Follow the bigger conversation at ‘Orchard Collective Scotland‘ Facebook page
Gathering followup Feb 2015
UPCOMING
Orchard Gathering 2019 will be held where ? Suggestions welcome.
PAST
LOCAL GATHERINGS
We’ve got together a 2016 list of local gathering events – apple days, plum fairs – in a blog post.
If you want to see that listing, it’s here.
Missed your event out ? Please get back to us or comment on the blog post.
Gathering Follow Up February 2015
Saturday, 21 February 2015 from 12:00 to 16:30, Caledonian Brewery, Edinburgh
main Gathering website at http://orchardgathering.weebly.com
We had a great time at the Caledonian Brewery on Saturday . We – as an orchard community – needed to do a bit more to determine a collective vision. We did a lot of the work at the Dunblane event in 2014, but needed to take those ideas – do some sifting and grouping to see what are the key issues that folk want to take forward. This is how it went:
(If ‘No Preview available’ comes up, just click your browser’s Reload button)
We also spent a much of the afternoon planning new projects about:
- education outreach, (working title School Orchards)
- knowledge and sharing field practice, Book project
- marketing Scottish top fruit locally (working title Fruitbay)
- developing a social enterprise around a mobile press & pasteuriser unit
The facebook page (link at top) is probably the best place to keep up or join in with these initiatives.
Further back
Orchard Gathering 2014
Fri 7th Nov 2014, 10am-10.30pm, Victoria Halls, Dunblane.
Orchard Gathering 2014 went really well, and people seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves !
We teamed up with Fife Diet and Forth Valley Orchards to make this happen. As we’d hoped, people and local groups who are committed to a revival of orchards in Scotland came together to celebrate, share knowledge and experiences – and create a vision for future of orchards.
Feedback & Media
Feedback from the Gathering has been collated and is presented on a separate website. Other media is given below.
The afternoon of the Gathering was spent on creating a common Vision for orchards in Scotland – and all the ideas that were put forward are shown: http://orchardgathering.weebly.com
The presentation on the progress of the National Orchard Inventory for Scotland project by Crispin W. Hayes is available:
Another outcome of the Gathering was the creation of ‘Orchard Collective Scotland‘ Facebook page
What happened at the Gathering
Here’s how we hoped to see it happening – It was held as an open event calling people together from across Scotland who are passionate about orchard trees, their fruits (and nuts), and how we strengthen the culture, knowledge and skills of keeping them. We hoped the following things would happen at the event:
- sharing experiences and knowledge
- building energy and enthusing folk
- making new connections and sparking new ideas
- working together to further the orchard movement
- eating good food, having a great time
These are exciting yet demanding times. All over the country, old orchards are waking up and new ones are being planted, yet at the same time the supermarkets retain their stifling globalised influence: despite the apple being Scotland’s favourite fruit, our shop shelves are fairly bare of Scottish-grown apples. But the orchard tree, and the apple in particular, has deep roots in our culture, and seems poised for a resurgence.
We used innovative participative leadership techniques to try to ensure that everybody present had their voice heard.
This was an event in two halves: discussion and celebration. Once the purposeful, focussed daytime part was finished, we moved on to an cultural evening with music, storytelling, dinner, a play and ceilidh.
