In the community

Staff at Wilton Park frequently share expertise and best practice within the local community, supporting organisations in the locale such as the Steyning 1010 Climate Action Campaign. 

Wiston House operate a biomass boiler and, amongst other things, undertakes food composting and in-house water bottling while also harvesting a wide selection of estate grown organic produce. House Manager, Amanda Bates says:

“We are delighted to support the local 10:10 group and have a close relationship with Geoff Barnard who leads the local campaign. This has resulted in our Open Evening for local businesses, who are welcome to come along to see what we do and to see our greening initiatives at first hand.”

A tour of the vegetable gardens, rocket composter and biomass boiler, plus in-house recycling, was on offer on Tuesday 24th August.

Roger Williamson, Programme Director (Sustainable Development) gave a succinct introductory talk to a range of neighbourhood business people at the Open Evening held at Wiston House. They had all turned out for the 'Environment Matters' tour in conjunction with Steyning 10:10.

You can read a full transcript here [PDF 30KB]

Roger's subject areas include climate change and development, food security, agricultural policy and land use, natural disasters and other emergencies. In June he hosted a very lively event on renewable energy.   He began by mentioning what we are doing:

“…an honest assessment would be like a school report ‘trying hard but could do better’. So, we are not trying to say we have solved all the issues but we are trying to improve and that is what it is all about - within our capabilities, within the need to run a professional business and within the parameters of cost.”

Specifics of the presentation include Environment and climate change, forests, transport, heating, food, water, personal behaviour and of course sensible things to do at home. Roger concluded by adding that:

"Greening government is an important aspiration – look out the window and see our contribution. It is important for human survival, it’s government policy and it’s a good personal goal. "

And during this rainy Autumn, I think we can all say Aye to that!

Topical debate

We also take topical debate beyond our day to day conference business into the schools and communities of the local area.   A recent UK Election event attracted a wide crowd to the local Grammar School, where a varied audience debated  'Q+A style' last May.

We are now exploring venue and partner opportunities for an Autumn/Winter 2010 programme of community events.

Please contact Christina Cornwell-West christina.cornwell-west@wiltonpark.org

National Garden Scheme open day – Sunday 11 July

A team of Wiston House volunteer stewards helped Robert, Head Gardener, to create a successful afternoon for over a thousand guests.

Harry Goring from the Estate wrote a letter of thanks to us for 'bringing about such a happy day for so many people'.

Despite piles of washing up and completely running out of cakes, we do aim to plan more of these kind of fundraisers!

A good number of teas were consumed, with 865 Adult ticket sales comprising some £4,325 towards charitable causes.