On 4th September 2021, our team hosted our first public event, the Green Meadows Picnic. Through it, we wanted to meet the Meadows community and introduce the various projects and events we will bring into the Meadows for the next five years. We received fantastic feedback from various members of the community, such as:

“It makes a change to have something fun going on in the Meadows itself – usually we have to travel to different parts of the city for this kind of thing!”

Here are the key highlights and key individuals from the event..

Our ‘how long ‘til it’s gone’ game proved popular and prompted conversations around plastic, litter, composting and zero waste items. You can download a printable version here!

The Secret Garden team joined us with wildlife yoga, mud kitchen and bug hunt.

There were plenty of home made games to get competitive about. As well as hydrogen cars, kindly lend to us by University of Nottingham.

The bookworm patch brought groups of kids in as Jolanta, Victoria Primary School teacher, told stories throughout the day from books soon to be available through our online and on-location (Meadows Library) Knowledge Bank. A big thank you to the Meadows Library for lending us the beanbags, chairs and tables!

Martin from By Our Hands was showing the community various wood carving skills and tools, linking to the Meadows story posts project run by the local community to make use of the lime trees which were felted to make way for the Clifton NET tram route. He said:

“The Meadows event was really fun from my point of view. Although I didn’t get much time to see anything else that was happening! Despite me being a latecomer to the whole thing I felt well looked after and managed to have a constant flow of folk willing to be involved. The whole feeling was one of positivity and care.”

Our interactive mural proved popular. We’ll be taking all the ideas and artwork from here to our Community Mural project.

The Veggies team joined us for a ‘How to eat for a healthier planet’ talk where we talked about which diets are better for your body, the planet and other beings.

Dr Bike, run by a group local to the Meadows, Cycle Saviours who offer free bike repairs at the St Saviours' Church Halls on Thursdays 9.30-11.30am (term time only). Graham who runs the group told us:

“ ..thank you for organising today’s event. As Dr Bike, I had a great day: a dozen or more bikes worked on, 2 sold - raising much needed funds for The Friary Drop-In, and one bike donated, for me to repair and then sell, again for The Friary. And what a lovely set of people came along today - it was great to see them, but just a shame that I was so busy working on bike repairs that I didn’t have much time to chat.”

We welcomed the Meadows library sawing club who talked to the community about stitching for the future, and taught individuals how to make and mend.

The artists corner was run by Cath Sutherland, a Meadows based multi-media artist who helped children create leaf rubbings and re-create imagery of the natural world. We received some wonderful feedback from the local community, such as:

“I’ve really enjoyed it, it’s great for people to get together and for kids and mums. We need more going on in the Meadows and I always want to get involved. I’d like to help with future events.”

Our music gazebo saw live music from two upcoming bands, The Influencers and Smallest Giants, while the streamed music was licenced by PPL PRS.

Our photobooth and props created by one of the Meadows primary schools proved popular, can you spot yourself below?

Our Green Meadows Picnic was decorated beautifully with meters and meters of bright hand crafted bunting for us by Greenfields Community School, Victoria Primary School and Welbeck Primary School students.

Most importantly thank you to all of those you attended, and to our wonderful volunteers who supported us throughout - from pitching ideas for workshops and talks, to painting boards, distributing postcards and attending the event - we couldn’t have done it without you. Also, thank you to our teams at Nottingham Energy Partnership and MOZES, and to the National Lottery Climate Action Fund who have funded this project.