Penge Green Gym Late Spring Newsletter 2016

See what's happening in Penge this week....

Penge Green Gym Newsletter    Dear Penge Green Gym Supporters   A chilly spring at Winsford Gardens We have had some bright sunny days in the garden but also the biting north wind has been blowing making gardening challenging.  A recent storm also damaged the large twisted willow, taking down a large branch.  This has now been cleared and hopefully the tree will be no worse for wear. We need your help This May Penge Green Gym has been chosen by Waitrose Community Matters to receive a share of the £1000 pot donated by Waitrose each month to local causes. We need your help to fill the box with tokens.  Just go along to Waitrose Beckenham and collect a token from the checkout.  Even better, go to the self-service checkouts where there are pots of tokens and take as many as you like to put in the perspex box.   We would be very grateful if you could let anyone you know who shops in Waitrose Beckenham to support us.   Raised Beds   we have now filled one raised bed with plants and an irrigation system made of old plastic bottles with holes in that will hopefully slowly feed water to the plants on very dry days.  We are trying out a new system called Hugelkultur in the 2nd raised bed.  This involves putting wood and turned over turf underneath a layer of topsoil.  This will hopefully keep in the moisture and the wood will slowly rot down providing nutrients for the plants above.   A special visit  Yesterday, our original leader and all round TCV guru Lizzy Kaimakamis came to spend the day with us.  Lizzy was instrumental in setting up the Penge Green Gym and gave us the knowledge and confidence to become a strong and stable community group.  Lizzy will be going on maternity leave very soon and as a thank you for all her hard work over the years we presented her with a very special Penge Green Gym t-shirt.  We wish you all the very best and hope to see both of you very soon.   Volunteers We would like to welcome Mary to the fold.  Mary is a yoga teacher so we look forward to learning some good stretching exercises!   And Finally The day you've been waiting for, it's our annual open day.  Put the date in your diaries, it's Sunday 12th June.   Easyfundraising You can still also use Easyfundraising is an easy and free way to support the Penge Green Gym.  When you buy items on the internet from well known shops such as John Lewis and Amazon, you can sign up to Easyfunding and they will donate a percentage to Penge Green Gym.  To sign up, go to www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/pengegreengym.