It’s been a long time coming, but Greening Wymondham’s drive to transform Rothbury Park is finally bearing fruit, alongside our plans to rejuvenate Rothbury Community Hall. Wymondham Town Council have taken over the project and are even now scheduling the process, with work on the playground to begin first.

Forty people turned up at the hall in April to look over plans, and a dozen or more volunteered their support to help Greening Wymondham with both planting and rejuvenating the building.

Trustee Paul Barrett is still keen to hear your ideas about the hall – he’s had everything from a WiFi café and cinema evenings to keep-fit days and games nights. You can still let him know what you think and if you can volunteer by dropping a note through the hall postbox.

Greening Wymondham successfully brought together two other Wymondham groups in a collaboration that meant each achieved a particular goal. The Fifth Wymondham Brownie Pack were able to earn their Community Badge by helping us plant a hedge at Friarscroft Wood. At the same time, Ollie and Morgan - two Silver Duke of Edinburgh students - added to their already frequent volunteering by learning about hedging and devising instructions for the Brownies. Win-win-win! We hope to see them all again on other projects – meanwhile, you can admire their work as you walk down the path to Windmill Surgery.

Towards the end of May, Greening Wymondham plans to test the Tiffey for E.coli weekly – it’s currently every fortnight – in the most-used spots in Becketswell Park. The few high counts earlier this year have dwindled, but we’ll be giving advice if the numbers soar again. We’re hoping to flag the weekly counts with signs, and it’ll be on social media and our website.

We know it’s early days, but we invite you to put Saturday 7 June in your diaries! We’re celebrating Great Big Green Week with a picnic at Browick Road Community Orchard. See next month’s magazine for more details. Incidentally, the orchard is celebrating a cheque for £1500 from the Norwich Asda community champion Lee Mills for an 'Outdoor Community Spaces Grant'. It will go towards a rainwater harvesting system and storage construction. They are also celebrating a new woven hazel fence they began under the expert eye of Wymondham Nature Group’s co-chair, John Beckett.

We welcome you to join us on any of our projects: please feel free to visit our website or email us at greening.wymondham@gmail.com with your ideas, questions, and comments. We’d love to hear from you!