Wow, guys, this is fantastic! I’ve had loads of interest in the community land trust idea with lots of people coming back to me with feedback, questions, offers of help, etc. What this tells me of course, is that this could really be a viable option for purchasing a farm and making the land available for allotments, keeping animals and not only for the GWM eco-project but other community projects as well. I’m so excited!

After chatting with Charlotte at Fordhall Farm last week, thinking some more about it and emailing a couple of people, I’ve decided to go for the community land trust idea and get feedback from the community - the people in Cheshire themselves. And what better place to start than the Landshare website I mentioned back in my blog a while ago. So far, I’ve only had one person contact me about land in Cheshire and from what I can see of the website, it appears there are far more would be growers out there than there are landowners coming forward. So, I need to start contacting the people who’ve got listings on the website to see what they think of my idea.

Aaargh, I want to scream!!!! I feel like I’m getting absolutely nowhere. These people don’t reply to emails and don’t return phone calls either. The only way to get hold of anyone at the college (excluding Annette), is to keep phoning persistently until you get through to the person you want to talk to, which can take days!!! Letter to the farmers written, I was keen to get it sent out asap, but that’s not going to happen in a hurry. When I eventually got hold of the business advisor that I had the meeting with back on the 14th May, he told me that he hasn’t had time to even look at the docs I gave him and I need to get hold of the other lady as he is busy working on other things. What was the point of going to see him then??? God, this is so annoying!! Talk about going round in circles and being shoved from one person to the next - unbelievable!

I paid a very interesting visit to Fordhall Farm this afternoon and with it being half term, my children came with me. Fordhall Farm (www.fordhallfarm.com) set up the Fordhall Community Land Initiative in order to raise money to buy their farm which the landlord was threatening to sell off for development. I had a lovely chat with Charlotte Hollins about how they went about it and I think a similar venture may be a viable option for GWM. Need to think about this a bit more.

The other day, I managed to contact a guy that used to work for REG, the Rural Enterprise Gateway, to see if he could help. I read somewhere that there were about 200 farmers in the North West that had contacted REG when it was still going, looking to diversify. So I thought at least he would have a database of these farmers that we could send a letter out to regarding the project to see if any of them wanted to form a partnership with us. Great idea - save having to send out a letter to every single farmer in Cheshire - approx. 900 according to yell.com!

I met up with him this afternoon and gave him all my documents to look through in the hope that he could go over the business plan from a farmers point of view. They do have a database of farmers but didn’t want to give out any names to me for privacy reasons, which I suppose I can understand. So, I need to write a letter which the college will send out to the farmers - great, except that he told me there was another lady who’s started who should be looking after this type of thing and not him. Oh well, off to write the letter now…..

Ok, so the meeting with the college directors never happened, which is really frustrating. Apparently they are in the process of employing a sustainablility person and my project would fall under that person if they are to implement a model eco-village on one of the college’s fields. So we wait…..

Right, who else can I contact to try and take this forward???

Hey guys. Yes, the blog has been quiet for the last few weeks, but I can tell you there is good reason for it. Internet connections in South Africa are crap or just plain non-existent! So, while we were over there on holiday, doing the tourist thing round the country, seeing friends and family and working on the tan which has already started to fade after being back here for a few days, I had every good intention of keeping the blog updated, but with barely no Internet connection in most of the places we stayed, it was all I could do just to read my emails. We had a good time and it was nice to get away and I did have a good look at how the thatch roofs over there are put together  - one of the ideas for the eco-huts.

Back to business and with the business proposal for Reaseheath College complete, off I went back to the college this morning for another meeting with Annette from Enrich. We went through the proposal, had another look at the field and next week we will be meeting with one of the college directors to see what she thinks. Fingers crossed she will like it and take it to the board for approval.

Ok, so how many of you switched off your lights for an hour last night? We did and at 8.30pm sharp, all the lights, the TV and the computers went off and some candles were lit. Actually, my children wanted to light all the candles in the house and it was so bright, the lights may as well have been on! We’d debated what we were going to do for an hour with the lights off and we’d come up with playing hide and seek in the dark, but with so many candles lit, it didn’t really work too well. So, we blew most of them out and only left one or two burning in the kitchen, lounge and landing. We then proceeded to have a really fun hour of trying to find each other in the dark, whilst at the same time, saving some energy and taking part in a global event.

If any of you did something exciting, leave a comment. We’d love to hear about it

I now have an outline plan for the business proposal for the college and the field that the college has identified for our potential use which we went to look at today. The field is 3.8 hectares, fairly level with a gentle slope to one end which leads to a stream at the bottom. It would do us nicely, I think.

The follow-up meeting with the Head of Agriculture at Reaseheath College today went well. It was a quick meeting with the concept being explained to the Section Manager and another lady, Annette, from Enrich. Once again, they loved the idea, so we have come up with some actions to take the project forward, one of which is to identify a field within the college grouns that we might be able to use to pilot the project and the other is to write up a business plan to present to the college directors for approval. So need to get a move on with that ……

Next meeting with Annette on 16 /3.