The Willow Way

Our sister social enterprise food4food, also part of our charity WinterComfort, now has its own website.

The food4food team make and deliver fantastic dishes and refreshments for meetings , parties and events across Cambridge.

The professional kitchens, which provide food for everyone in our Centre, also offer external clients a range of buffet and snack menu items to help your event or meeting go with a well refreshed swing.

Wendy and her team work tirelessly to provide imaginative and freshly made items for the discerning palate. Why not visit the food4food web site and see what they do?

Wendy and the team also now publish their Kitchen Blog, an ever-updating series of news and menu information items for existing and prospective clients and web visitors.

You can subscribe to regular automatic updates from the blog.

Very refreshing – catering from a professional team.

Image: Carrot Cake – Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license image from David Benbennick

Our successful garden obelisks are selling well on into the summer months.

The design team have produced a new heavy duty, larger bean obelisk to support the growing of climbing vegetables and larger spreading plants.

You can see the new design on the bean obelisk page here.

Woven with 6 – 9 uprights of six or seven feet in length, the bean obelisk is securely bound at the top, with additional horizontal weave at the base to ensure stability and strength during the growing season.

You can use our contact us page to request details and prices ahead of our catalogue reprint.

We are happy to help at WinterWillow.

Roger and the willow design team have been busy during the summer heatwave, adding some new woven willow products to our catalogue of items for sale.

The design and craft team have completed work on a new garden light.

This is a woven basket, mounted on a pole, which has a glass container and t-light included in the securely woven basket.

The items can be manufactured to any length – making ideal ground lights for a garden corner – or as a secure and effective ‘standard’ for parades or ceremonies as dusk falls.

We are working to update our downloadable catalogue, but you can see the garden light page here.

Use our contact us page if you would like more information and prices immediately.

Craft skills shining on willow at WinterWillow – part of WinterComfort.

WinterComfort are attending the Hope Street Yard Urban Larder fair on the first Saturday of every month.

Supporting the Cambridge Link-Up presence at the market you can find WinterWillow woven baskets, garden ornaments and other willow goodness on sale.

Why not drop by and see us on the first Saturday  in the month, particularly while the weather is good – perfect for that garden obelisk or hanging basket.

As the nights begin to darken you can also find your perfect seasonal gift on the stall too – helping to support Cambridge Link-Up , a homeless led community group.

This news item comes to you from The Willow Way – our blog about social enterprise and willow.

Image: A member of the WinterComfort team checks the stall display…

WinterWillow coffins - eco-friendly

Following the success of the Places of Change garden at Chelsea this year, and the great interest in woven willow eco-coffins by large numbers of visitors – we are very pleased to tell you that the Eden Project are continuing the story by featuring our eco-coffins as part of the legacy exhibition from the garden display at the Flower Show.

During June, July and August 2010 you will be able to see a WinterWillow woven coffin at The Eden Project in Cornwall.

The work of our weaving team will be part of a featured display to celebrate the energy and work of all the organisations and individuals who helped to make Places of Change such a success.

We were delighted to take a small part in this creative process and would like to offer WinterWillow congratulations to everyone who worked so hard to make the garden happen.

Weaving your way to the West Country?

If you are in Cornwall this summer and would like to visit the Eden Project you can find more information here.

Roger Fowle, our weaving tutor at WinterWillow, has written a short account of his journey in willow.

Describing how he got started, what captured his imagination and those who gave him help along the way.

Roger is working both to support the weaving team at WinterWillow and to help encourage the take-up of weaving skills by the users of our Centre at WinterComfort for the Homeless.

Roger says that ‘…willow weaving is a great way to acquire useful new skills, to get back into work or to create objects which can be sold to support the work of our charity’.

The weaving team at WinterWillow are always happy to show visitors their work and to encourage others to take up the craft.

From small baskets, woven eco-coffins can grow.

Read Roger’s journey in willow here.

In The Guardian today Ian Tucker writes about the collaboration between the Eden Project and Homeless Link that will create the biggest garden ever built at the Chelsea Flower Show.

The garden and its accompanying displays will have been created by the energy and creativity of at least 400 people with experience of homelessness. A 100 people from prisons across the UK will also have added their input to the project.

The garden, Places of Change, is financially supported by the government-funded Homes and Communities Agency, the Department of Communities and Local Government, and the London Employer Accord.

WinterWillow will be displaying a woven willow eco-coffin at the garden, as part of our work for WinterComfort for the Homeless.

Maybe we’ll see you at the Chelsea Flower Show next week?

You can see Ian Tucker’s article here. There is also a video about the creativity and involvement of people in the garden who have experienced homelessness here.

Members of the WinterWillow team were in Liverpool this week. We were attending a meeting at Mildmay House, the organisation which provides accommodation and support for those experiencing homelessness in the Toxteth area.

Part of the Chapter One group of service providers, they have created a new social enterprise, Bloomin’ Baskets, which delivers products manufactured by service users at their centre, to customers at the various market stalls they maintain across the city.

We were meeting with a variety of organisations from across the country to discuss the possibility of creating a supply network for social enterprises in our sector.

There are many successful social businesses emerging, who serve those with experience of being homeless, so that the idea of creating a network of such businesses to supply each other with sectorally created goods or services was very well received.

Networking is not a new idea in the third sector. The goods and services we offered as a group were not radical either. However, what the group could offer was a supply chain network where organisations could share revenue, good ideas and social business support as a distinct group – directly contributing to the development of ethical sales.

These are very early days, yet each city and community fosters a diverse range of goods within its area – getting those goods to a wider market and increasing the benefit to service users can only be a good thing?

Our meeting was itself facilitated by the 3xE network – watch this space for more network creation news.

We are delighted to announce that WinterWillow, part of the charity WinterComfort for the Homeless, will be presenting a willow woven eco-coffin at the Chelsea Flower Show this year.

Running from May 25th to May 29th 2010, Chelsea offer visitors an amazing array of floral displays, trade stands and visitor attractions. We are proud to be a part of the horticultural festivities this year.

We use only the best English willow in the making and craft of our eco-coffins and wider basketry items. The cultivation and sustainable cropping of willow is an abiding theme with the WinterWillow team.

Using no nails, metal fastenings or chemical based adhesives – our woven eco-coffins are a perfect piece of English craft for Chelsea – fully in sympathy with the ethos of the show, the care of living things and their sustainable use.

WinterWillow will be sharing a space on the Places of  Change stand, along with other social enterprise and Spark Challenge organisations.

If you visit the show you will be able to see an example of one of our woven willow eco-coffins throughout the show week.  The WinterWillow team will be in attendance on Wednesday 26th May 2010.

Do visit us at the show if you are attending. Every item we take orders for goes directly to support the work of our charity team at WinterComfort for the Homeless. We look forward to seeing you there.

WinterWillow has introduced a new item in its woven willow range of garden oranaments and accessories for 2010.

We are able to offer our customers a WinterWillow designed hanging basket – a conical shape, with woven hanging loop. We are offering the basket as a plain item, or with liner and flowers complete.

Each basket is individually made by our craft team. Each basket is therefore unique and offers you a delightful addition to our regular obelisks and other woven baskets.

You can download a basketry brochure from our woven basket page on the WinterWillow website.