The story so far…

Although Food Loop properly got going in July 2009, there were lots of discussions between the project team and Camden Council during the spring and summer. Here’s a quick summary of some of our preparations, and the many people we met along the way…

February 2009.

Our first proper project meeting (before we’d even heard the great news from Defra that our project had been funded) was with Camden’s Housing department. We met with representatives of the Housing team, who have been working on Maiden Lane’s regeneration, and with Dave Wilson, our contact in Camden’s sustainability team.

4th March 09. Meeting at ELCRP offices

Following the great news from Defra that our bid for funding was successful, the project kicked off in early March with a meeting with ELCRP – the East London Community Recycling Partnership. ELCRP will be running the Rocket Composter for the next two-year period. Michelle and Sonia of ELCRP shared a lot of information with us, particularly with regards to their process for setting up a new scheme on an estate. ELCRP have a very high success rate for their composting projects so we’re lucky to be working with them on Maiden Lane.  

At the end of our meeting, we had a short tour of Nightingale housing estate, where ELCRP are based. It was great to see their own gardening activities and raised beds in the private gardens of the new buildings, made with railway sleepers.

10th March 09. Coffee and chance for Kate to meet Manuel and Karl.

11th March 2009. Kick-off Meeting at Maiden Lane Community Centre

The first meeting was held at the Maiden Lane Community Centre to meet with some of the people involved in Maiden Lane activities, and to bring everyone up to speed with what we are planning to do. There are lots of other interesting initiatives already underway on the estate, including a social enterprise that will manage the estate grounds, a sustainability group and Green Peppers, a gardening volunteering project.

Model developments: creating new visuals of Maiden Lane estate
Camden’s Housing department have agreed to provide us with drawings of Maiden Lane so that Paul (Paul Thrush, our architect) can start creating a virtual model of the estate. The idea of this 3D modelling is so that residents can see just how much waste they normally create, and how much it can be reduced by separating the food waste. Also it will enable us to help show what some of the public spaces might look like with community vegetable growing facilities.

24th March 09. Greenspace meeting at Camden Council offices

Another meeting with the Council, this time to meet with the new Maiden Lane greenspace consultation officer, Saima Iqbal. Saima explained the work that the Council have planned for Maiden Lane. Agreed to put together calendar for events and workshops. Saima explained plans to establish a Green Spaces Steering Group and took Clare and Paul (who is preparing the 3D models) on a tour of Estate. Possible spaces for fruit and vegetable growing were pointed out, but these were all located on and around the western edge of the estate.

There is a great space on the east of the estate, but the planned regeneration work might mean this space is not an option for food growing.

  

Clare and Paul spotted potential of the sunny roof of the Community Centre – perfectly located in the centre of the Estate, overlooked by many homes and metaphorically a perfect place for a community project.

  

Growing food here would logistically be a challenge, and lots of dog walkers would need to be consulted, but the yields would definitely be plentiful!

Monday morning, 30th March 09. Breakfast at ‘Camden Best Café’ to discuss flyer.

Clare and Kate meet at what is apparently Camden’s Best Cafe, before continuing on to our first…

…Rocket Board Meeting at Maiden Lane Community Centre
PSI, SEED, Camden Council, ELCRP and estate residents
ELCRP gave us copies of the flyer and leaflets they currently use.

We agree that its important to get cracking on the recruitment of residents for our design team. We show Dave our draft recruitment flyer, which we hope can be sent out to residents:

  

Tuesday April 14th 09. Botany walk!
Kate, Paul and Clare meet Paul Richens on the estate for advice about what kind of plants to grow where. Paul Richens is a gardening expert who has worked a lot on various urban and school projects, and in particular has supported Jane Riddiford (Global Generation) with several roof garden projects in central London. He is like a walking botany lesson. The short walk along Camley Street from Kings Cross  to the bridge over the railway lines opens up a whole microcosm of interesting plants, bugs and animals.  When he sees the south-facing wall on the west of the estate he points out the thick growth of nettles around the corner of the site: “Evidently people come here to pee” he says, explaining that nettles thrive on nitrates that abound in urine. Awesome. His knowledge is really helpful in understanding the pros and cons of all the possible planting areas of the estate.

Thursday 16 April 09. Meeting with HASC
It had emerged that there are some problems with our recruitment plans, and it looks like we won’t be able to send our flyer out as planned. We have another meeting with Camden Council’s Housing team, to talk through our planned activities.

Friday 17 April 09. Green Spaces Steering Group
Back to the Council offices, this time to meet with representatives of the various greenspace projects on the estate. We agree not to send out our flyer, and instead to include a cut out coupon in the Maiden Lane Link, the estate’s newletter.

20 – 24th April 09. Plans are put on hold

One of the difficulties with a project like this is that it involves lots of different people which inevitably means lots of different ideas about how things should be done. Sometimes this is great, and makes for exciting new developments. At other times, like this week, it’s not so great. We won’t go into the ins and outs of the disagreements that took place this week but suffice to say they got everyone down a bit… until we had a great idea… Perhaps we could postpone the project start until after the Housing team have finished their consultation work? Seeing as they seemed quite relaxed about us doing stuff with residents in the autumn, this could be a great solution. We discussed how this would change the research programme of work in relation to the Rocket installation stage.

Rocket Project Board meeting. Monday  27th April
At the meeting Clare did not see it as being appropriate to make Kate’s timing suggestion, but amazingly and quite coincidentally someone else suggested exactly the same thing for different reasons: that launching the Rocket in mid to late June might be a bit close to the holiday period to ensure a strong and consistent start to the project. At that point Clare echoed the sentiment. Dave said that in principle he had no problem in delaying the start date for the Rocket.

Friday 22nd May. Meeting with HASC

Back to Camden’s office to talk incentives and recruitment.

Tuesday 9th June 09. Meeting with Saima

Meet with Saima at PSI to talk through her plans…

Wednesday 17th June 09. Clare and Kate meet to plan for Clare’s meeting with Sean, Gavin and others at Imperial. Clare prepares outline for meeting (while Kate swans off on holiday)

Thursday 18th June 09. Clare has a busy fortnight with Sean, planning our first workshop.  

Wednesday 8th July. Meet Sean, service designer, to plan first communications workshop