Taken from the Friends of Maghull & District CIC Website.
Army veteran Karl has received incredible support and kindness from Parkhaven Trust to realise his ambition to create an apiary (Bee keeping hives) in the trust grounds. Karl retired from the army some years ago and has overcome many challenges, and after gaining considerable beekeeping experience, now wants to give support to others by creating an apiary that will provide a charitable wellness haven for the psychological, social and financial support of other veterans. It will also have many experiential, educational benefits for the immediate and local community, whilst enhancing pollination in the local environment.
Background: one good deed leads to another.
Dr Frank Sharp (Friends of Maghull & District – FOMD) said, ‘during our group’s latest huge health and wellness transformation of Rowlands Dell, in partnership with the NHS, we successfully obtained a huge health and wellness grant with the support of the London-based NHS Social Impact Team, who contacted us last year following a local enquiry from Karl for apiary space for his worthy cause. We were delighted to try and help, as although we are a young community group providing social and environmental support in our community, our third objective has been to provide a resource for the development of new similarly minded community groups.
We explored, various spaces but when we approached Kim Crowe (Parkhaven Trust Chief Executive) who sought permission from the Trust’s board, we could not have been more impressed with the warmth, receptiveness and kindness that she and her team provided at every stage, including Dave Jones (Parkhaven groundsman for 51 years). It really does seem like the perfect marriage to benefit the veterans, Parkhaven, the community and the environment. FOMD was also able to put Karl in touch with Sefton CVS to obtain support to formalise their group’s charitable status.
Work will start in earnest to clear land around an orchard neighbouring their community allotments to establish the first of several beehives and will hopefully expand further alongside planned biodiversity areas as part of a new development over the next two years.
It was so heartwarming not only to experience the beautiful environment and facilities but to see how care, kindness and respect is enshrined in every aspect of Parkhaven’s philosophy’. Karl and his veteran’s team, affectionately known as Bee- Troop, are ecstatic beyond words to have met Park’haven’.
Learn more about Parkhaven: https://www.parkhaven.org.uk/
The British Beekeeping Association: https://www.bbka.org.uk/
Apiary & Education Video. https://youtu.be/IAtQQAiQwUI
All the Best
FOMD
Together Making Maghull a better place to live.
More information. www.fomd.co.uk
Contact: admin@fomd.co.uk