Turning The Old Changing Rooms Green!

Dear Supporters, you may have forgotten the crowdfunder you contributed to 2yrs ago! It's been a long and arduous journey, but the Changing Rooms appears to be finally reaching completion. As we now consider interior decoration, we have a wonderful opportunity from The National Heritage Lottery Fund to produce hand made ceramic tiles as part of the interior and environmentally friendly finishes. We will be running a series of workshops using heritage skills to contribute to the completion of the community eco-building. The tiles will form part of the interior decoration of the building, bringing the garden and building projects together in a celebration of community, traditional skills and nature. Ceramicist and horticulturalist Laura Naylor will demonstrate how to make ceramic tiles from scratch, exploring textural decorating techniques. We’ll use foraged botanical inspiration from the Walled Garden and wider Sudley Estate, learning about local wild flora along the way. As supporters of the project, it would be lovely if you could join us and put your physical mark on the building. You can book your free place via the What's On page of our website www.growingsudley.com

Dear Supporters - we're so sorry you haven't heard from us for such a long time. Attempting to retrofit a low carbon building at one of the worst times in history to be doing a capital project has been trying, to say the least. Impossible to get across the obstacles we've faced without a lengthy piece, but if forced to summarise: covid, brexit, cost of living price rises and availability issues of contactors and materials...a mighty unforseen drains issue....followed by getting caught in fallout from the political/administrative issues at Liverpool City Council...and all the cost increases that follow any delays in the current climate. Just about sums it up. We haven't updated because most of 2022 we didn't know what to say! We solved the political issues, raised more money, set to work on the refurbishment, fixed the drains, raised more money. And here we are in 2023 and the building that should have been finished in late 2020 is nearing completion. The interior is done, the renewable energy systems are in, windows and doors done. In a much needed bit of good news, we've just received funding from Heritage Lottery Fund to run a course in the sustainable building technique, Hempcrete, which will see the Changing Rooms clad and insulated. This, along with installation of a biodiverse green roof, and a few other small jobs, will be the final phase of the redevelopment and we hope to open the building for trading as Therapy Rooms in Autumn/Winter. We'll do a final update on the crowdfunder soon, but wanted to let you all know about these free workshops in renewable energy systems. We'd like lots of builders, self-builders, designers and architects to get to know this brilliant eco replacement for concrete and other cladding materials, so do share. Hempcrete continues to sequester carbon once set into blocks and installed on buildings, so in effect turning buildings into trees! Thanks for hanging in with us, final update and news on how you can continue to stay in touch with our progress very soon. From all the team at Growing Sudley CIC

So finally, after months of hard work, and so much support and amazing connections and stories, our crowdfunder hit it's target! A huge thank you to Liverpool Mayoral Fund for their £10k contribution, which made it feasible - but also a huge thank you to every single one of you. Without community support, LCC wouldn't have funded us, and we're so happy and thankful for the incredible momentum this campaign achieved during what must be one of the hardest times to fundraise. We have a long journey ahead now, to refurbish the building, and of course instal renewable systems to make it low carbon. It's a lot less daunting knowing you're all behind us. It may take some time, judging by the constant delays and obstacles faced so far, but we're channelling Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu, when he says 'Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished'. With love and thanks from all the team at Growing Sudley! PS: If you're not already on our mailing list, please contact us at [email protected] if you'd like to receive updates and news of events and activities.

We did it, we hit our target! Phew, and phew, and thanks to every one of you x