ActivGardens Fundraising & Development Manager

I have spent the past 17 years developing two redundant urban green spaces into creative, innovative and diverse community resources offering volunteering and learning opportunities in horticulture, the natural environment and related areas. The People’s Community Garden includes a community apiary, CRESS community hub and ActivSheds construction project, while Chantry Walled Garden, in Chantry Park, is a volunteer-run plant nursery growing plants for sale to the public, together with an accessible Garden for Older People. I also manage outreach projects in Ipswich and Sudbury. My job with ActivLives represented quite a career jump – as an English graduate, I worked for many years as a journalist in London and Melbourne before settling on the Essex/ Suffolk border with my husband and three children in 1995. While working as a sub editor at the East Anglian Daily Times, I decided to study for an RHS Diploma in Horticulture at Writtle College. I briefly ran a gardening business with a colleague, before landing a job with the Town & Bridge Project, now ActivLives, in 2008.