Garden Party

Lynsey Robinson

This summer the Sensory Trust hosted a garden party as part of the Connect project. As you may have seen from our website we began a project in 2006, focusing on the needs and expectations of people with learning disabilities and older disabled people and their relationship to the environment. The project is being supported by the Lloyds TSB Foundation and will run for three years.

We wanted to have an occasion that would include project partners, people who have been involved in project work so far, and those who we hope will be involved in the future. The day was a real success and despite not having the weather you would expect in July. We had made plenty of wet weather plans due to the way the summer has been going so far!

We wanted to give people a flavour of the type of project work that is happening for the Connect project. The project is at the end of its first year and so far has had a large focus on consultation. We felt it was important to establish how people currently felt about getting out and about and the facilities they require and expect. To do this we developed several new techniques for consultation, these were available for people to try at the party. We received some very positive feedback on these.

We were keen to have an event that allowed people to get together in a relaxed setting and to feel able to give their opinions and that those opinions would be valued.We built in a lot of time to chat over sandwiches and cake. The coffee morning or village fête style of the day immediately made people feel comfortable, and very soon the opinions, ideas and feedback were flowing as fast as the tea.

One of the activities from the day was to plant up some plants that had been donated by the Eden project. We asked our guests to plant two separate plants, one they could take home and the other we asked them to leave with us to return to Eden. Eden had agreed to use them as part of a display outside the visitors centre that all visitors to the project have to walk past as they enter the site. Information at the dsiplay explained a little bit about the project and who had helped us plant the plants. I think you will agree they look rather lovely so a big thank you to those of you who took the time to plant up some plants for us at our garden party!

See also:

• Connect project report

I'd Rather Be Outside | Index | Landscape design for older people