2023 is here, as is Spring, and this feels like this year is OUR year!
We’re excited to share that the following groups are now up and running from Snapdragons, with more coming soon.
Plymouth Red Tent (one daytime ‘tent’ event per month, plus one evening moonlodge around the full moon. PLUS we have a regular Plymouth Sage Sisters gathering for women who are perimenopausal/menopausal/post-menopausal too).
Plymouth Green Man Circle meets one evening per week and from March 2023 will also have a daytime weekend gathering each month.
Plymouth Woodcraft Folk has finally started up, with 2 Elfins groups (age 6-9) running per week. Check out http://www.woodcraft.org.uk for more details on the fabulous Woodcraft Folk movement.
We’ve been working so hard on the site. … things always seem to take more time than anticipated, but we suppose that is to be expected somewhat with trying to juggle jobs, families, other interests, increased material costs after the pandemic, Brexit etc… lots going on!
But, we do have some major successes.
The soil contamination has been remediated, with geocell/geotextile in place and more than 1000 tons of clean, imported topsoil laid on top.
Our planning design is complete for everything we’d like to do to the grounds and will be submitted soon. This has been extremely exciting (we’ve spent 3 years looking at the site in different seasons, working out what’s needed/desired for all the different groups running from the site etc), but has taken a long time and a lot of effort/money to get various surveys and drawings done.
The second, smaller building, has been refurbished (99% complete!) and is looking wonderful.
We have a compost toilet up and running.
We’ve recently bought a rainwater harvesting system and will be installing this to our building soon.
We’ve had solar panels installed on site.
We had our first lantern walk for Martinmas (November 2022) and also a first Advent fayre – both were trial runs and were very successful.
We’re really excited what 2023 will bring.
Our current priorities are as follows:
creation of our wildlife pond (this has been dug out by many, many volunteers and our labourer James, from the Copper Pot Campsite and is now ready for the fencing to be put in place, before we fill it with water and plants).
refurbishment of our main Kindergarten building (the former urinals are now an office space, we are in the process of updating the 2 WCs, we need to insulate and board/plaster the building, lay flooring, bring in heating and new lighting, create a small kitchen etc)
creation of the outside spaces required by the various groups using Snapdragons as a home – forest school area, central gathering space on the former bowling green, allotment corner, children’s corner etc.
A note on greenery :
It is important to note that as a group, we place a focus on looking after and improving the local biodiversity. While areas may appear ‘messy’ at times, we are loathe to heavily strip back / manicure green areas. If and when we need to work on an area, we will do what is necessary, but in-between times we like to leave areas wild as habitat. Even when the site is more ‘finished’ it still won’t look like an ornamental garden or bowling green.
If you’d like to get involved in the project, please do feel free to email us on snapdragonsplyouth@gmail.com or contact us via our social media sites (we are on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook).