Farnham Allotments

Try to feature some information and news about your local green spaces, be they parks, gardens or allotments.

Last August Clare White wrote a blog post that featured some of Britain’s garden blogs, such as the Patient Gardener’s Weblog from Worcestershire.  Are there any keen local gardeners that might like to contribute to your community site by writing about their hobby? If your neighbourhood has more than a few green-fingered residents you could build a feature around the best gardens in your area.

Oxford Road Community Garden

Are there any allotments near you?  These are thriving little communities in themselves and there are plenty websites out there if you’re looking for inspiration in writing about them.  Welsh Girl’s Allotment is one girl’s quite personal site ‘detailing my quest for an allotment, its cultivation and hopefully bountiful crops’, but there are allotment sites that serve their small communities, such as Farnham Allotments, which publishes news for all allotment holders – events such as a Growing Vegetables Winter Lecture and notices to advertise Free Horse Manure.

Is there a community garden in your area?  Perhaps one or some of the people involved in its development would like to chart its progress online.  Oxford Road Community Garden, a garden created with Section 106 money from local development, has a simple website with photos and posts that keeps everyone updated on latest news and activity and what’s growing on the site.

Talk about what’s going on in your local park.  Highbury Park Friends in Birmingham publish their newsletters and points of interest on their simple WordPress website, including the above charming film of the pond’s ducks.  Kings Cross Environment has a dedicated category for the local Bingfield Park, which features the hard-fought War on Squirrels.

Normand Park Trees, London W14

Is there a cause or campaign concerning your local green spaces your community website could help with? W14 & SW6 London held a campaign to Save Normand Park Trees from felling – website manager Annette posted a template preservation order request letter along with the relevant council officer’s name and email address, which made supporting the cause as simple as copying and pasting into an email.

Kingsley House Gardens

Another talk about local website for Kingsley House, set up by The Kingsley House Tenants Association to try and improve the  Bristol residential blocks, concentrates on the particularly sorry state of their council-maintained landscaped gardens.

Have a think about how you can include the local green patches and the people who help cultivate them into your community website, and if there’s anything you could do to help preserve, protect and develop them by talking about what they bring to the area in your online space.

Nicky is the Communications Manager at Talk About Local – recruiting, training and working with IT trainers and active citizens across the UK to help them create and develop simple yet effective community websites and online profiles. She managed the popular Birmingham hyperlocal website Digbeth is Good since it began in May 2008 until December 2011. Nicky is interested in ways of using storytelling, game-playing and events within communities to tell their stories and effect positive change.

Nicky Getgood

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Possibly Related Posts:

• Ten Questions: Annette Albert of W14 & SW6 London
• Content idea: publish a local notice or poster
• Local TV
• Kingsley House: ‘The forgotten block’
• Ten Questions: PixieSixer (AKA Annabel Clarke) of More Canals Than Venice