Annual Report

The articles below are taken from our annual report that was issued in June 2005. If you would like a full copy of our annual report please contact us giving your address and we will be happy to send you a copy.

Chairperson's Report

Welcome to the annual report for Bridewell Organic Gardens 2004-2005.

This has been a particularly challenging year for Bridewell. Paul Tomlin, a co-founder, the manager for 11 years and the driving force in the development of the organisation moved on to pastures new in March 2005.

The handover to the new “generation” has been greatly helped by the commitment of staff, volunteers, gardeners and trustees to maintain the ethos created by Paul and to ensure a smooth transition through an unsettling time. I would like to pay tribute to everyone who contributed to this process.

The environment in which we are operating continues to be tough. The mental health budgets of the County Council and the local P.C.Ts have been merged into a new pooled budget with the P.C.Ts taking overall budgetary control. Despite the apparent increases in N.H.S funding, this pooled budget is under increasing pressure and the likelihood of cuts to mental healthcare services in Oxfordshire seems very high and thus additional money for voluntary sector service providers is unlikely. Our contract with the P.C.Ts is our primary source of income and is up for renewal in March 2006

Our secondary income sources, grant-making trusts, are also under pressure. With investment returns having declined in recent years, trusts have less money to distribute and increasing numbers of requests for support. They are faced with having to make tougher decisions about where to place their support and are therefore increasingly keen to ensure that grants awarded deliver maximum value for money and are given to sustainable projects.

Against this background, in common with colleagues in other charities, we are dealing with seemingly constant cost pressures. For example our insurance costs have risen by over 300% in the last two years. In response to this it is vital that we continue to develop as many income streams as possible.

I hope you will enjoy reading about the many and varied activities at Bridewell during the past year. It never ceases to amaze me how much can be achieved by people working together in a positive and supportive environment to create and sustain a beautiful, productive garden and vineyard and all the associated activities.

Mary Elford
Chairperson

People

As our reputation has developed, so the number of referrals that we are getting has grown. At the moment we have 53 clients registered with us, who between them have been allocated 76 sessions. In addition, for the first time in Bridewell's history, we are operating a waiting list for places. At the year-end we had nine people on this waiting list. In addition to the rise in numbers wanting to come to the garden we have also seen an expansion in our catchment area. At a time when more and more mental health services seem to be concentrated in Oxford it is pleasing to see a steady flow of people being referred to Bridewell from the city. In addition we now have clients from Bicester, Kidlington and Abingdon and regular interest from Banbury and Thame. However in these cases the lack of available support for travelling costs is proving difficult. Not only is this increasing geographical spread of demand a testament to the success of Bridewell but it also reflects the lack of similar services elsewhere in the county.

The last eighteen months have seen dramatic changes in the staff team at Bridewell.

In March 2005, after eleven years, Paul Tomlin, the founder and inspiration for Bridewell left the organisation to move to Wales for a well-earned ‘rest’. Those of you that know Paul will appreciate the why word rest is highlighted; resting is the last thing that one could imagine Paul doing.

Paul’s vision, energy and single-minded determination have resulted in an award-winning charity that has provided an invaluable service to people over the years. Paul’s dedication to the task has been exemplary and his work was rewarded in September 2004 when he was personally awarded a Care Worker Award by the Oxfordshire Carers Forum.

As ever, Paul has a wealth of ideas as to how he will be spending his time in Wales, where he will be enjoying his ‘retirement’ with partner Lizzy, who also made a major contribution to the development of Bridewell.

We are eternally grateful for what has been created here and we wish them both great fortune and happiness in the future.

Paul’s departure was preceded a year earlier (April 2004) by that of his long-time colleague Danny O’Donoghue. Danny left Bridewell to join the Richmond Fellowship, running a project supporting people with mental health problems through environmental and conservation work near his home in Marlborough. After eight years at Bridewell, the demands of his growing young family and commuting from Marlborough, it is easy to see why the challenge of his own project closer to home was so inviting. Again, we express our gratitude to Danny for all his hard work and inspiration and wish him and his family all the best.

Between April and October 2004, we also saw the departure of Lisa Gutteridge after four years at Bridewell and of Sarah Rees, who had been both volunteer and staff member for more than five years. Lisa has moved on to apply her technical skills at a local company and Sarah has resumed her medical career with the Blood Tranfusion Service. We thank them both for their sterling service and wish them well.

As can be seen, these changes have been significant and in any organisation, change of this magnitude can be unsettling. However we are very lucky that we have been able to blend together a very good team to carry on the Bridewell tradition.

Alex Taylor has taken on the mantle of Charity Manager, looking after the major administrative functions such as finance, fundraising and liaison with statutory agencies. Sally Webster has joined as Garden Manager with day-to-day responsibility for events in the garden. Joe Butler continues as our resident blacksmith and Margaret Canning, Christine Worsdell and Gita Konschak make up the garden support worker team. Gita also works on the new Women Only Day with colleagues Yvonne Castellano and Eleanor Moore making up the rest of the team. The team members come from very different backgrounds but share a common interest in outdoor, craft, environmental issues and helping people and have come together quickly as an effective team.

Bridewell would not be able to function without the tireless efforts of its volunteers. Whether it be working in the garden during the week, taking part in watering duties at the weekend, helping at events such as Open Day or acting as a Trustee, our volunteers are absolutely essential to Bridewell delivering the high quality service that it does. We would like to take this opportunity to thank every volunteer for his or her contribution to the success of the organisation.

The Garden

As ever, there have been continued developments in the garden. We have added a fifth large greenhouse that has been built from two donated lean-to structures. We have been able to give this a double door that will allow wheelchair access and we have built staging that provides easy disabled use too.

We have constructed a new shed for beekeeping equipment, necessitated by the fact that during 2004 we bought seven hives (with bees) and assorted beekeeping and candle-making equipment from John Savings at Appleton. This has greatly expanded our beekeeping operation and thus increased both our activity levels and sales income. We continue to be indebted to Ian Gourlay, one of our loyal volunteers who leads this activity. During the early part of 2004 we constructed a potager garden between the raised beds and the avenue. The diamond and semi-circular beds that we have created were made using sections of an old silo that was lying rusting on Bridewell Farm. It seems that we can find a use for most people’s scrap!

March 21st 2005 saw the culmination of the Baker’s Van restoration project when the ‘tyre firing’ took place. Amid much drama and theatre, red hot metal bands were lifted from glowing embers and dropped onto the waiting wooden wheels. After being quickly hammered into place, a team of water-bearers doused the wheels before the heat of the metal set light to months of careful woodwork. The rapid cooling of the metal bands resulted in four perfectly formed wheels that were subsequently fitted to the van. This spectacular event was a rare glimpse into the past and brought happy memories flooding back to an octogenarian blacksmith who had come up from London to witness the firing.

In early 2005 we began work on a tribute to Monet’s garden at Giverny in France. After visiting Giverny some years ago, Paul had always wanted to reflect aspects that he had seen there at Bridewell so a plan was hatched. Our Monet Garden will be in the middle of the raised bed area and will feature an artificial lake complete with copper water lilies, bridge, a trompe l’oeil, and roses climbing up towers and arches made in the forge.

Plans are also well developed to build a new craft workshop behind the greenhouses. Our inside space for things like candle-making is limited to the tearoom and this is a far from ideal situation which, coupled with the continued increase in the number of clients, means we need more room. As ever the team in the garden will do the work and we have been lucky enough to secure funds from the Oxfordshire Community Foundation for this purpose.

In the late summer of 2003 the editors of the Daily Telegraph Good Gardens Guide visited us and as a result of their visit we were delighted to discover that we had been given an entry in the 2004 edition under Wilcote House. In the 2005 edition (issued in December 2004) we appeared under our own heading and we are pleased to report that we will be in again in 2006. We think that our inclusion in this prestigious guide is a testament to all the hard work by everyone that has been associated with Bridewell over the years.

July 2004 saw the staging of our 10th Anniversary Open Day. The weather either side of the day was not good but mercifully the rain stayed away for the whole of our celebrations. The garden was filled with the usual attractions; live music, Morris dancing, beekeeping, storytelling, beekeeping, bodging and weaving plus a host of other stalls. A record number of more than six hundred people attended but I am not sure that those manning (or personing!) the tearoom appreciated this particular landmark! Still the bumper takings for the day were a welcome addition to the coffers.

In addition to Open Day, we had earlier (late May) taken part in the Artweeks exhibition for the second time. Again this was a successful event with more Bridewell people exhibiting than the previous year. So much so that we had to move the display from the tearoom into a marquee as we needed more space.

The wider public profile of Bridewell has received a significant boost during the past eighteen months. We have been featured in a number of newspaper articles, on local radio and on South Today on television.

Thanks to a grant from Awards for All we are also in the final stages of making a video about Bridewell that will be used for various promotional purposes.

Vineyard

After four years of sometimes back-breaking work by a lot of people, it finally happened! October 22nd 2004 saw the first harvest of Bridewell grapes: 841 kilos to be precise. Not the biggest harvest in the world but enough to start with.

This was despatched down to Rotherfield in East Sussex to Will Davenport at Davenport Vineyards, our chosen winemaker.

Having investigated options to build our own winery, we found that raising the necessary funds was not possible. In increasingly difficult financial times for charities, it seems that available funds are more likely to be given for traditional uses rather than helping us to build a winery. However, we are very confident that we have made a wise choice in selecting Will Davenport. Will has trained extensively in France, Australia and the USA and is the UK’s leading organic wine maker.

The wine that we have chosen to make is a dry white. Our grape varieties, Orion and Phoenix have recently been approved to be used for wine that is eligible for the English Quality Wine Scheme, a requirement for us to be able to identify the grape varieties and location of vineyard on the label. We are optimistic that, when ready, our wine will therefore pass the test to be labelled as Oxfordshire Regional Wine. The wine should be available sometime in the autumn of 2005. In September 2004 we were quiet worried that our grapes were not up to standard, the sugar levels were not as high as we thought that they should be and we considered scrapping the crop. However, before we made a final decision, we visited a number of vineyards in the Thames Valley, all non-organic, and to our amazement found that our crop was much better than theirs! Apparently last year was a bad year for mildew and despite spraying, they had all been badly affected. Our crop was disease free. So it was an easy decision to carry on.

As for the crop of 2005, unlike last year, we have suffered some frost damage and, as we write, the weather is cold and dry, not good conditions for the setting of the fruit. Fingers crossed.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmithing has continued to be a very popular activity within the garden and we are pleased to be able to report that we have been able to secure funding that will enable the activity to be enjoyed at Bridewell for the foreseeable future.

We have seen increasing numbers of service users wanting to work in the forge and we have seen some really high quality pieces of both functional and decorative ironwork produced. We have seen a steady flow of commissions for items to be made in the forge, most significant of which was the production of a gate and railings for the Howard Street Community Gardens in Oxford. This was a major piece of work for us and we were able to involve ten clients in the production. The Howard Street Gardens won the South-East Region section of “A Picture of Change”, a national competition for the best community green spaces and we are very proud to have contributed to such a successful project.

Our mobile forge has also proved a great success. In addition to attending local shows, it has been used to deliver a number of training sessions at local schools and colleges, either as part of the CDT syllabus or for students who have difficulty engaging with mainstream educational processes.

As mentioned in the Chairperson’s statement, grant-making trusts are focusing their support on projects that they can see will be sustainable after their grant has expired. This, coupled with our view that we could extend our blacksmithing activities to provide employment opportunities for clients who are looking to return to work, has led us to develop a business plan for a separate social enterprise that will be self-funding through sales of ironwork and related training services.

Our plan envisages that it will take three years to develop the organisation to the point that it is self-financing and we have secured funding from a number of grant-making trusts to support this development. We are also optimistic that we will be able to secure further support from the West Oxfordshire Network who funded our original blacksmithing project.

This will be a major development for Bridewell and is not something that we have entered into lightly. We believe that it is a good development for Bridewell that will increase our profile locally and secure the future of a very important therapeutic activity within the garden.

Women Only Day

In the years that Bridewell has been operating, a number of women that have attended have chosen to talk about personal experiences of childhood (and adult) sexual abuse and the severe adverse effects on their mental and emotional well-being.

However, a significant number of these women found the mixed sex environment of our normal operation too difficult for them to feel comfortable and thus they have been unable to share in the beneficial affects of working at Bridewell. Consequently, we decided that we would set aside one day per week as a ‘women only day’, aimed specifically at women who have experienced childhood sexual abuse.

During 2004 we raised sufficient money to run a one-year pilot programme to test our assumptions that there would be a demand for this service. In the autumn of 2004 we recruited an all-women team of three to run the programme. The period up to Christmas 2004 was spent planning and publicising the programme and in January 2005 we took on our first clients.

We knew that our target client group would be very hard to reach and thus had some concerns about the uptake of this service. However we now have ten clients and a further three at various stages in the referral process. We believe this reflects both the need that exists, the relative lack of support for this group and the sensitive nature of the subject that leads to the reluctance of some women to disclose to mainstream mental health agencies.

Whilst we have only been operating the service since January, we believe that we have had a dramatic effect on the lives of the clients that have attended so far. Due to the lack of any similar service in the area, we have had interest from a very wide geographical area. During the coming months we will be working hard to raise the funds needed to continue this project and to establish it as a permanent feature of Bridewell’s service.