Charlie added: “We use harvested rainwater to soak the Katrin towels in. They break down very quickly, and then the children help with producing the briquettes.”
The children really love to be involved in this process, and even the water used to break down the hand towels doesn’t go to waste. Charlie continued: “The briquettes have to be fully dried out before they can be used, so we store them in our poly tunnels, and the evaporating moisture then nourishes the planets in the poly tunnels.”
BLACK TOMATO
AND BORAGE PIZZA The camp has also benefitted from an experienced environmental carpenter who has built the showers, a cob oven, the roof on the new office and a new garden area which uses Hugelkultur for maximum horticultural efficiency. The camp grows and cooks all its own fruit and vegetables, including many varieties which children may never have seen, let alone tasted.
Charlie explained: “If you make a pizza and add fennel, borage flowers, fresh beetroot and black tomatoes you will be surprised how children who ‘hate vegetables’ will try most things. The best bit is we plant it, pick it, chop and eat what we can, and then all the waste goes back on the land as compost – so like the water system, food production is another ‘closed loop’ system.
“Teaching children at the Junior school age means that they will grow up with a far better understanding of their own impact on the world, and start to take the lessons back into their own lives, both now, and into the future. Through our outreach project, we have so far nurtured more than 3,000 children, usually in groups of 30, giving them the right environment to understand the whole lifecycle of energy and how they impact the environment around them.”
Claire added: “We have disabled access, and we use trained staff, all DBS checked, to bring specific skills to the camp, such as blacksmiths, horticulturists and wild food foraging experts. Using a range of specialist staff with unique skills, and with the children in small, practical hands-on groups, we can keep their interest and motivate them to want to know more.”
CAMPING WITH A DIFFERENCE Newly arriving guests to the camp are dropped at the bottom of the hill and their first activity is to trek up to camp along a farm track. Then, a typical itinerary starts with a tour of camp where children can discover how the sustainable systems on site work, before moving into the structure which will be their home for the next few days. Each day then brings a series of fun environmental activities. The groups are swapped around, and interspersed with food and free time. Then the evening concludes with a camp fire, hot chocolate and marshmallows.
The camp sleeping accommodation is a range of timber frame canvas structures including a yurt, geodome, upturned boat hull and ger. Charlie commented: “Children, who universally love sleeping in a tent, really enjoy this ‘camping with a difference’ and they even see the toilets as another adventure.”
46 | LEISURE & HOSPITALITY
The toilets feature 2 compartments separating liquid and solid to avoid an unpleasant smell. The urine is drained forwards, filtered and returned to the water system. The rear of the toilet is used for solids and paper. Sawdust is added, and the waste is stored until it breaks down and the pathogens have been killed off. Then it is spread on the constantly evolving forest area, where 1,000 new trees are planted every year.
The most recent addition to the camp is the ‘living and dead’ Willow urinals, to maximise toilet facilities. Live wood spirals around upright dead wood posts to provide a woven ‘Fedge’ (Fence and Hedge) structure. The idea is that by the time that the upright posts rot, the structure will have become self-supporting. Of course, for hygiene reasons,
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
