Barclays Make a Difference

Fordhall Farm recently played host to a team from the Barclays IT department at Knutsford as part of national Make A Difference Day. Make a Difference Day is the UK's biggest annual day of volunteering each October with hundreds of projects across the country. The aim is to highlight the amazing impact volunteers can make just by giving the simple gifts of time, skills or muscle power! It began back in 1995, and has since gone from strength to strength thanks to the army of people across the country who organise and take part in activities every year.

As you will know, there are always jobs to be done on the farm and so there is always plenty of opportunities to volunteer. As a result we certainly welcomed the enthusiastic team from Barclays who spent the day shoveling stone to build a disabled access and push chair friendly path at to our picnic area; allowing more visitors to see the free range pigs and visit the picnic site.

We were lucky enough to be awarded £50,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery fund earlier this year, and together with the thousands we raised through all our supporters, work on the Farm Trail can now commence. Work will be ongoing throughout the winter ready for when the trail reopens in the Spring. The second tranch of this work will be completed the following winter.

It is an exciting project and Barclays have made a fantastic first step. We could not have done it without their immense effort. They really did work like Trojans all day. Despite the aches, we have been assured that they all thoroughly enjoyed the day.

THANK YOU BARCLAYS

The next volunteer weekends are due to be held on November 22nd and 23rd and then February 21st and 22nd 2009. The majority of work on these weekends will be focussed around the farm trail and improving access around the farm for visitors. Places do need to be booked. If you are interested, please contact Hannah at the farm on 01630 638696 or project@fordhallfarm.com