Local Group News

Breathing Spaces is delighted to be celebrating National Bee Day on 21st August with the Bees and Seas team! Bees and Seas, a fab local project created by We are Food Pioneers, Friends of Brooklands, and Creative Waves, is hosting a series of FREE family fun activities, shows, talks and stalls at Brooklands Park from Friday 20th August through to Sunday 22nd August and we are leading a walk to Meet the Wild Bees.

Breathing Spaces and Sompting Estate host one of the Bees and Seas log hives at Dankton Lane Barnyard, Sompting, and our walk will be from Brooklands Park to the barnyard on Sat 21st August, leaving promptly at 1pm from near the Cycall project container at the north end of Brooklands Park and returning to the park by 4pm.

The theme of the weekend is building back better for bees: focusing on actions for restoring, supporting and enhancing the role of these pollinators. A colony of wild bees has already moved into the hive high up in a sycamore tree at the barnyard of its own accord. Come and see how the excellent design and siting of the hive (built by Bee Kind Hives) and the abundance of forage plants for bees and other pollinators should help the colony to thrive without intervention from us.

The walk is about 40 minutes each way, up through Sompting to the barnyard on Dankton Lane and returning via Sustainable Sussex at Test Road. Some of the walk is uphill and on uneven ground and the barnyard has minimal facilities – a camping loo, no running water (hand-sanitiser available), makeshift plank/log seats only, little weather cover. We will walk whatever the weather so walkers should dress appropriately. Please bring your own drinks and snacks.

Book your place by emailing [email protected] – numbers will be limited.

The Bees and Seas team are celebrating ‘National Bee day’ with a series of family fun events this summer. Please do come along and take part.

Bees and Seas is a local project born from a common passion to connect communities with nature, across the land and sea. Three community enterprises: We Are FoodPioneers CIC, Friends of Brooklands Park and Creative Waves CIC, have come together to create a community beekeeping project and educational training space in Brooklands Park.

The mission is to help engage the local community with conservation and pollinators through a series of collaborative activities, workshops and volunteering opportunities. Local volunteers have been working hard to transform this industrial site into a natural asset and the Worthing Honey Collective have been busy preparing our Honey Bees for onward delivery to their new home at the Brooklands Apiary.

None of this would have been possible without the vital funding, grants, sponsorships and donations received! We are very grateful to the South Downs National Park Trust, Postcode Local Trust, the Sussex Transport team, Rampion Fund Sussex Community Foundation, Worthing Community Chest and Worthing and Sompting Lions for their incredibly generous donations.

Come and celebrate National Bee Day on 21st August. The theme this year is building back better for bees: focusing on actions for restoring, supporting and enhancing the role of these pollinators. Bees and Seas are hosting a series of FREE family fun activities, shows, talks and stalls at Brooklands Park from Friday 20th August through to Sunday 22nd August.

TTW will have a stall at the event on the Saturday 21st Aug, so do come and say hello or even help man the stall if you’d like to!

Full programme of events available here: https://www.foodpioneers.org.uk/projects/bees-and-seas-event-2021/

The Wildflower Trail wants everyone to get creative when out and about looking at all the new wildflowers growing across Adur and Worthing.

The Wildflower Trail are launching the Wildflower Trail Art Competition – Wildflowers and Pollinators, with submissions open from the 1st July 2021, with prizes and exhibitions being organised for springtime 2022. There are four categories, all judged by local professional artists and a special Community Choice award. For more information, visit our website – www.thewildflowertrail.org or email [email protected].