As Project Manager, Jamie has overall responsibility for the development and stewardship of Hulme Community Garden Centre. He has a strong business background gained over six years in industry and later as a business consultant. He has a proven track record in business development, sales and marketing, business planning, fundraising and management in the voluntary and community sector. He also has worked as a pro bono consultant for a number of voluntary organisations. His arrival at HCGC has seen an expansion in the services provided to the local community and has overseen dramatic increases in visitors, volunteers and turnover. His priorities for the Centre are to expand the physical size of the site, develop innovative sustainability projects, increase on site stock production and move HCGC away from grant dependence with an increased focus on commissioned service delivery. He has recently initiated a portfolio of projects to this end including consultancy and design work for a number of other agencies and community organisations.

 

 

 

Karen is our longest serving member of the team. She worked for several years for Lomax Nursery and is the Nursery coordinator at HCGC responsible for propagation, sowing, cuttings, stock, health and sale of all our colourful plants on display. Karen has been a passionate student of horticulture since childhood and gained a level 2 at the Royal Horticulture Society with a merit. She is a font of knowledge on anything of a  horticultural bent, from plant diseases to folklore.  

 

 

As a child in the wilds of Wigan, Kath had a 'Worm Hospital' and often fell off her bike into beds of stinging nettles, She enjoyed digging for treasures (potatoes) with her dad. Years later, as a qualified horticulturist, with half a dozen compost heaps and a passion for wildlife gardening, organic vegetables and herb growing, her love of being outside with green things continues. Pervious work including Biological Surveying and Therapeutic Horticulture eventually led her to HCGC. Her specialities include recycling on the allotment, companion planting, creative vegetable cookery (sometimes with nettles!) and dancing behind the potting bench.

 

 

 

 

Katherine plays a key role as a Trainer. She is responsible for delivering the Centre's training pro and as such works with a wide range of service users from children and older people to adults with learning disabilities and/or mental health problems. Educated to degree level in horticulture Katherine has successfully applied her academic training to establish a thriving community garden at the Centre which forms the hub of HCGC's volunteer activity and is visited by hundred of people each month. Katherine is also a qualified lecturer and since 2005 has successfully delivered an accredited NCFE horticulture course at HCGC as well as dozens of informal workshops aimed at empowering local residents to take up gardening and urban food production. She has also played a major role in developing the Centre's off site community garden projects.

 

 

 

 

 

Kate is originally from Cornwall where she ran a small gardening business. She loves to be around living things and to watch them grow. She also loves growing food on her allotment and cycling about the city on a treacherous old bicycle. She studied at the Centre and gained a NCFE in Sustainable Development and Creative Crafts and also has a PGCE in Secondary School English teaching. Kate ran several projects building vegetable patches in urban spaces, one of which is now being used to grow food for the Abundance Project and another project in a school nursery. She attained level 2 in counselling concepts certificate. She hopes to be a part of helping to put the centre's ethos into action through working within the local community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helene, a French national, was raised by her grand parents in the Dordogne where as a child she spent her time foraging in the woods and helping her grand father in the garden. She came to Manchester in the early 80's and worked for the BBC North West for several years before becoming a freelance consultant specialising in international urban regeneration networks in deprived neighbourhoods.  Helene has initiated a number of conferences, public art projects, exhibitions and workshops, and in Hulme, when a resident, she ran the Signs Of Life art project for the North British Housing Association and managed and implemented a public art strategy for the new park. She recently gained an RHS level 2 with the Royal Horticulture Society and completed the Permaculture Design Certificate. She is currently studying for a Garden Design Diploma with Chelsea KLC School of Design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each month we meet with Adrian Philips, Phill Askham, Richard Lockwood, Emma Ryan, Christine Amica and Lu Hwang to review the progress of the centre.