A DOSE OF PEACE

 

To be printed in the National League South game v Maidstone United Saturday 25th October 2025

With so much gloom in the world I thought I’d tell you a tale about our little charity Moulsecoomb Forest Garden which just held its Annual General Meeting in the Bevy – Brighton’s only community owned pub.

‘If I didn’t come here, I would be sitting outside doing nothing. I don’t get out much, coming to the garden helps me get new friends.’

‘I get bored at home. Its easier working with other people and getting to meet people. People can get jobs like gardening, cooking and woodwork.’

Now Annual General Meetings are often dull affairs, so we like to jazz ours up. This year we decided to combine it with the Bevy’s monthly disability disco. This is a disco run by and for people with disabilities with support from Bevy staff and free for everyone to join in. Afterwards the our newest member of staff at the garden said it was something else to see people with disabilities, builders, small children, seniors, all getting on in the same place. Which is what a proper pub should be.

It was also the launch of artwork by people with disabilities being displayed in the pub. First up was one of our gardens long term volunteers. Aida has very complex needs and not very verbal – but boy can she can paint. Her stunning art is now up for a while for everyone who comes into the pub to enjoy.

The disco and the art display comes from the same ethos as our charity – showcasing what people can do rather than what they can’t.

We have two workdays a week at our garden and are at the local schools the other days. We also work with children in care and the head of the care home spoke at the meeting about how so many of their pupils are lost and feel they don’t belong anywhere; that’s until they started coming along to our place. Here they are flourishing – one has just gone to college to do horticulture, one has become a dab hand in woodland skills, others in the room were shocked when they heard about one lad who is so polite and helpful at the garden but very different at school. "I like it because it's calm, it helps me forget some things that are going on. If I didn't come here I probably would have been excluded from school. There are nice views. I do lots of things here that make me feel good. I like doing the work in the garden, and I also help sometimes with the cooking. The people are all nice and the food is amazing"

We can deliver certificates that build up pupils portfolios, many of them having never received anything in their whole time at school.

We run free holiday schemes for the local primary school – where 68% receive free school dinners and help look after their stunning school grounds and chickens. The school recently held its annual Harvest Festival – a celebration of the work the children have done over the previous year, cooking the vegetables they have grown, turning apples into juice from their orchard and giving it all out for free at the end of the day.

The senior leadership team at the academy where we work visited our annual open day. The head messaged ‘A huge thank you for inviting us. We left completely overwhelmed! It was great to see some of our most challenging students so engaged and very calm.’

The Councils Child and Adolescent Mental health services use our garden regularly “Our visits have been incredibly beneficial for the families and children with learning disabilities that we support. It has truly become a special place for our families to grow, relax, and build confidence together.”

We held another day with the Sunflower Group for families with children with additional needs. One participant said “While the world burns, you’ve created a magical oasis. I feel like I’ve had a dose of peace.”

We all need a dose of peace and then some.

I love to see people flourish. Gain a sense of belonging. Be part of a community. Anyone who watches their local football team regularly will understand that feeling and why it’s so important for their well being.

If you watch the news or doom-scroll social media, the world can seem a very dark place. But there are so many amazing people, so many brilliant organisations doing stuff up and down the country in their local communities. I’m so lucky to be part of a few of them. If you’re starting to look for some New Years resolutions, I can highly recommend you get involved in some too.