Stoke Gabriel Pre School, in Totnes, Devon, has built a natural play area in their village orchard using funding from Community Spaces. However, the group were so keen on making this a community based project, they have got the entire community involved in making the play area.
The group ran community workshops to create hand-carved, wooden benches for the play area. The benches were designed and created by the local residents – with careful guidance from a local woodworker. The workshops were held during the day, so the non-working; older members of the community were able to take part in creating something for the youngest members of the community.
A true sense of community spirit was felt by everyone, especially, Caroline Curtis, the Project Manager for Stoke Gabriel Community Park, “Thank you for your support of the project, which will make such a huge difference to the children, parents and grandparents of people who live in and around Stoke Gabriel. I feel privileged to have worked as the Project Landscape Architect and Administrator and have received such positive feedback and support for the project from people living, working and visiting the village. None of this would have been possible without the funding from Community Spaces.”
I’m Rebecca from Stoke Gabriel Pre-School, who applied for the grant from Community Spaces/Groundwork.
The project is nearing completion and it’s very exciting! The children can’t wait to ‘climb aboard’ the new playship (the focal point of the play area) and are busy coming up with suitable names for the ship, which will be ‘launched’ on Saturday 30th October at a party to which the whole village is invited. We will be offering local cider and apple juice to our guests, along with lovely nibbles using seasonal and local ingredients, made by the parents of the local school and pre-school. We have asked Les Frost, who has lived opposite the play area for the past 98 years (!) to be the ‘captain’ of the ship and to take part in the opening ceremony.
Rebecca – sounds like it’s going to be a fun-filled day… we look forward to seeing some pictures!
[...] This group are running Chainsaw Carving Woodshops as many of the locals admired all the carved woodwork in their Community Spaces project. Find out more about this project by following this link. [...]
Thank you Community Spaces for funding Drakes Den in Youngs Park Paignton. the playpark is almost finished now with just our storytelling chair to be installed. We have been amazed at the amount of families who now visit our wonderfull park. It’s a pleasure to see all ages really enjoying themselves and shows that this play area was a great project for Community Spaces to fund. We plan to have a storyteller every Saturday morning 10-12.for all ages.
Our launch is 29th April (Royal Wedding Day)
at 2pm. We have lots of activities planned and our Mayor will be officially opening the playpark.
Thanks again Community Spaces and Groundwork
Louise – thank you for the update, sounds like your project has been very well received already! The story-telling chair and story-teller are a lovely idea and a fantastic way of getting people involved. It’d be great to see more pictures of these things as they happen – if you get a chance please upload your pictures to our Flickr group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/communityspaces/pool
All the best for launch day!