Find out more and take part in It's Your Neighbourhood
Find out about the FREE support, resources and recognition available through our It's Your Neighbourhood initiaitve below...and drop us an email to join our family in 2024!
What a difference our It's Your Neighbourhood certificate made! It helped us focus on our achievements and made us realise we could do even better! It instilled further community pride in the garden and gave a real sense of achievement in that our efforts had been recognised.
David Carruthers, Gairloch Sitooterie - Wildlife Observation Garden (read Gairloch Sitooterie's inspiring story).
Keep Scotland Beautiful support and resources
- Support from our pool of experienced volunteer assessors/mentors including a visit between May and October and a report highlighting achievements and giving useful suggestions / recommendations for your work under the three pillars of community participation, environmental responsibility and gardening achievement.
- Regular, on-line live ‘cuppa & a catch up’ Q&A sessions, each focusing on a different topic. Previous sessions have focused on ‘keeping volunteers engaged and your group going’ and ‘support for your group’ – recordings are available. The sessions are informal and relaxed, with someone talking about a topic for around 5-10 mins (could be showing slides/video or just a chat) and then open up for your questions. We’d also love to hear from you in advance if you feel your group has something it can share.
- We will celebrate achievements through the year e.g. through our website/social media channels/newsletter etc.
- Levels of Achievement certificates, Discretionary Awards, and Certificates of Recognition for those not assessed.
- Annual seminar - networking, celebrating and sharing inspiring stories. Explore our previous seminars.
- Regular e-newsletter full of inspiring stories, hints, tips, information and funding links - example here.
- We’d love groups to let everyone know through social media that they're taking part – for Facebook use @KSBScotland @rhscommunitygardening; and for Twitter use @KSBScotland @RHSBloom #ItsYourNeighbourhood #ourbloom in posts so we can react and help spread the word.
- A web page for each group here.
- An It's Your Neighbourhood logo for your use to tell everyone you’re taking part.
- Each year we have an optional theme for groups to focus activities and events around. The theme for 2023 is 'Health and Wellbeing'. Why not get your thinking caps on as to how your group would like to celebrate...We'd love to hear from you if you've already got some great ideas we could share with everyone.
As well as the above, we have a number of resources, guidance and advice which are available to your group throughout the year. These include:
- Our It’s Your Neighbourhood web pages: In the ‘Enter It’s Your Neighbourhood’ section you will find useful websites, previous annual seminar presentations and a resources page which includes promotional material, reports, case studies and guidance documents such as an environmental sustainability guide to help you with your projects and advice on how to get extra support for your group. To find out if there are any other groups in your area, which you could get in touch with to support or to work with to ‘join-up’ activities in your community, click here.
- A useful document here outlining the three pillars of It’s Your Neighbourhood – community participation, environmental responsibility and gardening achievement – and ideas of activities and things to focus on under each.
Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) resources
Through KSB’s membership of the RHS Bloom Federation, groups registered in It’s Your Neighbourhood have access to support and resources from the RHS. These include:
- Regular e-newsletter full of inspiring stories from across the UK.
- Discounted insurance
- Horticultural advice - free access to the RHS advice team who can answer a wide range of horticultural questions relating to your group’s activities.
- Online ‘Community Resources’ – you’ll find a wealth of resources such as ‘promoting your group or project’, ‘creating a sensory garden’, through to ‘working with volunteers’. You can find the pages here.
