Playscape: Happy New Year! Thank you for all of your support in 2018. It was great to see so many of you at the Lights Switch on too, although we will definitely be buying A LOT more wine next year – sorry to those at the back of the queue when we sold out! Wonderfully…

Shelter Design Competition This Shelter is not the prettiest and until some new wooden seats were installed, it wasn’t very comfortable either! However, we think we can give it a new lease of life: Nestled next to the future basketball & football practice area, with some quirky new companions (the old horse and roundabout will…

Shelford Fun Run raises another £5000 for Playscape! We were delighted that Day Accountants agreed to sponsor chip timing for the Fun Run this year. It was, however, touch and go on the day whether we’d get the chips as they went to Shelford… Nottingham! Fortunately the roads were clear and the participants very understanding….

National News: Children’s access to parkland affects their spacial working memory The Times quoted Eirini Flouri, of University College London: “Our findings suggest a positive role of green space in cognitive functioning. Spatial working memory is an important cognitive ability that is strongly related with academic achievement in children, particularly mathematics performance,” The New York…

Playscape – A Community Effort We were doubly blessed by the American visitors to the Free Church last month. They raised £81 for Playscape with a car wash and then helped us to weed and water the three new trees in the meadow and the new hedge. Not a mean feat considering the distance to…

Playscape plans have been granted planning permission! This is a great milestone for the project. Erect Architecture can now start on the technical drawings, which in turn will allow us to go out to tender (a pre-requisite for most grants) in the not too distant future. Now we need the rest of the funds to…

Playscape – Important for Everyone? We spent a glorious day on the beach last month and I was reminded just how engaging the natural world is for children. We know in our hearts we feel better from being outside and research shows that it is crucial for physical and mental well-being too. George Monbiot nicely…

Work Continues! Playscape and the SSYI took the opportunity over the Easter break to do some remedial work in the copse. Thanks to Keira, Marlon and Zac there is a new (sturdier!) willow and hazel hurdle. If you take any budding den builders down to the copse please encourage them to use sticks that are…

A wonderful bonus of joining Playscape has been meeting all sorts of people in the Village.   Take Ollie O’Meakin, the Romsey Mill and SSYI Youth Worker. He has championed the Playscape cause at every step and initiated our successful Copse Project partnership. Ollie also nominated us for the South Cambs Community Awards 2018 and…

Recipe for a New Playscape Ingredients 1 dozen committee members 2 dozen public consultations 1 x It’s a knockout extravaganza A dusting of abseilers 400 fun runners A generous outpouring of donations Mix it all together, let it rise for a month or two whilst we wait for planning permission and then ice with final…