Seed Bed 2023-24

Seed Bed funded part of the Natural History Consortium’s Festival of Nature programme for 2023 – a dreamy, immersive riverside walk celebrating the nature of the River Frome in mid-June, and creating a collective notebook.

During the session, the group – led by Davina Quinilivan, Dee Moxon and Tadorna Tours – created paintings, sketches and words to later be compiled into a beautiful Collective Field Notebook.

As well as a vivid record of the walk and the environment of the Frome Valley, the Collective Field Notebook is intended as a great resource to help people elsewhere to reflect on the nature around them. It’s available to view and download here.

‘Educational, accessible, calming, informative and inspiring.’

participant

‘I feel inspired to create again.’

participant

Participants in Messages of Hope – A Writing Workshop on Healing the Natural World and Enabling Biodiversity (part of the South Hams Literary Festival programme) were encouraged to discuss their hopes for the natural world and humans through the creative arts, The discussion explored how we may live in harmony with nature, now, and in the future.

‘Our activity delivered an excellent, high-quality experience of literature which highlighted…the climate and environmental crisis.’

South Hams Literary Festival

Dementia Friendly Hampshire, in partnership with Creative Connections Poetry & Reminiscence, produced several sessions inspired by nature poems. Participants took short walks in nature and share memories and experiences before creating poems, which will now be displayed in local libraries and form part of an ‘Outside – the box’ resource made available to groups and care homes.

‘Dementia Friendly Hampshire aims to support people living with dementia to live a good life, with opportunities to participate in and contribute to their communities and be valued for who they are. We are grateful for this funding to support the ‘Outside the box’ project, run in partnership with Creative Connections Poetry and Reminiscence, which aims to help more local people with dementia and their carers to connect and engage with nature and explore their own creative expression through poetry.’

Dementia Friendly Hampshire

The Women’s Community Forum promotes community cohesion and opening up new dialogues between women and girls of different backgrounds and ages. In summer 2024, supported by Seed Bed and other partners, they will hold Our Wonderful World, an event at North Petherton, Sedgemoor comprising 3 creative writing workshops, each focused on a different environmental theme.

Two of the topics are celebratory and examine the wonders of our planet – Capturing Trees and Nature’s Whisperings. One of the topics will raise awareness of the environmental challenges we face locally and globally with an emphasis on how these impact of women in the global south.

Come back later in 2024 for news and photos from this activity supported by Seed Bed.


For October 2024’s Looe Festival of Words, the festival has partnered with Looe Marine Conservation Group to organise a special family activity, designed to explore and engage creatively with the shoreline.

‘With Seed Bed funding, Looe Festival of Words will partner with Looe Marine Conservation Group to offer Poetry on the Rocks, a family rockpool ramble and poetic dive into our marine environment. We will create poems of (and for) the seashore, celebrating Looe’s extensive rocky shore habitats, tidal river estuary and island nature reserve, all of  which support an exceptional variety of marine and bird life. And with coastal erosion and flooding very much a part of day-to-day life here, we will also engage creatively in exploring a vision for the future of our sea-edge places.’

Looe Festival of Words

Come back later in 2024 for news and photos from this activity supported by Seed Bed.