So what did we do this year? The short answer is a lot, but here is our top 9.
- We rescued more than 15 tonnes of waste.
- We donated £83,927.12 to our charity partners, The Fire Fighters Charity and Barefoot College International.
- We completed our new workshop at New Barns Farm. I don't think we will ever get used to being in such a lovely, inspirational space. We were able to welcome our first few guests and had a fantastic first Open Day on the 10th of December.
- We planted just over 12,000 vines... and then we had a drought and a heat wave. This was probably the worst year that we could have planted a vineyard since 1976. Hand-watering from our rainwater harvesting ponds took 10 days each time we crossed the vineyard, and we made 6 passes. It was round-the-clock work for all of us on the farm team and climate change wasn't just in the background, which is scary enough, it was right in our face.
- We refined our solar forge design with the team at Queen Mary University and can't wait for this project to really explode in 2023.
- We treated all our own sewage. Our worms transformed the solid waste into an incredible compost and nature turned the water into a bathing pond.
- We started generating our own renewable energy. Our workshop has 28 panels and when the batteries arrive in January we expect to be more than 90% self-sufficient in terms of heat and power.
- We welcomed a new team member, Alex Field, in October. Alex leads all of our digital marketing work and is already a real asset to the team.
- We recertified for the third time as a BCorp and now have one of the highest scores in the world.
As per usual there were a lot of mistakes, a lot to learn, but also so much joy. We have a great team and all really love the community that we are building at and around the farm. We definitely need a break but are already itching to tackle the new plans we have for 2023, in particular the restart of our DIY workshops which had been postponed for 3 years, the first two and a bit due to Covid and then due to our unfinished workshop. We already have 5 fully booked workshops for early 2023 and a few spots still available here. We also have more than ten big group gatherings planned at the farm, to forge, to farm and to share everything we know about how to change the fashion system.
Here is to 2023, to doing more, and doing it better.
