Projects

Currently, Offshoots is delivering the following projects:

Target: Well Being

Target: Wellbeing aims to help people live healthier and happier lives. It’s a programme of over 90 projects that increase exercise, encourage healthier eating and promote mental wellbeing. Funded by £8.9m from National Lottery through the Big Lottery Fund, it’s managed by Groundwork for the benefit of targeted communities across the Northwest.

Here at Offshoots, we are hosting and delivering two of those 90 projects:

Offshoots Hub Project

The Offshoots team will be delivering from site the Target Well Being Offshoots Hub Project.

Those involved in the Project will benefit through the opportunity to improve their overall mental wellbeing and physical health through activities such as horticulture, traditional crafts and conservation work, and through contact with the natural environment.

Participants will also benefit through the socialising opportunities the Project presents, encouraging them to work with both people from their local community and from other areas of the Borough and beyond.

To facilitate this, Offshoots has developed a programme of workshops and courses illustrating training opportunities available to groups and individuals within the area. CLICK HERE to download the workshop leaflet or go to our TRAINING page. To book onto training workshops, please contact us through the links on the CONTACTS page.

Living Allotments Project

This is a partnership venture between Groundwork Pennine Lancashire and Age Concern Lancashire. Based at Offshoots and Howard Street Community Health Centre, Burnley, the Living Allotments Project team encourage communities and targetted groups to discover the health benefits offered through involvement in allotments and garden plots. The Project encourages people to increase their understanding of, and access to, healthy food, and increase their level of physical activity.

Workshops and courses are offered through the Project, from Organic Gardening to Growing Your Own Vegetables. Watch this space for details of our 2010 programme!

The Project also works with schools to offer practical advice on school-grounds based food growing projects, ensuring healthy eating activity is linked with the National Curriculum. Schools will be supported to develop links with established allotments and learn from experienced plot holders.

Wood Be Good

With thanks to Burnley Borough Council, Burnley Community Network, the Lancashire Woodland Project, Faiths 4 Change and St Peters (Burnley) New Horizons Group, Offshoots is now the proud owner of a new mobile sawmill.

For many years, Offshoots has worked alongside Burnley Borough Council's Woodland Officer, helping to manage woodlands across the Borough. It has long been recognised by the Borough Council Woodland Officer and the Offshoots Management Committee that more could and should be done to utilise the valuable timber extracted from these woodlands during their management.

This timber resource has been used for the past 9 years to create charcoal here at Offshoots (see Gallery photo). With our new sawmill, we move to the next stage. It is now possible for us to work with many groups, and in particular the St Peters (Burnley) New Horizons Goup, to produce bespoke timber products for construction and other uses. We are already receiving commissions and will be building up stock size timber to offer at rates to suit the means of potential customers.