We were delighted to host so many of our friends and partners at our 10th anniversary celebrations in October. While the Friends of Barnes Common have been active for 30 years, it was a decade ago, in 2014 that our charity was first incorporated, and entered into a partnership with Richmond Council – a partnership that is still going strong. We invited our supporters to celebrate with us at this event showcasing the variety of our work and of our partners Community BlueScapes (CBS) and Barnes Community Gardeners.

As our Chair, Mike Hildesley said at the event, we owe enormous thanks to so many: to Parks for giving us the opportunity, to Highways for inviting us to CBS, and most importantly, to the Community – to fellow trustees, our staff and volunteers, and our many, many supporters. We have grown from a loosely organised, small group with 2 staff and 200 Friends to a charity with 7 trustees, 10 paid staff (5 part time, 5 full time) and over 1500 members. Our fantastic volunteers have contributed over 8,600 hours of work over the past year, a more than 8-fold increase from a decade ago.

We are still a small organisation, thinking globally but acting very locally. Our ethos is SLOWer: Sustainable, Local, Organic, Working Together. We have been working along these principles, mitigating climate change, enhancing biodiversity, improving our local brook and wetlands, on community engagement and lifelong learning as well as wellbeing. We were delighted that we were recently chosen as a case study for inbuilt social value.

Over the 10 years, volunteering has changed and became more scientific, said our conservation volunteer, Stephanie White, who has been attending our sessions since our incorporation. Besides helping with physical conservation tasks, volunteers are measuring the environment and recording change: the first transect identified was for butterflies, but now we monitor birds, reptiles, Riverfly and hedgehogs among others. What remains constant though, is the camaraderie and sense of community.