received some funding from UnLtd. to help us with setting up our Start-Up Programme which helps other communities across the UK to set up community-led box schemes.
Q: Can we come and visit you to find out more about your work?
A: The sites are open for visitors when we are working there, see our Market Gardens page for days and times - there is a self-guided tour which explains more about what's going on there. We also run Open Day sessions twice a month on our Springfield site where Sara, our grower, shows people round the sites and can answer questions about urban food growing. For times see our Market Garden page. The Stoke Newington Farmers' Market is on every Saturday, 51 weeks a year, which is a really good way of seeing one of our community-led trading projects in operation - and the Market Manager will be happy to answer any questions you have.
Q: How many people are on your box scheme?
A: We have around 590 households across Hackney on the box scheme.
Q: How much of the produce in the box scheme is produced in Hackney?
A: Last year around 5% by volume of the produce in the bags was grown on our market gardens in Hackney. At the height of the season last year we were producing around 300 salad bags a week. Yields were the equivalent of 21.5 tonnes per hectare per year from a total land area of 0.2 hectares. Our Patchwork Farm project where graduates from our Urban Apprentice scheme grow salad for the box scheme on small patches of land across Hackney, is one of the ways in which we hope to increase the amount of food from our immediate area in the box scheme.