Celebrating our Community Champions 

A packed hall at Love's Farm House saw our community champions for 2019 presented with their awards. As well as a quiz and delicious fish and chips from Cox's at the Lighthouse, the evening also featured the annual meetings of Love's Farm Community Association and Love's Farm House. You can see the annual reports from LFCA here. 

New Venture: Alex Leach Carter (Love's Farm Community Wardrobe)

Love’s Farm Community Wardrobe was set up to provide free school uniforms and clothes to anyone who needs it by receiving donations from those who have outgrown or no longer need theirs. Alex took the initiative on this and got it up and running and it now takes over the spare room in her house. She's recruited a small team of volunteers who work with her to collect, sort, wash and deliver the uniforms. It’s a fabulous initiative - great for the environment and meeting a real need in our community.

New Venture: Jessica Sanchez (Love's Farm Community Garden)

It’s not often that someone comes along to an LFCA meeting and says “wouldn’t it be great if….” and then make it happen themselves. Jessica came with a plan, was open to ideas and feedback, and went away and made it happen. Jessica, with volunteers, has transformed a neglected part of the outdoor space at Love’s Farm House into an amazing garden producing all sorts of crops. She has done a brilliant job of creating a social media presence and a buzz around the project, inspiring other volunteers to get involved and share in this great project together.

Spirit of Love's Farm: Charlotte Ashley-Roberts

Charlie is a big part of the Love's Farm community. She can often be seen at the park, at the school gates or behind the bar at Love's Farm House. Charlie contributes widely across the community helping to lead the 'jeffing' group with Love's Farm Runners encouraging people of all abilities to start running.  In addition, Charlie is one of the committed Love's Farm House Cafe bakers providing a 'free from' cake for those with special dietary needs or preferences. She runs her own business on loves farm whilst being a mum, encourager, and a great friend to everyone on Love's Farm.

 

Community Ambassador: Mick Cox (Cox's at the Lighthouse)

Fantastic chippy with customer service beyond compare. Comfort food for coeliacs as well as normal eaters! Mick and his wife have done sterling job with their chippy and we would be lost without them to feed us on can't-be-bothered to cook days.

Cox’s at the Lighthouse is a really good news story for Love’s Farm - people travel from miles around to visit ‘our’ chippy.
Mick has been a great ambassador for Love’s Farm as the word has spread - he’s a great supporter of community events and goes beyond the call of duty with initiatives like free refills for water bottles.

Going the Extra Mile: Susan King

Susan always goes out of her way to provide great service at Tesco and takes time to chat. She always shows an interest in people and asks them how they are. At Love’s Farm House we often have to pop out to Tesco for emergency supplies for the bar, and Susan will make sure we don’t miss any price reductions for the things we buy regularly. This summer at the Great Get Together event she popped over to the Farm House after her shift and was there until the very end helping to clear up. She has become known as someone who will do more than just her job - she goes the extra mile to help out.

Community Group of the Year: 2nd St Neots Scouts

We received a nomination for Danny, but have heard such good things about the Scouts that we decided to give the award to the group.
Danny is the Group Scout Leader of 2nd St Neots scout group who meet at the newly acquired hut on Loves Farm by the football club. Danny works tirelessly to support and grow the group, which now has around 90 children and 2 groups at each level due to demand. He negotiated the move into our own hut with the football club, developed the outdoor area for air rifle shooting and are throwing, runs camps and gives up hours a week to ensure the children us in an amazing life experience. At a time when scouts groups across the country are having to close due to a lack of volunteers it seems more than appropriate to recognise Danny's leadership and the great team effort involved in ensuring that our own 2nd St Neots Scouting Group are absolutely thriving and providing such a rich experience to our community's children and young people.