Earlier this month Green Vision headed over to Southstoke for our ‘Vision Day’. We were joined by our newly recruited mentor-directors: Gavin, Janine and Steve.

We spend the day in the beautiful yurt pictured above, designing our strategy for the next year. We developed a plan of action for our bike-powered cinema project (now dubbed ‘Wheels for Change’) and mapped out the various groups of people that Green Vision had to engage with. Hopefully it will allow us to think a lot more strategically about our plans for the future!

Keep an eye on our website for updates about Wheels for Change - we’ll be launching it very shortly!

Yet another successful People’s Kitchen for Green Vision!

Our excellent chefs CJ and Taryn cooked a dahl, some tasty pasta as well as some bread rolls, serving for free (or a donation) to people of all ages. We even used the opportunity for a little networking, with the local MP, several councillors, and our friend the Mayor of Bath coming along.

There was great discussion around reducing food waste and our squash-planting competition went down a treat! Attendees planted seeds in pots, which will be replanted at Dry Arch Growers in Bathampton, and a prize will go to the person whose squash is the best in a few months time.

Thank you to all who came!

Holloway harvest! Today Fin, Sid, Katy and Tom popped over to the guerrilla garden we created on Holloway and at Calton Gardens to see what had grown. There were a few carrots and loads of lettuce, as well as a massive crop of lemon-balm and fennel. We haven’t been particularly good at maintaining this site so it was great to see that some things had grown.

Trees had prevented half of the planter getting much light so next time we’ll plant some hardier plants there. The herbs in particular did well so we might plant some more of them. We heard from a local resident that some boys had used the patch on Holloway ‘as a long jump’ so that might explain why it hadn’t grown that well! Next time we’ll garden somewhere a little more obviously separated from a footpath.

Katy, Camille and Tom of Green Vision arrived at Bath Spa Station early this morning to collect signatures for the ‘Fair Fares Now’ petition overseen by the Campaign for Better Transport.

The petition calls on the government to use its regulatory powers to restrict planned increases in rail fares. Rail fares in the UK are already the highest in Europe and are set to rise by another 28% in the next four years. At a time when we need to see people getting out of cars and onto public transport, pricing even more people out of public transport seems a poorly thought out move.

For the first hour or so we went round passengers waiting on the platform to an overwhelmingly positive response. After an hour or so we were asked to leave the station and had to attempt to attracts people’s attention on the street outside. Although much less successful, people being in a hurry and unwilling to stop, we still got a fair few more signatures. The postcards that we could hand to people supplied by Campaign for Better Transport came in handy here!

You can sign the petition online here.

This week Green Vision surprised the judges of Southwest In Bloom as they judged the cities Guerrilla Gardens with a mock news broadcast. Pretending to report on the investigation of the ‘ongoing battle’ by ‘United Nations envoys’ (the judges), we dressed as Guerrilla Fighters, a war correspondent and cameraman to surprise them.

Our stunt lasted a few minutes and both bemused and amused the judges. They were very warm in their praise of the spirit behind the guerrilla gardening Green Vision has been doing - and they loved how cheeky the stunt was.

The five of us taking part - Becky, Rachael, Fin and Tom, along with Iva of Transition Bath - were invited to the Mayor’s Parlour afterwards with other people involved in Bath In Bloom. It seemed a little odd to enter such lavish surroundings, being praised for supposedly illicit activities! Even the mayor of Bath loves Guerrilla Gardening!

Last Friday (24th July) saw around twenty young people from schools all over Bath and North East Somerset come to Bath University to be trained in preparation for the B&NES Youth Climate Summit. The fabulous Martin Grimshaw, who will be opening the second day of the summit, led the day’s training in the art of facilitative leadership - in essence leading a group without restricting their creativity and decision-making power. Leading without needing to lead.

We were also trained in using ‘Open Space’ and ‘World Café’ workshop techniques. These two techniques are very effective in brainstorming ideas, getting to know a group and having extremely powerful conversations. World Café techniques will be used heavily at the conference as a way of reflecting on each of the talks.

The Youth Facilitators trained on the 24th will have a large role to play at the summit, facilitating World Café sessions after each talk and also ensuring the smooth running of the event. It’s lucky we have such an ace group of people involved!

Transition Bath have gained permission from Bath & North East Somerset council to guerrilla garden a large, prominent site in Hedgemead Park, Bath and Green Vision have been helping out. The site used to be filled with roses but was due to be grassed over having become rather overgrown. Transition Bath is reclaiming the circle of land overlooking London Road, planning to grow an attractive range of vegetables there.

Luci, Henry and Katy wait for Iva of Transtion Bath to set up her time-lapse shot of the site. This picture shows the circle of weeds (in the background) before we cleared it. A picture was taken every thirty seconds to produce a video showing the transformation; we’ll post it online when it is completed.

We’re going again on Sunday to help finish clearing and to start planting. Everyone is welcome; visit Transition Bath’s website for more information or view the Facebook event.

May Day Guerrilla Gardening - more photos. Thanks to Will Neaverson for taking them!

Camille recently went down to where we Guerrilla Gardened before Christmas and took these photos. As you can see the first flowers are beginning to bloom. Where it was once overgrown and full of litter, it is tidy and without a single piece!

Guerrilla Gardeners enact riverside transformation!

Two images of us at the Green Vision allotment. Check other posts for more information.