Hi everyone. I'm writing from England following the discovery of your fantastic list - we don't seem to have anything nearly as active in the UK so finding a bustling list was a huge thrill!
I 'm doing some research with a community organisation and Sheffield University on the long-term involvement of volunteers and participants in community-led open space projects (including community gardens). Over here the CG movement is not nearly as developed, but there are pockets of growing activity. When I got interested in this trend I found that loads of really valuable projects were suffering because they were unable to keep participants active after the initial construction phase. I've been lucky enough to get funding for a three year PhD project, to explore changing patterns of involvement, and their relationship with patterns ofcommunity attachment. The work is based on a case study area (Heeley in Sheffield), but I'm really keen to get any thoughts or experiences on the subject from a wider area (and I couldn't get much wider than this list by the looks of it!). It might be worth mentioning that one of the major differences between the cases in England and elsewhere seems to be that our sites rarely have a productive element to them. Growing crops is largely reserved for allotment sites, while community gardens concentrate on 'communal activities' or simply environmental improvement. It would be interesting to explore how this difference creates different challenges for retaining involvement. I'm a firm believer in the benefits that community spaces can provide, but it seems to me that retaining community involvement in the longer term is a process that needs to be better understood to allow them to achieve their full potential. I just thought I'd throw this in here, and if anyone has ANYTHING they'd like to share on, or around, the subject I'd be extremely interested to hear it. Best wishes to everyone, Andrew Hinchley University of Sheffield/Heeley Development Trust Sheffield, UK (for a description of Heeley and its flagship community park project, which acted as a catalyst for many of the smaller projects locally which I will be studying, check this out....http://www.map21ltd.com/DTA/heeley/index.htm) ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
