Friday was an exicting day for Community Spaces – as one of our projects was given a royal seal of approval. The Ventnor Botanic Gardens Westgate project on the Isle of Wight was officially opened by The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. Above is a picture of Prince Charles meeting with Groundwork UK’s Director of Open Grants, Wendy Jenkins and the Ventnor Botanic Gardens Friends Society.
For more details about the visit and the Westgate project see: http://www.community-spaces.org.uk/module/news/display/newsdisplay.aspx?news=46
Pictures from the day can be found at: www.flickr.com/communityspaces and members of the Ventnor Blog have also uploaded some video footage of the Royal’s arriving on the island and greeting local school children, follow the link to view the video.
Were you part of the Royal visit? If you met the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall at the gardens then we’d love to hear your story. We’d also like to know what you think of the new Westgate Project – so please leave us a reply below.
I was so impressed by the Westgate project when I visited, to have been able to fund such a community facility is fantastic. The Friends Society deserve praise indeed for their hard work, I hope they will be able to share their experience with other community groups and encourage them to apply for funding for their communities.
I was very pleased to be able to attend the Project launch for the Westgate Project on 17 July.The Curator of the Ventnor Botanic Gardens -Simon Goodenough & his staff had worked very hard to complete it between January & July.The Friends, including the Chair; Secretary & other Group members were a great help at all stages .
As the Project Facilitator it was really impressive to see a great change to the Project site on the launch from an overgrown site to a landscaped garden .
To have the Royal opening , with Simon Goodenough , Alan Titchmarsh & Isle of Wight Council , Friends & BTCV and Groundwork UK’s Director of Open Grants was really good.
Looks like you had a wonderful day.
The Royal visit to our Garden was a splendid culmination to the project. I must thank everybody involved in making this happen. The Friends have been so supportive over the years and have enabled the Garden staff to achieve so much. Green Gym have always been a great help when many hands are needed. The Community Spaces Grant has enabled us to much enhance a well loved community asset and already visitor numbers are up and community response to the project is very positive. A big thank you to all who were involved.