Apple Harvest Day

Crabapples, rose hips, rowans and elderberries collected from Durham University English Department Garden

Another joint staff-student volunteering opportunity saw us team up with Fruitful Durham to harvest fruit from the University Grounds.


"Every year tonnes of freely available wild fruit goes to waste in and around Durham because as a society we have become increasingly reliant instead on purchasing fruit from supermarkets which has often been unnecessarily shipped thousands of miles. Many people no longer feel they have the knowledge or skills to use hedgerow crops, nor the time to find and collect it, and have lost an awareness of the seasonality of produce. This contributes to a massive global wastage of finite resources, supporting ultimately unsustainable lifestyles both here and in other countries and creating a lack of connection to the infinitely rich potential available within our own community. Fruitful Durham aims to offer a local solution to this problem."

Finance help at Crossroads Care Gateshead

A small group of volunteers from the Finance Department lent a helping hand to a community partner suggested by members of the department itself. 

Crossroads Care Gateshead is a well-established charity providing services across Gateshead Borough to Carers, Young Carers and people with care needs. Their aim is to improve the lives of Carers and those they support. They are based in The Old School Care Centre in the west of Gateshead with offices and an activity hall based in the old school building. They have recently acquired more land and the schoolhouse which they are developing into an accessible respite environment, activity centre and community asset.

Experience Durham build Wildlife Feeding Station

From an initial group of 3, Stacey managed to persuade a team of 10 from the Experience Durham staff to step out of the office for the afternoon and wonder over to Pre-bends bridge. Tracey from the Durham Cathedral Heritage Woodlands and Riverbanks briefly went over how to use all the tools and we made our way down to the riverbank to start collecting materials for the fences. With regular reassurance that we weren't actually going to kill the bushes and it would actually be useful, we hacked them back and took the collection back to the feeding area. Splitting up into groups we built a dead hedge to stop people cutting through to/from the river; firmed up the shelter; wired anti-squirrel feeding logs and created some food trees for the Chorister students to feed the wildlife. Hopefully the area will be thriving with small wildlife and not too many of the larger variety looking for secluded spaces!

St. John's take on LionMouth

Arriving at the centre, we were met with the news that Nathan, LionMouth activity coordinator, had gotten stuck honeymooning in the Lake District and had spent the previous night sleeping under a garage roof. The main task of creating a sheep-fence could end up a disaster with a group of people blundering about in a field. Fortunately Dave came in to help us who, although he didn't know Nathan's exact plans, knew how to put a fence up.