Case Studies

Greener Kirkcaldy visit to Dundee Botanic Gardens

Exploring the gardens, their purpose and their projects

green and brown acorns

We are better equipped to describe and measure the benefits of our wildlife/biodiversity projects and spread the skills around nature based solutions to other local gardeners.  Garden volunteers have been inspired to come up with new projects and try out new ideas at our community space in Kirkcaldy and visiting the whole site has provided additional practical ideas and discussions on how the larger Botanic gardens manages our more extreme climate (storms, drought) to help us solve some of our own problems.

Learning Outcomes

  • Gain ideas and learn from the projects already running around rewilding, biodiversity and nature based solutions. What can we take away to do in Kirkcaldy?
  • Improve our public engagement to get more people involved in rewilding type activities, how can we get people to accept and embrace untidiness, wildness and get tips on what’s worked and not worked in Dundee.
  • Team building and new projects for our volunteers.

Community Organisation:
Greener Kirkcaldy

Exchange Host Partners:
Dundee Botanic Gardens

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Scottish Communities Climate Action Network

"We had an inspirational and enjoyable trip to hear all about what goes on at Dundee Botanic Garden. Much of what was shared gave everyone ideas that could be taken back to our community space, including how the garden is adapting to changes in climate and more regular storms."

Case Studies

Get Growing Scotland Digital Exchange

SCA network to network exchange

A birds eye view of a community garden, with raised beds and polytunnels for food growing,

There are live and urgent opportunities for food security and our future. Community growing groups prefer and choose to secure use and share, not own land. The learning exchange gave an opportunity to discuss these potential policy conflicts and look at the ways planning systems can provide both blockages and pathways for working together.  Increased support for the roll out of the National Planning Framework 4, particularly in relation to Community Owned Land Banks.

Learning Outcomes

  • Capturing and sharing knowledge and experiences, from communities, partners and landowners across Scotland.
  • Help@ service is unique and valuable, saving time, money and aggravation, and helps navigate policy.
  • It also gives insights on other topics and structural, system challenges and opportunities.
  • SCA networks have insights to share, partnerships to develop to make the most of combined knowledge.

Community Organisation:
SCA network members

Exchange Host Partners:
Get Growing Scotland

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Get Growing Scotland

"Places and people will not be left behind if there is more awareness, and opportunities to provide earlier and long-term support. Community led food growing, and nature and climate activities, are relatively low-cost and risk, and often kickstart other community led developments. The movement continues to grow."

Case Studies

G3 Growers and Glasgow Community Food Network exchange

G3 Growers mission to cultivate a community of gardeners who come together to share and learn from each other.

A group of adults and children chatting inside a polytunnel.

Glasgow Community Food Network brings together practitioners and organisations in the private, public and 3rd sector to develop a flourishing food system in Glasgow. The exchange allowed the exploration of their approach for the benefit of local food growing networks and climate.

Learning Outcomes

  • Sharing food growing techniques
  • Gardening foundations targeted for new members around seasonality and soil
  • How to make the most of produce, fermentation, pickling and cooking with food waste.

Community Organisation:
G3 Growers

Exchange Host Partners:
Glasgow Community Food Network

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Scottish Communities Climate Action Network

"The exchange gave us a chance to learn about food growing techniques with local community gardens and an opportunity to learn from others to discover new methods of growing food. It was great to work together with people from the community and share ideas about how to grow and cook nutritious, healthy food."

Case Studies

Sustainable Kirriemuir visit to Lauriston Farm

Food growing, biodiversity, community – how does this work in practice at Lauriston farm?

A small group of people standing on a grassy hill with their backs to the camera and a view of the sea in the distance.

Spent time learning how both organisations are increasing access to fresh affordable food through the Market Garden and other enterprises on the farm(s) and how they aim to support these projects financially moving forward.

Learning Outcomes

  • Look at different governance models such as cooperatives, CIC etc
  • Food Growing, Biodiversity, Community – how does this work in practice at Lauriston?  Land-based enterprises and Community, how does this work in practice? Mixing income generation with volunteering.Gather Market Garden (Lauriston) – A Community Supported Agriculture Scheme –  a quick intro into the structure, inputs, outputs and equitable access scheme
  • Funding & long-term sustainability
  • Mushroom Farming – an introduction!
  • Infrastructure, inputs, outputs, costs, benefits.

Community Organisation:
Sustainable Kirriemuir

Exchange Host Partners:
Lauriston farm & Rhyze Mushroom Co-op

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Scottish Community Climate Action Network

“We wanted to get inspiration, meet other people, visit their sites and hear what works and what doesn't. We wanted to learn from others in order to explore different working models for setting up our community farm and we did!”

Case Studies

SEAChange visit to Culduthel Community Woods

How to navigate current challenges collectively for the benefit of local woodlands.

four people with hi vis jackets on sitting on a wall in front a sign Culduthel Community Woods

The purpose of the exchange was to give insight on how to navigate funding, planning and council demands whilst balancing the optimum benefits for the community.

Learning Outcomes

  • Ideas on how to develop and manage our forest
  • Support biodiversity and regeneration
  • Gain informative and helpful ideas to balance community access, pathways and forest health

Community Organisation:
SEAChange

Exchange Host Partners:
Culduthel Community Woods

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Community Woodland Association

“This exchange was wonderfully prepared and left all in attendance inspired and energised as to the joy, community engagement and, critically, the engagement with nature that a community forest can off”

Case Studies

Friends of Glenan Wood

A collective Community Woodland Association exchange visit.

A carved wooden bench

Dunain Community Woodland take pride in their custodianship of the hillside with both their practical work but also with making the historical legacy visible and engaging to their guests.

 

Learning Outcomes

  • How cultural/archaeological elements have been celebrated and preserved
  • Volunteering group constitution and successes
  • Dialogue with landowner and navigation of liabilities.

Community Organisation:
Friends of Glenan Wood

Exchange Host Partners:
Dunian Community Woodland

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Community Woodland Association

“Whilst there was some (limited) interpretation signage, what was most striking was the animate nature and depth of oral history that was at play here by the organisation."

Case Studies

Aberdeen social enterprise cafés

Lar are embarking on a new venture in three of its developments, with plans to open café in each location.

three people, smiling, standing outside a shop called the Bread Maker

These cafés will be based on a social enterprise business model and the visit to Aberdeen was very helpful in terms of how to get such an operation off the ground.

Learning Outcomes

  • To learn from the experience of the host on how to design, develop and maintain a successful cafe operation using a social enterprise model.
  • To learn from the host on how to target their customers.
  • To learn from the host about the impact and the benefits they bring to their community by providing such a service, and seek their views on what they would change (if anything) when setting up the business.

Community Organisation:
Lar Housing Trust

Exchange Host Partners:
The Bread Maker Café

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Social Enterprise Scotland

“We hope to replicate many of the things the Breadmaker Café has in place. As a social enterprise model, the Breadmaker Café is the gold standard. We were able to gain an understanding of every aspect of setting up and running a catering operation which, like many struggled post-Covid.”

Case Studies

Zero waste for people and planet

Looking at how to increase social enterprise impact not for profit model through zero waste for people and planet- refill not landfill!

a close up of bottles of seeds, oats, flour, rice and other unidentifiabl food items

Learning Outcomes

  • Increasing customer footfall
  • Deciding whether setting up supply arrangements with local businesses should be a key focus
  • Where to target time and investment

Community Organisation:
Kintyre Weigh

Exchange Host Partners:
Handam Refill Shop

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
Inspiralba

“Our average spend per customer is the same as Handam, but their footfall is greater. We realised that working on setting up supply arrangements with local businesses will not be a s worth our time as just getting more regular customers.”

People watching a fashion show with models lined up on a flight of stairs.
A large group of people sitting outside a community building
four people with hi vis jackets on sitting on a wall in front a sign Culduthel Community Woods
A birds eye view of a community garden, with raised beds and polytunnels for food growing,

Case Studies

Campy Growers at Bamff

Bamff philosophy is “We face a crisis unprecedented in the history of human civilisation, with climate change and biodiversity loss accelerating around the globe”.

Seven people, listening to a person, standing in long grass in a woodland area

“The biodiversity crisis in the UK is happening at one of the fastest rates in the world. At Bamff, we are doing all we can to create wildlife habitat – to restore nature’s abundance and to sequester carbon.”  Since Campy Growers started the aim is to do with producing local and ethically grown food, lock up carbon and create a community around the project.

Learning Outcomes

  • Increase knowledge about native plants and wildlife in an ecosystem context and replicating it at Campy when possible
  • Make this knowledge accessible to other volunteers, staff and visitors but setting up signs and informative documents on site (wildlife habitat, native plants, impact of invasive plants …)
  • Educate visitors by organising workshops (with the support of a naturalist) on site to identify what our soil and site are made off and how to improve them

Community Organisation:
Campy Growers

Exchange Host Partners:
Bamff Wild Beavers group

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
GetGrowing Scotland

“Our next task is to get a baseline of what’s already there. It could be a case of recording plants, insects in a log with volunteers. We also plan to keep a photo library. Delivering workshops will be key to spreading the word about biodiversity and how you can support it, through bog gardens, pond and wild flower meadows.”

Case Studies

Thurso Community Pantry

This learning exchange allowed both organisations to gain more knowledge about Community Pantries, sharing food, and growing food in rural communities.

Two peopel standing outside a building that has wood on the walls, with two doors and red roof

The benefit to Thurso will be a successful Community Pantry which is a development of existing Sharing Shed, with additional support to the community eg advice. This will also allow staff from both organisations to meet and make links – although this is a neighbouring organisation it is some distance away.

Learning Outcomes

  • To learn about the operational running and management of a Community Pantry
  • To learn what additional activities around the Pantry have been of most benefit to the community, eg cooking lessons, advice sessions etc
  • To share our knowledge of community growing with the KoS project

Community Organisation:
Thurso Community Development Trust

Exchange Host Partners:
Kyle of Sutherland Development Trust

SCA Endorsing Network Member:
DTAS

“On the journey home we spent most it planning our project, incorporating some of what we had seen in Ardgay, but also what we would adapt to suit our area and circumstances.”