ShefFood Meeting Minutes Cover Image

Growing & Composting – Meeting Minutes – Jan 2025

January 20th Meeting Minutes

Facilitators: Maddy Starzak (Food Works), Alice Farmery (Regather)

In attendance: John Le Corney (Social Farms and Gardens), Bethan Robinson, Luke Neve, Sarah Wild (HCF), Emily Pascoe, Wiktoria Szkolnicka, Brian George (Percy Street CIC), Jade Clarke, Connor & baby Mai, Ben Arnold (SCC), Gareth Roberts (Regather), Sophie Macfayden, Meryn, Sophie Aoun (Food Cycle), Guy Woodcock (Compost Connection), Debs (Opus). Apologies: Rowan Longhurst 

Message from Maddy and Alice

We just wanted to start by saying a huge thank you to everyone for coming to the meeting and contributing your ideas and opinions to the discussion. We were overwhelmed by the turn out! All the positive interactions and productive conversations we then went on to have, reinforced the need and demand for such a group to exist. We left feeling inspired to develop the Working Group into a positive asset to growers and composters within the city, and will continue working collaboratively to provide space for mutual learning, advocacy, and cooperation. 

Meeting Notes

We have attempted to capture everything that was spoken about and written down on the poster paper- so please enjoy this big long list of all of the different topics covered!

What are the most pressing challenges facing food-growing and composting initiatives in Sheffield, and how can this working group support solutions or collaborations to address them?

  • Growing focused:
    • Access to land – finding spaces for growing.
    • Waiting lists for allotments.
    • Helping people in their growing journeys – mentors?
    • Skill/education.
  • Composting focused:
    • Compost regulation.
    • Collaboration rather than competition: council officers. Working collaboratively
    • Knowledge of legal requirements for commercial composting
    • Lack of infrastructure for composting
    • Lack of engineering skills, expensive tech.

What key topics or themes would you like the ShefFood Growing and Composting Working Group to prioritise in 2025 to create the most impact?

  • Business Models & Start-ups
    • Education around different business models e.g. subscription, percentage back to good projects, B-corp, Coop (buying group) tec. 
    • Competition/ repetition
    • Winning people over (council officers & politicians)
    • Selling the benefits
    • The market, understanding local supply and demand
    • Pricing and affordability
  • Composting
    • Education around different techniques e.g. Ridan, teas, vermi, bokashi, aerobic, an-aerobic etc. 
    • Concept of Nutrient Sovereignty
    • Community input
    • Discuss municipal strategy 
  • Edible trees network strategy
    • Network and strategy
    • Map
    • Schools
    • Economy
    • Orchards
  • Access to Land
    • Land for growing
    • SCC land asset transfers 
    • Right to Grow 
  • Cost of Living Crisis- moving away from supermarket surplus
  • Seeds – seed sharing and saving

What collective actions or projects could this group undertake in 2025 to strengthen the food-growing and composting community in Sheffield and promote sustainable practices?

  • Keep turning up to meetings! Representation. 
  • Linking with land management providers, AMEY etc. 
  • Connecting with council and policy-makers. Influencing local policy, procurement and contracting
    • Policy info sharing e.g. on how devolution bill or community right to buy legislation might affect access to land.
    • Link in with goals for a greener more resilient city
  • Sheff compost experiment? Go through the compost report together.
  • Big fun composting event demo somewhere in town- compost lasagna?
  • Get local businesses involved.
    • Corporate volunteering: Take advantage of corporate social responsibility objectives.
    • Work experience opportunities. 
  • Organise site visits and workshops
    • Open gardens- composting education
    • Well facilitated, well advertised workshops
    • Weekly training sessions on different topics 
    • Free
    • City centre hubs eg libraries
    • Seasonally relevant
    • Range of times
  • Ways to link G&C more directly to wider climate action objectives and campaign groups already active nationwide/ within Sheffield. 
  • Reach out to Sheff College and other education providers:
    • Improve training opportunities.
    • Horticulture is currently offered to young people with learning difficulties or behavioral problems rather than mainstream. Seen as low-skilled/low-wage.
    • Destigmatise: Make composting appealing (“Make composting sexy!”).
    • Link between training → apprenticeship → work.
    • Food growing as a viable livelihood.

How can this space best support the diverse needs of growers and composters in Sheffield, including education, resources, networking, and advocacy?

  • Offer opportunities for networking and peer support for growers and volunteers.
  • Create hub for volunteering in the sector
    • Project directory, for collaboration, advice and access. 
    • Citizen Network: Neighbourhood mapping.
  • What can we do, ‘can do attitude’. Focus: Try to do a few things well rather than spreading too thin.
  • Sessions with different leaders/facilitators:
    • Skill sharing.
    • Evening classes.
    • Something practical- a growing project together
    • Group Volunteering
    • Sessions at times when things are relevant.
  • Stronger links with allotment groups
    • Expand the list of community allotments.
  • Option to join virtually
  • Marketing the group more widely
    • Connecting: Reaching out to different communities.
    • Email Surveys to interest broader list of people
  • Investigate ways to invite participation from industry/ private sector which could sustain the group financially. 
  • Compensation for contribution: Funding for members.

Outputs and Actions

Meeting timetable / Workshop timetable

Please see below for a draft meeting/ workshop schedule for 2025.

MonthMeetingsWorkshops/ skill shareVisits/ other 
FebCommunity Fruit Tree Pruning workshop (see events section below for details). 
MarchSpring WG meeting(Compost focus)Date: 17th March, Time: 5-7pmLocation: Regather CooperativeSheffield Outdoor Learning Conference (see events section below for details).
April Visit/ volunteer session at Norton?
MayBusiness/ CIC workshop – advice and networking for start-ups 
JuneSummer WG meeting (Right To Grow focus)
JulyVisit to x 
AugustWorkshop – seed saving?  
SeptemberAutumn WG meeting
OctoberVisit to x
November Workshop 
DecemberWinter WG meeting

Call out for skill sharers, workshop leaders and visit hosts

If you are interested in sharing any specific skill with the group in 2025, or are able to host a visit or workshop, please get in touch via email! Or if there are any actions from the meeting notes that you would like to head up and organise, please let us know!

WhatsApp Community

Many people in the meeting expressed a desire for a Growing and Composting WhatsApp community. We have some figuring out to do on the GDPR front before this goes ahead- in the meantime please let us know if there’s someone you’d like to be put in contact with and we can make it happen!

Upcoming events

If you have any relevant upcoming events to share at the next meeting, please let us know and we will do our best to advertise this within the network. 

Date/ Time Event details Link
8/02/25
10:00 – 12:00
Fruit Tree Pruning Workshop

Join Sheffield City Councils Community Forestry team, Regather and Sheffield Fruit Trees to work on the restoration of the overgrown orchard at High Hazels Park. Help us clear and prune apple and pear trees to get this beautiful orchard back into a productive and accessible state.After the work session we will have a picnic lunch (with Sheffield apple juice!) and discuss plans for an exciting city wide orchard volunteering group that are in development.
No experience necessary but practiced pruners very welcome!
Please bring suitable footwear and clothing, gloves and tools will be provided. This event is intended for adult participants, but supervised children ages of 7+ are welcome
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/high-hazels-orchard-restoration-session-tickets-1223309554809?aff=oddtdtcreator
10/02/25
18:00 – 19:30
Novel x Bloom Sheffield Book Club
Novel is hosting a collaboration book club with Bloom Sheffield. We’ll be discussing Losing Eden by Lucy Jones! Bloom offers safe and welcoming places to reconnect with nature, meet like-minded people, and grow. This event is part of their winter wellbeing offering. 
“Delicately observed and rigorously researched, Losing Eden is an enthralling journey through this new research, exploring how and why connecting with the living world can so drastically affect our health. Travelling from forest schools in East London to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault via primeval woodlands, Californian laboratories and ecotherapists’ couches, Jones takes us to the cutting edge of human biology, neuroscience and psychology, and discovers new ways of understanding our increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the earth.”
Tickets here
13/02/25
14:00 – 16:00
Sheffield Community Land Trust (SCLT) to invite you to a workshop focusing on community ownership in Sheffield at Union Street Cafe. 
Alongside group discussions to share and build collective knowledge, we will be joined by Claude Hendrickson, who will provide insights from his 30+ years working the self-build/ community led housing sector since founding Frontline Community Self-Build in 1989. 
We’re a small and predominantly voluntary organisation, but hope that this introductory workshop will lead to further workshops and events around community ownership in Sheffield. As part of this we hope to get to know more about your organisation’s work, and to see whether we might be able to work in partnership to help to facilitate community-ownership projects going forward.
Email [email protected] for more details 
12/03/25
9:00 – 15:00
Sheffield Outdoor Learning Schools Conference
Aimed at Sheffield schools, this conference for teachers, educators, curriculum leads and outdoor visits co-ordinators, is an opportunity to showcase the many opportunities and benefits available to the community of Sheffield schools. With a range of workshops and activities covering EYFS to GCSE field work. Sharing best practice and easy ideas to connect young people with the natural world for the benefits of wellbeing, growing outdoor learning and nature recovery.
https://peakdistrict.cinolla.com/ranger/course/sheffield-outdoor-learning-schools-conference