Bankside Open Spaces Trust

Sprunging! Lovely brimstone - everything is better for the changing seasons :-)

Beautiful crocus photos - thank you for sharing. The lovely weather really does make them glow.

We love giving people an excuse to duck out of the office - and for a good cause too. Our Bankside Corporate Games fundraises for free afterschool sports activities and is a fantastic way to get competitive with your colleagues, clients and, um, competitors! www.bost.org.uk/bcg 3 July 2025

Our third annual Wassail is coming to Bermondsey. Save the date and spread the word! @theorchardproject.bsky.social @nationalparkcity.bsky.social @bostse1.bsky.social @lb-southwark.bsky.social

"A man stands under a climbing white rose in bloom. He is wearing a t-shirt reading Future Gardeners. Text in a green box says, "Our Future Gardeners free gardening course is BLOOMING! Our latest course is growing new gardeners in Thamesmead. Good luck to all our students!"

Our Future Gardeners course is growing - we're delighted to be running a new course in #Thamesmead supported by Peabody and funded by their contractors, Maylim. 10 students are now on an 8-week journey towards a new career in horticulture: www.thamesmeadnow.org.uk/news/general... #Gardeners #Careers

We're so excited to see our planned boost to Marlborough Sports garden featured in @cityam.bsky.social and thanks to @se1.news for highlighting. The can't wait to deliver on this project for SE1.

Our increased focus on #communityengagement has been about making visiting spaces & #volunteering easier. Smaller projects created in partnership with organisations already working with specific groups of people are essential, alongside accessible tools and working areas. Let us know your thoughts:

Vital green spaces research here - highlighting why we've been protecting and caring for urban open spaces for the past 25 years. Well kept spaces are more inviting/feel safer, & community events and activities draw people in &, we hope, make them feel like a park is for them.

It’s The Wet Potatoes Art Exhibit! Yes, you heard us right – Wet Potatoes, its the name of the very first art collective grown out of one of our programmes. The collective exhibited their nature inspired work in our Ecohouse recently - and we're looking forward to seeing more from them soon!

This group grew out of our partnership w/ Psychosynthesis Trust - Exploring Anxiety. At the end of a 10-week course, we found some participants keen to do more, but needing a bit more support before joining a volunteer group or training. These new sessions are a creative way of building confidence!

Three images in a grid. Top left - a man in a black coat stands in a doorway looking up at a nature wreath hung on a wooden door. It is night. Top right - two people work to turn garden clippings into a wreath in a shed-like building. Bottom image is wreathmaking in progress with three people crowded around a table covered in greenery.

Wreathmaking! Ahead of our public event tomorrow night, our Exploring Anxiety continuation session group (aka The Wet Potatoes Collective - we love an in-joke 😂) got sustainably creative with garden cuttings and leftover willow from a summer weaving workshop! A beaut of a wreath for our Grow Room.

Big cheers for volunteers! A picture of happy people with their arms up in the air. Text reads: Last year, we hosted 312 community volunteering sessions and people gave 4,826 hours to our open spaces & events! Find out more about volunteering: www.bost.org.uk/volunteer

Big cheers for #volunteers! Happy International Volunteer Day and a massive thank you to the hundreds of volunteers who make our work possible! Find out more about volunteering: www.bost.org.uk/volunteer

Is this the year we actually try it?! Let's hope so :-)

A very smiley lady wears a red and white santa hat and holds up a very fine wreath she has made from natural materials in a London park.

When you have you photo taken by a colleague at a festive event and it becomes one of the hero images for next year's marketing. Would you like to be as happy as Hannah with your wreath? Come to our Winter Warmer, 12 December from 5pm in Red Cross Garden! www.bost.org.uk/news/2024/11...

Borough Welsh Choir Christmas concert tonight

Read more ➡️ www.se1.news/whatson/#wed...

Thank you. Festive and helpful! Like old FC himself...

Always delivering what we need, before we know we need it. What a thread! Happy hog day.

Wow! Sending love to your team! Lots to sort out.

Text on a green background reads: I've really enjoyed being on Future Gardeners because of the range of education and experience you get. The training greatly increased my gardening knowledge, and the garden visits and industry talks has improved my understanding of how the horticulture industry works. I didn't realise the number of different sectors that fall under horticulture.”

Reflecting on our experience, those looking to address #unemployment, particularly among younger people & those w/ additional needs should work hand in hand w/ industries, focus on barriers to entry, often cost/location, & demonstrate the broad range of roles available.

A young woman laughs at the camera, she is wearing yellow gardening gloves, a pink t-shirt and a bucket hat on a sunny day in an overgrown area of planting in an rban park. Next to her another young person in a black t-shirt wears gardening gloves and holds the head of a wildflower. The Millennium Wheel can be seen to the left. Text on the picture reads: “I definitely wouldn't have been able to get a gardening job this quickly without your help!” Future Gardeners graduate Image credit: Eleanor Bentall (rspb-images.com)

Our Future Gardeners course was designed with industry experts and focuses on removing barriers to entry so people can follow explore an outdoor career whatever their background. 76% of grads secure jobs or further training: www.bost.org.uk/future-garde...

'Get Britain working' is what we're hearing today. As a charity running a programme to tackle unemployment and skills shortages in #horticulture, we're hoping reforms emphasise practical, supportive solutions. What are other people's views on what's needed to support people into work? #employment

A group of Ghanaian drummers dressed in beautiful dusky green and gold traditional outfits are playing while dancing towards the audience. The Shard towers above them in a blue sky with puffy white clouds.

Hello new followers! On a Monday after a week of all the wintery autumnal weather, we got to thinking about when it was warm and our outdoor events were packed with sunshine! Here's Nimeii Cultural Group at our BOSFest24. Expect more outdoor events, activities and gardens in #London from us 💚

Do check before lighting bonfires, hibernating lime bikes love leaf piles at this time of year...

Almost, we've only engaged with a very specific audience on there recently. It's a toxic place nowadays, it's not great for people to see all the negative, violent posts as part of their working day.

Side of the road 🤣

Lots of lovely followers - just need to work out resources to engage effectively. It's a struggle with a solo marketing bod covering all the things🙃 But at least there's no toxicity to wade through. Lots of outdoor photos, many cats. Happy days.

Ooh that is nice!

A wintery graphic advertising or winter Warmer event. Text on a green star spangled background reads You are warmly invited to Bankside Open Spaces Trust's Winter Warmer 12 December 2024, 5-7pm, Red Cross Garden, 50 Redcross Way SE1 1HA. In a lighter green strip at the bottom it says Join us for wreath-making, mulled wine, music and merriment in Octavia Hill's beautiful Red Cross Garden. At the top is a red triangle with Free Entry in it. At the very bottom in a white strip is the Southwark Council logo as they fund the event, the Bankside Open Spaces Trust logo (which is just the name in green text with a flower type graphic next to it) and our web address www.bost.org.uk and email info@bost.org.uk. There's a nice holly wreath around the event details. Jolly.

Its that time of year again - Bankside Open Spaces Trust's Winter Warmer is BACK! And you're invited - join us for wreath-making, mulled wine and merriment on 12 December in Red Cross Garden from 5pm. Free entry, donations for activities & refreshments. All welcome, free tix here: bit.ly/3V5qdzI ☃️

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We sometimes get a water loving variant of these trees in our urban ponds. What a treat! 😂