Posts Tagged ‘charity’
WinterWillow will be at the forthcoming Open Day of The Woodland Burial Trust in St. Albans.
The event takes place on Saturday 12th May, 2012 from noon onwards.
‘St Albans Woodland Burial Trust is one of only two consecrated sites in the country and falls under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of St Albans. Consecration provides the greatest protection that can be afforded in English law, and can only be changed by Act of Parliament.Whatever religious faith you may or may not have, you can nevertheless be assured that this will always remain a special place, sacred to the memory of those who rest in peace’.
Visitors on the day can enjoy free refreshments in the Trust marquee and will be able to view the new glade and see the newly extended 12 acres of woodland on the site.
Set in beautiful countryside in Keysoe, Bedfordshire and surrounded by 60 acres of woodland, access to the woodland is through the College Equestrian Centre, Church Road, Keysoe, Bedford. MK44 2JP
You can currently see a very nice article about WinterWillow on the Home & Garden online pages of Cambridge-news.co.uk
Written by Emma Higginbotham, the piece illustrates the history and background to the formation of WinterWillow as a craft based social enterprise.
It is also an opportunity to highlight the ‘green’ credentials of WinterWillow and to show the care and craft that the WinterWillow team put into the creation of their woven willow eco-coffins.
Check out the online article here for more information about us.
You can visit our own web pages here.
WinterWillow - the woven English willow eco-coffin.
Image: Rob Janko of the WinterWillow team
We have just published another edition of our retail basketry brochure .
Baskets, obelisks, panels, sandwich baskets…the variety of woven products that our craft team can manufacture continues to grow.
We make our woven items using English willow, in our Cambridge workshops.
If you are interested in WinterWillow products, and in supporting the work of WinterComfort for the Homeless , than visit our basketry page on our main website and download or view a copy of our latest publication.
You can find our basketry pages here .
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
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.
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.
Susanna works with our team of volunteers, staff and centre users to create woven willow products for our social enterprise, WinterWillow.
Directly involved in developing willow products for our basketry and garden range, Susanna brings both enthusiasm and an artistic sensibility to her engagement with the team.
Her experience as a maker and tutor is an invaluable part of the WinterWillow process.
The short film below shows Susanna finishing a Wishing Star from our range – ideally illustrating how much care the WinterWillow team put into even the smallest woven product.
If you would like a pack of Wishing Stars you can download our basketry and garden brochure from our basketry page on the WinterWillow web site…order form included if that helps?
You can visit the home page of our charity WinterComfort for the Homeless here.
See what the energy of taking The Willow Way can support.
As mentioned in a previous Willow Way entry we are building new web pages for our WinterWillow web site that will let you buy our retail baskets and garden products with one click.
We are not quite there yet – but have uploaded a short price list and order form for our baskets and garden products. It features short biographical information on WinterWillow, a price list and an order form that you can copy, print or post back to us with your requirements.
You can also use our contact us page to ask for information.
You can download our list on the following pages…
Our general baskets page
Our obelisk page
If you do buy a WinterWillow woven basket – thank you.
To access our stored documents you can download a free copy of Adobe Reader here.
