Category: Community

Bench to Bench Project with Our Scene CIC

Earlier this month the Friends of Brandwood End enjoyed working with Our Scene CIC on their latest project Bench to Bench, to promote ‘walking, laughing and sitting chatting in lovely our door settings in Brandwood. This project, which includes our neighbouring Friends at Dawberry Fields Park, is also aimed at recommending accessible walks for people with mobility issues.

The poster below invites the very people this is aimed at to come along and share their thoughts on what is needed to entice them to visit, sit and chat in these areas more often. The first meeting has taken place but Suze Carter is still keen to involve anyone with mobility issues to become involved in the designs. The next get together will be in the Lodge at a date to be arranged so watch this site and our Facebook page for more information.

Cleaner and Greener !

The Cleaner Greener campaign week is a little while off, but in Brandwood End we started today at our scheduled quarterly litter pick. It was great to see so many familiar faces but we did welcome a few new ones today who swelled our numbers to 20 including 4 little people !  There were 23 bags collected, and yet again a lot of the litter was flower paper. This March Litter pick is always our last chance to seek out wind blown litter under shrubbery and tangled in brambles. Once everything starts to grow it is all lost till next winter. Thank you to everyone that came along. The Friends really appreciate your support.

Happy smiling faces! That’s what the outdoors does for your mental health.

Advance notice of an interesting talk.

The Moseley Society History Group present an illustrated talk:
Bomb Alley: the World War Two Blitz and Home Front in
Moseley, Balsall Heath and Kings Heath,

by local historians Ian Binnie, Peter Streets and David Vaux.

Tuesday 21st March 7.30pm
There will be two talks each lasting about an hour:
2.00pm at the Moseley Exchange (149-153 Alcester Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8JP).
This will be a live, illustrated talk. There will also be a display, produced by Matt Felkin, which
includes many unique photographs and documents about the Blitz in Birmingham and the local area.
There is no need to register in advance.
The talk will be repeated on Zoom.
The talk will include recent research done by the four historians but will also be based on the
mass of work done by many groups and individuals. If you have done research on this topic or have
personal knowledge join in the talks, either live or virtually and make a contribution.

To register for the Zoom talk email rkt16@btinternet.com . You will then receive the Zoom link a few
days before.

Last clearance of shrubbery before Spring!

This month is really the last chance we have to remove self set trees and shrubbery overwhelming some graves in areas of the cemetery as soon it will be nesting time and this activity will stop.

Please support this event  on the 18th, that is being led jointly by the committee of the Friends and Bereavement Services Activities Manager, Josie Wall. We will have some tools and some gloves but if you would prefer to bring your own, that would also help. We need shears, loppers, rakes and secateurs.

We will be there from 11am till 2pm so drop in for any length of time during those hours. 

Lots to look forward to !

Winter is a quiet time in Brandwood End but the Friends have been working away in the background on a number of projects.

We are creating a number of ‘Trail sheets’ that will cover Heritage items, trees, interesting graves, fascinating memorials, quiet corners to rest and take in the wildlife and trees plus measured routes to stroll, with distances and surface types to encourage the less able to enjoy them as well.

The sheet below, kindly produced by committee member Lisa Fair, highlights some of the cemetery heritage- both historical and ecological.

They never let us down!

This week we had to make an appeal on Social Media site ‘facebook’ for volunteers to remove some of the many geraniums that the Friends planted in the Civilian Garden of Remembrance. No sooner said than done as two of our supporters stepped up to the plate and the job was done.(In freezing conditions)

We had hoped to try and keep the Geraniums over winter as the garden area is pretty sheltered- but we hadn’t banked on the -10 temperatures just before Christmas. All that was left of the glorious Geraniums was brown mush and not an attractive sight!

Thank you Vanessa and Tricia.