Community Fund Projects
Community Fund Projects 2024-25
This year’s bunch of projects will be added as they are completed.
Community Fund Projects 2023-24
Making a Pollinator Patch
A small grant for machine hire helped Castlemorton Environmental Group prepare ground for a wildflower pollinator patch in the churchyard, to turn mown grass into a beautiful meadow.
On the Bare Hill drama
Dark Sky gazing anyone? Local theatre company Strange Futures used their grant to lever in Postcode Lottery Funding. They are working with local groups to create a play about the Malverns; their past, present and future.
Geosite Volunteers
This National Landscape is home to a huge number of important geo-sites, places where the exposed rocks tell the story of how this landscape was created. A grant helped volunteers to preserve four sites this year.
Tools Recycling
Local group, Tools for Africa, restores old tools for sale locally or for sending to Africa. The group has just moved premises and a grant allowed volunteers to build the storage they needed so that they can expand this great work.
Castlemorton Common Survey
Malvern U3A Environmental Group are carrying out a year long survey of the watercourses on the common. By measuring insect life in the water they can also monitor the water quality – a great example of citizen science in action.
Men’s Sheds Raised Beds
Volunteers at Malvern Men’s Shed joined forces with volunteers at Malvern Cube and Repair Cafe to build a high raised bed. This can be gardened by people with limited mobility and will be part of a new outside community space.
Grounded Conversations
Geoff Broadway is an accomplished smart phone photographer. We commissioned Geoff to photograph and interview people he met in the National Landscape, to create a narrative record for our website, of their memories and love of this landscape.
Land Art
Juliet Mootz creates art which explores the landscape and our relationship with it. We asked her to work with groups who don’t usually access the National Landscape, helping them to make art pieces for an exhibition this year.
Projects for 2024/25
Do you have an idea which could benefit the people and the places in the AONB? If so we’d be pleased to hear from you. Contact David Armitage for information and advice.
Community Fund Projects 2022-23
Colwall Hedge Survey
Colwall Parish Council and the AONB co-funded a survey to look at the condition of roadside hedges in the Parish. The results will be used to protect and repair these hedges.
Malvern Car Club
A grant of £1000 helped to buy an e-bike for the community run ‘E-bike to work’ project, helping rural people without access to cars or public transport to get to work. The project has been a huge success.
Geosite Volunteers
The Malvern Hills is famous for its unusual geology. A grant of £1500 helped volunteers from the Earth Heritage Trust to clear vegetation from four important geological sites in the AONB.
Colwall Greener Eco Fest
In November ‘green’ groups from the Colwall area came together to share their ideas and projects. Over 30 exhibitors and 600 people came to the event, part-funded by a £1000 SDF grant.
St. James the Great, Colwall.
Volunteers have created a beautiful wildflower meadow at this churchyard. A £1500 grant helped to pay for tools and machinery to manage the site, to be shared with other local groups.
U3A Natural History Group
Members of this group carried out detailed surveys of the natural history of Woodfords Meadow and Mill Coppice. An £800 grant paid for training and for the results to be published and widely shared.
Seed Swap & Networking Day
Over 140 people came along to Malvern Green Space’s seed swap and networking day. A grant of £750 helped pay for talks on a range of topics, from soil health to heritage seeds and growing.
Wellington Heath Churchyard
For many years volunteers have managed this small churchyard for wildlife. A grant of £1000 helped to celebrate its new status as a Local Nature Reserve with a new noticeboard.
Projects for 2023/24
Do you have an idea which could benefit the people and the places in the AONB? If so we’d be pleased to hear from you. Contact Karen Humphries for information and advice.