The Therapy Garden

As we settle into our new building, there are many people to whom we owe a big thank you for making this possible.

First, our builder John Cousins and our architect Liz Steer whose wonderful work fulfilled our vision of a permanent building. Indeed, it has far exceeded all our expectations and presents us with many new opportunities to build on our current work and develop new projects. Many thanks also to our previous manager Alan Burchett, for all his hard work in raising more than £100,000 to fund the building. This was a terrific achievement.

We recently won the Mayor’s Silver Award for Access, so we hope to convert this to a Gold award next time around. We were also honoured to be awarded the Guildford in Bloom Gold award for Best Community Garden 2011.

I am delighted to announce that actress, local resident and keen gardener, Penelope Keith, has graciously agreed to become our Patron. We look forward to working with Penelope and have no doubt that she will bring a lot to the Centre.

Another exciting development has been the sale and removal of the old modular building. This was sold on eBay for £2,500. Anyone who lives near the Centre may well have seen the building being lifted away in four parts by a crane.

Look out on our website for more details of these events (www.normandytherapygarden.org).

We have also started some holiday day breaks, following receipt of a grant that was awarded to us by Surrey County Council as part of their Aiming High campaign. Young adults from the halow project in Guildford (a charity that provides activities for those with learning disabilities) visited us in August, and had a very enjoyable day with Rob and Janet in the garden. During the Christmas holiday we will be holding a day full of seasonal activities such as wreath-making, painting and decorating flowerpots, making fat balls for birds etc. If you know of any young adult or secondary school aged child who may be interested in coming to this, please ask them to call the Centre for more details. It will take place on Wednesday 21st December between 10.30 and 3.30 pm and will cost £12 per head.

Other recent events include an art exhibition by local artist Peter Jelffs who kindly gave us all his watercolours of seascapes and landscapes. Peter donated the entire proceeds of their sale to the Centre. We are very grateful to him for his outstanding generosity. So far Peter has raised £470 and there may well be more as some of the artwork is still for sale in our foyer. Please feel free to come and have a browse. The watercolours range in price from £10 to £20 depending on size, and would make very special Christmas gifts.

The Centre also hosted a talk on “What Affects the Climate” delivered by Bill Turnill. Many thanks to Bill for a very interesting evening and we look forward to welcoming him back again.

If you are popping in to see our new building, we still have Christmas cards for sale. These were drawn by some of our children at the Centre.

We have been extremely lucky to receive donations from two local schools. Puttenham primary held a mufti day on which the children were allowed to wear their own clothes to school in return for a small donation. Rob Steer, our Senior Horticulturalist, went to receive a cheque on our behalf.

Charterhouse School kindly donated to us one term’s late library fines which amounted to more than £500. We were extremely grateful for this contribution.

It is always touching when people drop in to the Centre to make donations as without these, we would not be able to function. Many thanks to those who have donated, and to all our members for their annual contributions.

Ex-BBC East Africa correspondent, Roger Hearing, will be coming to give us a talk next year, about his time as a war correspondent. He is a fascinating speaker and an expert on Africa and the Middle East. Please look out for dates for this talk which will be advertised nearer the time in the surgery and on our noticeboard, as well as in the Parish magazine.

Two of the biggest events next year will be an official opening of the new building and the annual Open Gardens Day. Don’t forget to look out for details of a quiz evening and jumble sale too. Finally, the Centre will be running a lottery with prizes to be awarded at the opening ceremony of the new building.

The Centre is taking on additional adult and teenage clients so we need more volunteers to help in the garden and office. You don’t need a knowledge of gardening, just an enthusiasm to learn and to help keep an eye on our visitors. Even if you have only a couple of hours to spare each week, please get in touch. You can call on 01483 813846 or email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .


Finally, I would like to thank all of the staff and volunteers for all their hard work in the garden and in the office, without whom we would not be able to run such a successful and thriving charity.