We’ve had a great start to the year here here at Real Economy Southmead!
We are now an official online producer, selling what the team here are making through the Real Economy shop. And each penny for our sales is going straight into our Solidarity Fund, paying for the food we eat here and that which we distribute to those struggling to afford good food. This is something we hope to continue growing; learning to make lovely things as a community which we can sell on to raise money to continue to grow as a community and support those in hardship. We welcome any suggestions or contributions. If you have any ideas or skills that you think could be developed into a good workshop with a product at the end we’d welcome your input!
We had a brilliant session making aprons a couple of weeks ago with material from the Scrapstore and boy do they look smart!
Last week we watched a series of short films about people around the world who work with food, changing their lives and their communities. We had some great discussions about how we might use some of these ideas in Southmead. Click this link to see the list of films and watch for yourself!
And in other exciting news, our growing patch now has a polytunnel!
Chris will be skinning it soon and we’ll be ready to start sowing seeds and propagating our crops for the year ahead! It’s very exciting to think of all the abundance that will spring forth from under here!
Which brings us to our February schedule! We’ve got weekly activities as ever, including a couple of special gardening workshops with Chris, and a special extra family event happening in half-term.
February 7th : Homemade Beauty – We’ll be making delightful body scrub from used coffee grounds.
February 14th : Seed Sowing Workshop – Time to plant up for the coming growing season! We’ll be getting our hands dirty, sharing tips and answering questions and there’ll be seeds to take home and plant yourself too!
February 21st : Upcycling textiles craft – Our handmade sponges have been selling well! So we’ll be making more of these, as well as creating some new boards on which to make them. We’ll also start with t-shirt rug craft. Bring your old textiles that can’t be used! Socks, t-shirts, leggings, tights, dresses…
February 22nd : Half-term Kids Cook Up & Dig In Day – A special family day!
February 28th : Tree Grafting Workshop – Learn how to graft a tree! This is a method for propagating fruit trees, which you can then take home or we will plant up here in Southmead, so in the years to come we’ll have bountiful fruit growing in the community! Wonderful.
And of course, each of these is preceded by one of our fabulous community lunches. Which are free to those that are happy to get stuck in and do a little washing or drying up! Or join us to cook!
If you’d like to come to any of these workshops it would be really helpful to know in advance, so please drop me a line or register on our Facebook event pages.
Don’t forget, we’re based at Southmead Community Centre. We start cooking from 11 o’clock, lunch is at 1, and activities from 2!
Look forward to seeing some of you here soon!
florence@realeconomy.co.uk
07429 957881