Sunday, October 9, 2011

Class afloat.

On Tuesday 27th September, Bosavern Community Farm was visited by "Class Afloat" as part of their tour of Transition Penwith projects in the area. "Class Afloat seeks to provide, for each of its students and faculty, unparalleled learning experiences in incomparable settings aboard a tall ship and around the globe" - see their website www.classafloat.com - for more information. We invited our regular visitors St Just Primary School down for the afternoon too, to meet our international visitors, and so there were 50 mostly Canadian students plus 15 local students to show around the farm. 
St Just and international students meeting up in the open barn.
And over in the chicken field.
First we provided lunch (special thanks to Deb for organising this) for everybody, cooked mostly from fresh organic vegetables off the farm itself, then there was a tour of the farm, taking in the turkeys, pigs, chickens, and vegetable field. Greg came along and gave a talk about willow and coppicing, and the southwesterly wind put on its usual display to make his talk even more relevant. Everybody was very enthusiastic about what we are doing here, which is always a boost for everybody involved with the farm project, and makes all the hard work even more worthwhile.
Greg presenting the willow coppice work done on the farm.
The Class Afloat and Bosavern Community Farm teams in the open barn.

Here's what the Class Afloat students wrote on their diary page about their visit to this area:-

Falmouth Port Update

Falmouth has been beautiful!  The narrow, winding city streets are lined with welcoming shops and places to sample cream tea and Cornish pastries.
On Tuesday we had a great day learning about community-led initiatives to increase the resiliency and self-sustainability of local townships.  Our day began with a talk by Transition Penwith (to learn more about the Transition Town Network go to: http://www.transitionnetwork.org/), during which we learned about the small ways we can all pitch in to decrease our oil dependency and move towards a greener tomorrow.  In the afternoon we enjoyed a scrumptious, organic lunch at Bosavern Farm, a community-run farm that works closely with St. Just primary school.  The students gave us a tour of the farm grounds and we learned about the ways in which the school ties the farm into their lessons.
Wednesday was a gloriously sunny day and we enjoyed some friendly competition with the crew of the Fryderyk Chopin, a Polish sail-training vessel for high school students, which was docked alongside us at County Wharf.  After some exciting rowing races all of the students had some time to mingle at an evening social on the decks of Fryderyk Chopin!
Thursday was another wonderful day - we visited Mount's Bay Academy in the morning and Land's End in the afternoon!  At Mount's Bay we went on a tour of the school and ate lunch with the Grade 11 students.  We then explored the beach at Sennen Cove and ended our day with a trip to the southernmost point of England.
We will all be sad to leave Falmouth this afternoon, but Brest awaits!

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