Celebrating the Friends of Spark Green Park
The Friends of Spark Green Park is a community group of volunteers who look after their local park, located on Brunswick Road, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, B12 8EH. The group was established in November 2023 to reclaim, enhance and improve the use of their local neglected urban green spaces. We spoke with Sadia Khan, Vice Chair of the group, to learn more about their inspiring journey and impact.
Who are the Friends of Spark Green Park?
We aim to increase biodiversity (plants, trees and wildlife) to help create an attractive green space for our local community to enjoy safely and considerately.
We have a small team of 6 committee members and an additional 8-12 volunteers who regularly litter pick in the park. More volunteers join in from schools and the wider community when we have planting/ pruning/ composting workshops, first aid and mental health & wellbeing events and children’s play and sports activities in the park.
Friends of Spark Green Park Committee members:
Chair: Revd. Sebrina Blackstock-Miller (St.Johns CofE Church)
Vice Chair: Sadia Khan
Secretary: Hayat Nassar
Treasurer: Darakhshanda Sadia
Additional Trustees and volunteers
Can you tell us a bit about a recent activity your Friends Group hosted in the park that you are proud of – what was the process your group went through, any difficulties you found or any more help that your volunteers needed that would have made the process easier?
The volunteers have been developing and extending sections of the park where we have planted several stone fruit and nut trees to form an orchard area by working closely together with Rob and Dan from the Fruit & Nut Village. Their ethos to ‘grow the village’ encourages local communities to grow their own edibles – native plants, herbs, and fruits to harvest. In June, we had the pleasure of inviting their postcode gardener, Camo who held a fun workshop for planting new edible flowering plants and herbs. The workshop was run again in September to plant raspberry bushes and encourage locals to grow their own produce.
We would have liked to have our own tools and equipment to use. However, we do not have any storage facilities on the park to keep things safe. We have relied on borrowing gardening tools and equipment provided by our collaborators or volunteers during the planting and pruning workshops.
Throughout the year, we aim to host events in Spark Green Park to create opportunities for the community to come together, to enjoy the park and meet neighbours and friends there.
Through the summer months of May and June, in collaboration with Naomi at the ROAM project, we hosted a series of 6 sessions of nature themed, free-play, after school to encourage children to use their own imaginations in a natural environment. The nature based play encouraged children to take part in scavenger hunts, tree climbing and a range of active challenges to achieve every week. The play activities encouraged children to explore the less used sections of the park and design their own games to play.
In summer we also held composting workshops with Fiona Bowden Composting expert from the Compost Connection CIC to focus on dealing with food waste and learn about composting, types of compost bins and how to compost your kitchen scraps at home. We hope this helps people learn the importance on why we want to avoid feeding leftovers to the pigeons and also unwanted pests in the park.
At the end of summer we also held a picnic with the NT Blossoming Balsall branch to promote their blossom tree planting project and families took part in NT nature themed activities and games.
Can you please give details about any conservation volunteering projects you currently have on the go?
In November we planted more native and blossoming fruit trees in the park with the help of the park ranger. The saplings trees have been donated by the Woodland Trust for community projects. In addition we were successful in applying for Blossom trees to plant from the National Trust Blossoming Balsall Heath project.
What type of tree/s are you planting?
The Woodland Trust packs focus on Wildlife, Harvest and all Year round colour. Trees will attract wildlife by providing food sources and habitats, helping us create a living legacy for future generations. This range contains a mix of hazel, silver birch, rowan, English oak, sessile oak and blackthorn trees.
Trees in the wild harvest tree pack contain a mixture of elder, hazel, blackthorn, crab apple and dog rose, this range of trees is ideal for foragers looking to grow their own fruits and even produce their own beverages.
All year round colour trees will be added to the park to enjoy beautiful colour through the changing seasons. Gorgeous cherry blossoms will develop from April to May and bright berries from July to November. We can watch the leaves change from vivid greens through to golden hues and into gorgeous russet tones growing a mixture of hawthorn, silver birch, rowan, wild cherry and dogwood tree, each bringing their own unique hue.
The NT Blossoming Balsall Heath project is donating the following 12 fruiting Blossom trees to our park:
Cherry Morello
Cherry Celeste
Apple Eden
Apple Rosette
Apple Fiesta
Apple Herefordshire Russet
Plum Haganta
Plum Malling Elizabeth
Plum Toptaste Kulinaria
Prunus Hokusai
Pear Concorde
Pear Onward
Why did you apply for the trees?
We chose fruit trees in keeping with our aim of growing and harvesting our own fruit and getting the community involved to reap the rewards when the fruit picking seasons arrive.
Our park was lacking a colourful selection of blossom tree varieties. The older trees lack the colourful spring displays and we wanted to introduce more trees to benefit wildlife and fruit varieties to be harvested from.
What do you think about the project and creating a blossom neighbourhood in Balsall Heath and Sparkbrook?
Cherry blossoms symbolize the fleeting nature of life, and are also a symbol of life and renewal.
Japan has given cherry blossom trees to other countries as a symbol of peace, and the tradition of Hanami has spread to other countries as well.
It’s a beautiful idea of bringing colourful biodiversity, culture, art and poetry and peace into our urban city landscape. It’s the colourful injection boost we all need to help our mental health and move away from the grey concrete backdrop of the inner city boroughs.
We were inspired by the beauty of the Japanese blossom festival when the cherry blossom flowers come into bloom and as it’s a time to celebrate the beauty of spring, in art and poetry. We were joined by winning pupils from Queensbridge Secondary School. The winners of the poetry competition held by NT Blossom branch displayed their Haikus written on pretty blossom designs which looking pretty hanging upon branches the park trees.
How many volunteers were involved, how long did it take, and any other info you would like to share about it?
We initially started with a group of 6 members on our committee and the volunteer numbers have steadily grown throughout the year with more gardening workshops, children’s after school activities, first aid course and litter picking sessions. A number of local primary schools also get pupils involved with volunteering for litter picking and tree planting. Primarily, Nelson Mandela Primary School which runs along the side of Spark Green park has been supportive from the start of the group formation.
Any support that you received that helped the process?
We have had support from Jan and Dean Paul, our local park rangers, Helen Harvey from Birmingham Open Spaces Forum, Shabrana Hussain our Local Labour Councillor, Amer Khan and Tof Islam from the Neighbourhood Action team at Birmingham City council and support from the local Nelson Mandela Primary school for use of their hall and meeting room.
The Friends of Spark Green Park is not a charity, we apply for grants and liaise other organisations like the National Trust, Woodlands Trust, Birmingham Open Spaces Forum and Birmingham City Council to help fund events.
We rely very heavily on public donations to build on what we offer year on year.
Donate via Gofundme: https://gofund.me/adac6847
Our current financial needs are for:
Litter picking equipment (gloves and hoops primarily), a park notice board, gardening tools and park maintenance, new benches and bins.
Any advice you can give other Friends Groups that might want to organise a similar activity in their local park or open space?
We would encourage you to speak to the Birmingham Open space forum for advice on how to set up a constitution and committee group. Try to meet your local council park rangers and the other local ‘friends of’ parks groups to get an idea of what is realistically achievable and the obstacles they faced. Once you have set up social media pages to promote your projects you will find like minded individuals willing to get involved in community projects and volunteer their help when it comes to neighbourhood action.
Is there anything else you would like to mention about the Friends of Spark Green Park, including any regular volunteering sessions or upcoming events/activities you would like to promote?
We would be happy to invite more volunteers to come and join our litter picks and planting events. Follow us on Facebook/ Instagram/ X and on WhatsApp (links below) for more updates where you can find all our upcoming event details.
In the winter and coming new year we will be working closely with Dean Paul, the local park ranger to develop a new forest school area for educational activities and create a safe space for community mental health and wellbeing activities.
We also plan on establishing a wild flower meadow, in Spring 2025, to attract pollinating insects to our park, especially bees and butterflies. We are excited to work with the Patchwork Meadow team on this project.
We also plan to have more cake bake fundraisers to raise funds for the projects in the park.
Keep in touch with new updates on our social pages:
The Friends of Spark Green Park’s efforts have now been featured by BBC West Midlands, celebrating the group’s amazing impact – read the article about their incredible work here!
Posted on 16th December 2024
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