FREE Courses for Community Composters - Sheffield
2-day Introduction Course in Green Infrastructure – 17th & 18th February 2011 Intensive training and planning for keen practitioners - 4th March 2011
CCN have teamed up with a Green Estates, Sheffield to develop a new FREE training course for community composters in using their compost in a range of innovative new ways (see the attached flyer or visit our website for more info). Places are limited and on a first come first serve basis, so please book ASAP if you are interested in attending. Bursaries will be available to help with travel and accommodation costs (details to follow). The course may be repeated in the future but it won't be free! Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

You can download a flyer with all the relevant information here and the booking form here.

Many CCN members are already using  their compost for food growing purposes, but what about non-food uses for compost? There are so many environmental benefits: Increasing local biodiversity, climate change amelioration/adaptation, flood and pollution alleviation are some of the benefits that  green roofs, living walls, landscaping for wildlife, sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) and pocket parks and gardens can bring. Softening the harshess of the built environment with green growing elements that absorb CO2, soak up rainfall and trap particulates is just plain good for humans too – we evolved in a natural environment  and thrive better when we retain  contact with the natural world. This is what we term Green Infrastructure.

The recent changes in legislation have effectively set our compost free – the old import/export ban has been lifted and exempt compost can be used for beneficial purposes under free spreading exemptions, even if it’s not PAS100 accredited. We want to enable you to look at your locality and find places and situations that would benefit from a purposeful and skilled application of compost at different scales, with different plantings and with different outcomes.

To do this CCN have teamed up with Green Estate in Sheffield, long time members of CCN who have developed their composting activities for the purposes of using it in their own Green Infrastructure work – we thought there was no better people to lead on this than Green Estate. They will share with you their own developmental journey from grant dependency to being financially sustainable and unique leaders in the field of landscape contracting, green infrastructure  management and social change.

Days 1 and 2 will be introductory sessions to the range of opportunities in the market and the range of approaches that Green Estate have taken. There will be practical sessions on scaling up your composting activities, diversifying into landscape contracts, and expanding the social dimensions of compost uses. Day 2 will start with a practical workshop on Green Roofs and Living Walls, and also include a marketing workshop, ideas factory with mini case studies and will end with session on goal setting and next steps for those who want to take it further.  It is a requirement of the training that participants complete an action plan and report on their outputs but we don’t want this to be an onerous requirement.

The third day is for those participants who want to take it further – CCN’s ambition is to enable the development of a group of CCN Green Infrastructure practitioners who are:

•  keen to develop Green Infrastructure as part of their projects
• want to work as part of a mutually supportive group of CCN members and share their learning
•  want more intensive practical training in some aspects of GI.
• The content of this will be mostly demand-led by the needs of the participants.

These courses are free thanks to funding from the Third Sector Capacity Building Programme - a REalliance /WRAP partnership.