Greetings from Reykjavik

We have had the most amazing holiday including being inside the Northern lights like a cathedral! The only flowers and fruit som yellow and violet crocus in a planter and a wonderful greenhouse one of many as they have unlimited electricity, hot water and amazing tomatoes cucumbers, peppers all year round.

​Tamsyn

We have nearly twenty working groups and all are keen to tap into your horticultural and community service expertise – just contact the leaders to join in or look out for us in our Lions’ high viz jackets as we water, weed, plant, litter-pick or, best of all, plant.

​One of our main groups normally meets on a Friday to transform the town park from Litter to Glitter as part of the Keep Britain Tidy campaign,  however this week will be meeting on Saturday morning (April 1st) and we would like to invite the whole community along to take part.  It's an opportunity to get outdoors, meet new people and make a difference to our Town.

We will be meeting by the flagpole at 9am and finish no later than 11am, just in time for the day of foolish dance.  If you can't make the whole time just come along when you can, we will be around the park in high-vis jackets.  Some of us may even be in the river!

​From centre clockwise – Kingfisher, Barn Owl, Water vole, Tawny Owl, Heron, Spotted flycatcher, Otter, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Egret, Tree Creeper

 The Working Together Community Fund is an awards programme open to Suffolk’s voluntary and community organisations.  Funded by Suffolk County Council, the programme is managed by Suffolk Community Foundation with the objective of recognising outstanding service delivery or community activity as a result of increased collaborative working.  
The fund aims to support “working together” initiatives, it would be expected that there is a large element of “roll your sleeves up” approach as well as some joint working with other organisations who are not normally seen as partners.
It funds projects that have been completed in the last year or where the majority of the delivery has taken place so gaining our Green Flag and the Council putting up our lovely flagpole was critical.  It looks for real collaboration and a high level of community and volunteer input. We had to demonstrate clearly what outcomes had been achieved and how these had been enhanced by your working together.
What we said we had achieved was:
Our work has been recognised with the achievement of many awards. Including a Community Green Flag and A Silver Gilt Award from Anglia in Bloom in 2016. The Green Flag Field assessments in 2016 listed the following strengths for our Community Volunteers work in our Park:  All entrances are very safe; The site is very welcoming; Most paths are good, I felt very safe whilst in the space; Waveney checks play equipment; no evidence of dog fouling; litter and waste management appears to be well looked after; overall standard of maintenance was good for a community group; peat and pesticides not used & compost made by group; conservation of landscape & historic features well looked after; Promotion of park good within Halesworth; very good links with the wider community; large management group well constituted; very good at raising money for play area and historical features; I do like the plan criteria.
 
Britain in Bloom, RHS and Green Flag criteria have kept us maintaining regular activities to improve our Town Park.
 Using feedback to revise our five-year Management Plan worked well and this is currently
out for further consultation to add approximate timings and costings as much depends on securing sufficient additional funding.
 Other notable outcomes were:
 HIB Town Maps at Station, Town Centre show position of Town Park
Jane Kircher Playground completed and well used by youngsters, including disabled access
Welcoming bright flower beds at entrance showcased to Anglia in Bloom since 2014 and have contributed to Town Gold Awards
Signage and interpretation boards planned quality dependent on fund raising and or sponsorship
 HIB Bulb planting extending range of horticultural management
Green Flag raising Ceremony October 2016
Six seats cleaned and repainted along towpath.
HIB Volunteers are now Friends of the Park; Many live nearby and regularly clean, litter-pick and check for dog fouling, supplementing Waveney two-week cycle that clears litter bins and cut’s grass.
Keep Britain Tidy Great British Spring Clean started 11/1/17 From Litter to Glitter and 27 people came to launch with local press coverage now a regular well attended weekly activity
Engagement through social media and our own website - www.halesworthinbloom.com, which includes a daily blog to publicise activities and events. Monthly bulletins and features in local papers have begun to put us on the map e.g. Management Plan launch, raising of Green Flag and ‘From Litter to Glitter’ campaign
 
The outcomes of our project have promoted inclusion, support and well-being and fed into the strong sense of community within the town.
 
​

Exhibition: Joseph Hooker: Putting plants in their place
Alongside Selected British Artists from the Shirley Sherwood Collection
25 March – 17 September 2017
New exhibition to uncover what made Joseph Hooker ‘the king of Kew’
Joseph Hooker: Putting plants in their place
To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of Victorian Britain's most important scientists, Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), Kew is holding an exhibition of a selection of his photographs, journals and paintings.

• Admire a stunning array of drawings, photographs, artefacts, journals from journeys via England to the Antarctic, across the Himalayas and beyond
• From pleasure garden to a centre of world class science; learn more about how Hooker changed the face of botanical science and the origins of Kew
• 80 paintings by British botanical artists, including life sized portrait of the Titan arum

Joseph Dalton Hooker was one of Victorian Britain’s most important men of science. A botanical emperor and tireless traveller, this new exhibition at The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art, ‘Joseph Hooker: Putting plants in their place’, charts his incredible life and celebrates the years of hard work that earned him the title ‘the king of Kew’ from Dr Jim Endersby, University of Sussex*.
Visitors will move through a series of delicate yet vibrant drawings, paintings and prints from his travels, alongside portraits, photographs, journals and even artefacts belonging to Hooker himself. Along the way they will discover how Hooker collected plants from all over the world, classifying them, discovering the laws that governed their distribution, and creating a place for botany alongside high status sciences, such as physics. With his father, William – the first official Director of Kew, Hooker also helped to transform Kew from a rather run-down royal pleasure garden into the world-class scientific establishment it is today.
On 30 September 1839 at 22 years of age, Hooker set off on Her Majesty’s Discovery Ship Erebus as the ships assistant surgeon and expedition’s botanist. This exhibition charts his incredible voyage from England to the Antarctic, and many other remote places around the world, with paintings, engravings and even Hooker’s own belongings on display. On his travels Hooker sketched endlessly, capturing temples, villages, memorials, wildlife, the sprawling landscape beneath Everest, and of course countless different plants he encountered along the way. A number of these captivating works are on display.
The importance of botanical illustration, as prevalent today as it was then, is also made abundantly clear in this exhibition, with one of Hooker’s beautifully-preserved, dried Rhododendron thomsonii specimens collected in the Himalayas displayed alongside a coloured field sketch and published plate of the same plant. The illustrations still show the vibrant colour of the species, which has disappeared from the dried specimen, and are able to clearly depict all the key characteristics of the species in a way that the dried specimen, or even a photograph, may not.
Maria Devaney, Galleries and Exhibitions Leader at RBG Kew says; “It has been an absolute privilege to delve into the remarkable life of Joseph Hooker, with this exhibition revealing both his tireless quest to transform the perception of botany, and his desire to establish Kew Gardens as a place of world-class science. This exhibition is a true testament to Hooker’s insatiable appetite for collecting, his fierce determination to raise the status of botany, and his deep rooted love of Kew.
COME WITH US IN JULY HALESWORTH IN BLOOM VISIT TO KEW AFTER JUDGING!

On a regular 8 week cycle Halesworth in Bloom work with the Halesworth Volunteer Centre and their vetted Be-frienders together with the Halesworth Brownies give gifts of flowers and local produce to Halesworth residents who find it difficult to garden or get out much. These are a joy to do  and have been received with joy. This has been going ever since Halesworth in Bloom began in 2013.
To get involved give flowers or local produce please contact Tamsyn on 01986873354