#and then ppl have to donate food to it which should be the easy part bc of how much gets tossed out from stores/restaurants

[palms-upturned]

Reading theory like wow this somehow fills me with hope and despair at the same time. Like things could be so much better than this! But also. Things could be so much better than this.

[thewanderingcultivator]

25th February 2020. Interview with Paul form Grow Elephant, London.

I was talking to my colleagues at Social Life about the project and they reminded me they had done a social impact evaluation of Grow Elephant - a mobile community garden that moved around the Elephant and Castle development area. The document was a really useful way of seeing the social benefits of such a project. 

I arranged a call with Paul who set up the project to get his advice on what works and what to be mindful of. 

Here are my notes about the project and also from the interview. 

Grow Elephant was London’s first mobile garden, a moveable growing project that temporarily inhabits the under-used spaces of the city.

As well as allotment spaces and a community garden, it hosts its own café and venue – the Tropics Café. Hence beyond gardening activities, the project also hosts a range of cultural events, extending its impact and reach beyond its core community of users. 

Container allotments for individuals

Communal growing spaces

Central wildflower meadow

Scattered planters made from donated materials and plants

These communal parts of the garden are tended to by volunteers during the regular Saturday afternoon work sessions held in the garden and through the spontaneous efforts of regular users of the space.

Indeed, while the garden is mobile, designed to evolve and adapt to new spaces, it is also grounded in the local community around Elephant & Castle. Finding a new home nearby will enable this valued community asset to carry on developing the social links and local relationships that have been forged over the past six years.

Important points to add to the proposal:

adapting to the potential of the site.

form part of a wider eco-system of community groups 

Mini allotments

The garden has several hundred containers available as mini allotment spaces. Local residents can sign up at the beginning of the year for up to eight containers to grow their own produce. In 2016 around 60 individuals and families signed up. 

Summer 2017, some of the allotment gardeners had not continued tending their containers because of uncertainty around the future of the garden.

Gardeners can pick how many they want to occupy in a year and adjust the number according to their needs and capacity. Containers are easier to manage than a ground plot, they require less digging and are less susceptible to pests. Raised off the ground, they are also more accessible to gardeners with restricted mobility.

Workshops

Over 50 sessions a year have taken place over a year

Tropics cafe

The Tropics Café was built in Autumn 2015. Constructed in part from reclaimed materials and a shipping container, the space has been built, altered and extended with the help of volunteers, in an ongoing process of adjustment and improvement. 

The café offers affordable and fresh food and drinks, with a menu that varies day-to-day.

The revenue from the café also provides an important income stream for Grow Elephant.

However, more than a café, the space creates a focal point for the garden as well as a community hub. 

The café offers a meeting space and venue for a diverse range of events and activities run by other groups: Paxton Green Time Bank; Creative Roots Art Group; Yoga in the City; Kings Cross Hot Club; Ingrid Film Club

The café also hosts many one-off events, from seasonal get-togethers such as pumpkin-carving, to fundraisers. Grow Elephant does not charge event organisers to use the space, provided entry is free. 

On Monday nights, King’s Cross Hot Club have a residency at the Tropics Café. The band plays jazz, swing, tango, cumbia and other styles from the early twentieth century.

Interview notes

Q: How did you get it started?

Started v.slowly from 2011. Triggered by a local campaign to save a plot on the Heygate. They couldn’t stop the plans but got agreement to give them meanwhile use. They moved around during the 7 year project.

Gardening is always about projecting into the future which is a challenge if it’s going to close.

Didn’t have any strong ideas about what a community garden should be “we knew nothing and we learnt through just doing it, and it built up incrementally”

They got a grant to put a tap in. 

The first site operated as an allotment with keyholder access. Didn’t have capacity or motivation to do more at that time but then they realised realised they should use it to its maximum potential with a full programme.

The project isn’t really replicable. Very personal project, he threw himself into it. By the end he was very exhausted and wanted to create a more sustainable and replicable model that doesn’t rely so much on one person. 

Tottenham is more running as an events space because that’s what they can plan for but can’t do gardening because they only have a rolling one month contract. 

Q: How much time did you spend there in a week?

“It was my life” “I wasn’t alone doing everything but we didn’t have the resources to pay people”

He was the keeping the show on the road. You can rely on volunteers to run it.

Q: Income generation?

mainly from the bar and space rental.

Cafe - It’s very hard to make money out of selling food. It’s really complicated. 

Ask groups about alcohol mark-up because this is a good way of generating an income.

Site is huge factor in income generation. You need to start with the site to figure out what income it could generate. Depends a lot on the context. Eg. in Tottenham they rent studios. Generates a community of people too. This creates a regular income that you can plan around. 

Important to consider...

If the space is quite beautiful then people will want to use it for events. But this is less reliable.

How long the space is available for and the security of the contract makes it very to plan and makes the financing really challenging. Substantial set up costs need to be divided by the months that you have the space. 

Minimum he would consider is 3 years. The first year is setting up the space and it won’t be as attractive as it will be “there is a tipping point when the space becomes nice and ppl will want to engage with it and then it just becomes easier”. The second year becomes the first year really. 

Q: Human resources?

Paul full time, in his 30s. He didn’t get a salary. He chose to keep the income for the next project. 

Paid staff: £10/hour.

Patsy worked 4-5 days a week. Helped with the cafe and gardening. She was older so it brought a bigger range of people to the space. She was local. £50 per day. It was a loose arrangement.  

A few people worked selling drinks at the bar.

All the wages were from selling drinks. 

Lots of people came to volunteer to help look after the garden and those that had their own little space to look after.

People helped organise events in the space. They were part of the project. He wouldn’t call them volunteers. ‘Programmers’. 

Q: What percentage would you take for events?

No events were charged because they were free. 

There were a few paid events, can’t remember how much. Wanted to encourage events being free. Then they’d make money from selling drinks. 

They did two corporate events. He charged them about £2,000 each time which was great. One a month in the summer would be really helpful. 

They had a license to stay open till midnight. 

Q: Grant funding?

Yes always for capital projects. Lots of small grants between 1-5k. 

Q: Set-up costs - Water and electricity? How did they get it? 

Remove the risk of paying for this infrastructure if you don’t know how long you’ll be there. Get them to cover the risk. Also this is very hard to cost in advance, it depends a lot on the place and how easy it is to connect it up. This could be really slow and is something to factor into the timescale. 

Developers Lend Lease were so unsupportive. 

They had to finance getting the tap installed - £2,000. Get electricity was £6,000. 

Building the cafe cost about £12,000.

In total set-up costs were around £20-25,000.

For us to cost this project and put a proposal that says what we can deliver we need to have a site identified.