Plan My Project - Case Studies

Rother Green Gym

This BTCV and Bexhill & Rother Primary Care Trust project has established an innovative Green Gym programme, promoting health through conservation volunteering, in rural Rother, East Sussex. The Green Gym sessions are 3 hour slots of practical environmental activity such as planting trees and bulbs, creation and maintenance of footpaths, and felling small trees to maintain woodland and grassland habitats.

The project aims to improve individuals physical and mental health so that they can play a greater role in their community and local economy - through learning new practical environmental skills and transferable social skills.

It enables local people to conserve and improve open spaces for biodiversity and recreational use and enjoyment by local people and tourists

Very importantly and uniquely, it also builds-in sustainability by training and supporting local people to lead and manage the 2 Green Gym self-supporting community groups created by the project.

The need for this project is well documented and draws on national, regional and local statistics and research by BTCV and others including Rye and Battle Health Checks. Local demographic details on deprivation and health were presented in the proposal along with more generic information on volunteering and health issues.

In 2002/2003, BTCV received a grant from the Primary Care Trust to undertake developmental work for a Green Gym in Rother. In order to establish the level of local interest, BTCV ran taster days at the Ninfield Environmental Studies Centre and at Rye Bay Nature Reserve. These were sessions of practical environmental activity, which gave participants a hands-on experience of the Green Gym. The 2 sessions were attended by 30 health and community representatives, who expressed their support for the development of Green Gym.

BTCV is a national charity with regional structure and the project has been able to draw upon that expertise and experience including its offices and staff. Strong leadership and back-up resulted in considerable support from other organisations.

BTCV employed a Project Officer for 3 years to establish Green Gym community groups at Rye Bay and at Battle in East Sussex. The project is ongoing and the project officer will stay until the end of the 3 year contract. The Project Officer and 3 local unemployed people recruited onto BTCVs volunteer officer programme have established a programme of weekly Green Gym sessions in both the Battle and Rye Bay areas. There were no problems in recruiting the volunteer and there has been a high retention rate.

BTCV presented an impressive business plan at the start of the project. This included a risk analysis which identified the main risks as failure to attract participants and volunteers. The contingencies put in place for this included and extensive marketing campaign and the use of partners networks to promote the project.

One area where problems were not foreseen was with the very limited public services available in the rural area compared with urban areas. In the event, this was solved by purchasing and converting a minibus instead of the planned van.

The project has met, or will meet, all of its objectives and targets. The green gym groups have been set up in Rye Bay and in Battle. The number of people participating has been exceeded (target 150) and the numbers of volunteers trained has also been exceeded. A large number of sessions have been supervised by participants and volunteers and self-sustainability of both groups will be achieved by the end of the project in 2006.

The impact of the project on individuals has been significant with a large number of people with mental health problems showing improvement in their quality of life.

There has also been a large impact on the community because the community groups established will run the project after funding ends. This is a considerable achievement and represents a significant increase in local capacity.

In addition, the environment has been improved and enhanced for the benefit of the whole community.

To see the full evaluation report for this project click here.

To email the project manager click here.

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