2024 was an exciting year in the Orchard with the building of the Core thanks to funding received from the Town Deal. This new building really expanded what we could provide and Funding received in August from the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, allowed a full programme of workshops and events up until the end of December.
Here is a record of some of these workshops.
Textile Printing from Nature with Jo McIntosh
Thu 8 Aug 2024 11:00 – 13:00
Jo Mcintosh led the group in collecting foliage from the orchard and then taught the group how to print these natural objects onto fabric.
Free workshop – Ticket Tailor
Singing Workshop led by Pip Wright.
Sun 11 Aug 2024 14:00 – 16:30. A large group of people had a lovely afternoon learning and singing some simple, beautiful, harmony songs in the fine acoustic of our CORE building. Free workshop – Ticket Tailor
Cornish Palm Weaving with St Ives Orchard
Wed 14 Aug 2024 / 2nd Sept – 11:00 – 13:00
Trace Chandler taught the group how to make a simple basket out of Cornish Palm (Cordyline) leaves along with the many uses of this tree.
Free workshop – Ticket Tailor
Blackberry Jam Making
20th Aug – drop in workshop learning how to make blackberry jam, find out other uses for the bramble & blackberry bush and make some blackberry art.
Herb Stripper Pinch Pot with Tamsyn Trevorrow
Fri 30 Aug 2024 10:00 – 12:00
Come and make your own herb leaf stripping bowl! Tamsyn, an experienced local potter guided the group in making a herb leaf stripper bowl which she then fired in her kiln.
Booking on Ticket Tailor
Seed Paper Making with Jo McIntosh
Thu 29 Aug 2024 11:00 – 13:00
Join Jo Mcintosh teaching how to make paper with seeds embedded in it.
More details on Ticket Tailor
Foraging with Wild St Ives
Joining local foraging guide Josh Quick for a gentle wander around the orchard exploring the world of wild edible plants.
More details on Ticket Tailor
Botanical Monoprinting with Annabel Wilkes
Thu 19 Sep 14:00 – 16:00
Foraging for natural materials and learning printing skills to create your own colourful botanical monoprints to take home.
More details on Ticket Tailor
Apple Canning – 10th October
Learning to preserve apples in jars to enjoy throughout the year with Trace Chandler.
Nick Waitz – Renewable energy & Biochar
Nick Waitz, a science teacher who applies Permaculture Design to find and implement solutions where people, places and nature all win came along with the Treverbyn Community trust’s multifunctional off-grid community outreach vehicle. He taught about the evolution of plants to produce biomass. Also its clean conversion to heat in smokeless stoves leads – Top lit up draft fire stove – just brilliant!! By using an updraft and small bits of dried wooden chippings you can create a smokeless fire for cooking. He also taught us how you can make disinfectant which is inexpensive to make and more effective than bleach. Hypochlorous Acid (HOCl) which is simply a mixture of water, salt and an electrical charge. And how the van’s power is run by Methanol fuel cells for battery charging.
Ecology with Budding Nature
Learn the basic principles of ecology and how they relate to orchards and habitat restoration.
Kimchi Making with Lucy Davis
Learning how to make a spiced-up sauerkraut, with chilli, ginger and garlic. It’s delicious and a probiotic – the good bacteria help restore balance in the gut by supporting your microbiome and aid digestion and immune health. The increased enzyme content in fermented foods helps your body absorb nutrients, reducing the need for supplements. Making ‘kimkraut’ together like this also allows plenty of time to chat about our guts, the benefits of adding fermenting foods into our diets and making them ourselves, which many people discover is much easier then they thought! The workshop was taken by Lucy Davis – a qualified Nutritional Therapist with the College of Naturopathic Medicine and Herbal Apprentice with The Seeds Sistas. More info on Ticket Tailor
Knitting with Jo Mcintosh
Events
Open day – 1st September
With live music from the Sandy Souls and Catatumbo. Sky High arts provided a lot of fun with the trapeze and circus skills. Fresh juice was pressed from the windfall apples and the bar served local beers and ciders. There was a leaf printing workshop in the CORE, using leaves and flowers picked in the orchard and cream teas were served.
St Ives Repair Cafe – 23rd Aug
Fix it, don’t throw it. Learn to repair together. A place where people come together to repair broken or cherished items, guided by skilled volunteer repairers. Tools and materials are provided for repairing a wide range of items, including clothing, furniture, small electrical appliances, electronics, bicycles, crockery, toys, and more. No charge, all repairs done for free, donations welcomed though.
Treverbyn Mobile Repair Van
Fix it, don’t throw it
Marion & Sue sewing maestros
Apple Day – Sunday 6th October 2 – 7pm – Free entry
With apple picking, pressing, apple pie competition and a treasure hunt. Live music from: The Sandy Acre 7, Funk Soul Other, The Petty Criminals, Tim Burt and some jazz piano in the Core. Pip Wright who led a recent singing workshop in the Core taught a new bespoke Wassail song.
The Tate Gallery provided wonderful crafts activities and a first for the orchard – Cornish Wrestling. Some pros coming along to demonstrate the ancient Celtic martial art of Cornish wrestling, or ‘Wrasslin’.
Repair Cafe 26th Nov
Our second Repair cafe was buzzing with people streaming in with a wide variety of items; bikes, lamps, guitars, jackets, jeans, lawnmowers, hoovers, ceramics and guitars. The ten volunteer repairers who had a variety of skills , gave a new lease of life to many of the items and a lot of useful advice was given out on what parts to buy to repair them. The Core cafe provided everyone with refreshments and it was great to have the Treverbyn Community Trust repair van there to support again.
Anti-waste Pumpkin Party – 2nd Nov
The Anti-waste Pumpkin party was much enjoyed by local residents who brought up their carved pumpkins to decorate the orchard and took away gleaned pumpkins to cook, inspired by all the pumpkin food on offer. The Hokum Boys filled the air with lively blues tunes on stage, while Skyhigh Arts captivated attendees with circus skills, Tree Stewart’s spellbinding contact juggling, and roving magician Tim Burt kept everyone enchanted with his mind-bending magic tricks before taking to the stage himself for a few songs. In addition, Sarah Taylor led creative pumpkin balloon-making workshops, delighting children with mini pumpkin creations.
As dusk settled in, the orchard transformed into a magical scene, with festoon lights illuminating the trees and glowing pumpkins casting an enchanting glow. Guests were treated to a captivating performance and the beautiful voice of Bailey Tomkinson and her partner Jordan on guitar.
The bar was open serving the Orchard’s apple juice, St Ives Cider and St Ives Brewery beer. Last year’s batch of orchard cider had sold out, but volunteers have already pressed this year’s apples, with help from local cider-makers Chris Parker and his assistant Sam which is now busy fermenting.
A team of volunteers prepared an impressive variety of pumpkin-inspired dishes the day before the event. Thanks to a donation from the St Ives Community Fund, the Core building’s kitchen has almost been completed and provided an ideal space for cooking. Volunteers peeled, chopped, roasted and pureed around five large pumpkins to create an array of delicious dishes, including spicy pumpkin bhajis, pumpkin curry, pumpkin hummus, pumpkin pie, and spicy pumpkin cake. Tretho Lounge also cooked up a big pumpkin soup from a Splattenridden donated pumpkin. So there was plenty of food to serve up at the Pumpkin party.
Read more about the event and see all the photos on //www.stivesorchard.co.uk/pumpkin-party-2024/
These workshops and events were funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, allowed a full programme of workshops and events up until the end of December. Cornwall Council has been chosen by Government as a Lead Authority for the fund and is responsible for monitoring the progress of projects funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.
