Week: 3 The Martineau Gardens Pavilion Refurbishment Appeal
The Pavilion is at the hub of our Therapeutic Community Garden, it helps us to deliver the activities and events throughout the year that make Martineau Gardens such a special place to visit. It’s a multi-functional space for YOU to hire for your parties and family celebrations; a place for your organisations’ meetings and training courses and a place where Birmingham’s school children come for environmental education.
Like so many of our volunteers, visitors and visiting school children, we love the outdoors at Martineau Gardens, BUT … the Gardens needs somewhere warm and dry when the weather is not. The Pavilion provides a bit of indoors for all the times it’s not pleasant to be outside.
Our Pavilion was constructed pre-war – it’s intrinsic to the ‘feel’ and special character of Martineau Gardens and it’s a much loved building – but the current layout of the Pavilion is limiting its potential.
The Floor Plan for the Refurbished Pavilion
By knocking walls through (see above), the refurbished Pavilion creates a big, dry classroom space providing a better experience for local primary school children who come to the Gardens on environmental education visits. It will also extend the school visit season beyond the drier months.
The Pavilion is ideally located to faciliate educational environmental visits – five minutes stroll from the Pavilion door, is our SLINC status woodland, rich in biodiversity, with a range of habitats and wildlife to observe. Currently our Glasshouse doubles as a classroom, ideal for studying propogation in plants (pictured right above), but it’s too hot in summer and too cold in winter. The Pavilion will provide a warm, dry insulated space where a whole class can be accommodated whether it be for eating packed lunches or in between their outdoor-based field study work on a rainy day.
At weekends, in the warmer months, the Gardens are regularly booked by a host of returning customers, booking us for their celebrations (family gatherings, birthday parties and community events).
“Martineau Gardens is a great place for parties, but what about when it rains?”
By creating a bigger space, we plan to install a modern kitchen to better serve refreshments.
With space for more delegates, more community groups and businesses, (like regular bookers, ‘Thrive’) will be able to book the Gardens for meetings and training courses.
Refurbishment helps us to increase our income from venue hire to help keep the Gardens open and free for the people of Birmingham to visit.
Campaign Update
It’s Week 3 of our Crowdfunder, The Martineau Gardens Pavilion Appeal. With two weeks under our belt, we’ve raised nearly a quarter of our target. So please keep the momentum going: spread the word and share the donate page: localgiving.org/appeal/martineaugardenspavilion/
If you haven’t yet donated, you can also give by posting a cheque made payable to ‘Martineau Gardens’, telephoning the Gardens to make a card payment or popping into see us with cash. It all counts, and if you’re a UK tax payer, we can claim the Gift Aid making your gift worth a further 25p per £1 you donate.
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