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Chair of Trustees

Rev Sue Nightingale has announced that she is retiring as Chair of the Quiet Garden Trustees. She says:

“I have held the post for the last eight years, a real privilege. You have all taught me so much. I have seen gardens in the USA, Australia and of course, here in Yorkshire. We became involved over 20 years ago when we opened our garden in Sheriff Hutton, North Yorkshire. Now we have retired to York, but will be starting a Quiet Garden at our church!”

We will be sorry to say good-bye to Sue in her role as Chair, and the Trustees will be meeting in early November to agree a process for a new Chair, as well as say thank you to Sue. If you have any messages to include in a card for Sue please do send them to us by the end of October to the Herefordshire office or by email. 

Would you consider joining us as a Trustee?

With the above news in mind we are looking for new Trustees to join the board of The Quiet Garden Trust. Have you got a passion for Quiet Gardens and our values, and time to help lead and guide the Movement and charity? Might you know someone that might be interested

Trustees meet at least twice a year through a combination of physical meetings (usually in London or Birmingham) and tele-conference ‘virtual’ meetings, and work with fellow trustees, volunteers and staff on a project group basis as well. Trustees oversee, lead and guide the Quiet Garden Trust, ensuring that the Movement grows and stays fresh for the future. Find out more about the general role of Trustee, as well as the specific Chair role, at www.quietgarden.org/2019/trustees/

Preparing to post ‘Pause’ newsletter to you…

We will be posting copies of the Advent edition of our Pause newsletter in November. We will alert you when it is ready but in the meantime please do let us know if you would like more or less copies posted to you.

Your news…

If you have news from your Quiet Garden to share in the newsletter and website please do let us know. We welcome sharing news and updates about your events, experiences and resources you’ve found helpful.

Funding update

This week we heard that we have been awarded a one-off funding grant towards our core costs, which will mean we can continue with two part-time staff roles for the next 12 months. Great news! The grant is given on the understanding that we secure longer-term funding over this time, so this is wonderful news but just the start of a longer process of development for the Quiet Garden Trust. Thank you for your prayers and continued support.

New Visitor Survey

Today we are launching our new Quiet Garden Visitors Survey, following feedback from hosts and those involved in the Movement. The survey will help us measure the impact of offering Quiet Gardens, helping us improve and continue to offer these spaces for wellbeing and the inner journey. Collecting this survey data will also help provide essential information for fundraising applications and the future of the charity. All responses will be dealt with anonymously. The survey includes some ‘wellbeing questions’ taken from the Office of National Statistics to allow for benchmarking.

We invite all hosts to use the survey with their visitors in the most appropriate way for your setting. You might leave them out for people to complete or you might ask just a few people to complete it as part of an event. It is up to each Quiet Garden to use, and of course is completely optional.

The survey is available to print yourselves and also as an on-line survey. Find out more and download the survey.

How do Quiet Gardens help build community?

We have a number of Associate and Affiliate Quiet Gardens within the Movement with a specifically and intentionally community focus. Every Quiet Garden, whilst of course unique, is networked through common strands of welcome, hospitality, spiritual nourishment and unconditional openness (roots that connect and succour). These features are, perhaps unsurprisingly, catalysts for building community.

As seen at our Annual Gathering at St Mark’s Quiet Garden, Haydock, this year, there is something inviting, levelling, natural and nurturing, about a garden where gentle engagement, positive participation, collective planning and creativity flows. Whether a visitor for a peaceful moment or a volunteer giving time over and again to upkeep, sharing organically in the nature of a cared for space, allows individuals to flourish and so communities, with shared focus and collective effort.

We would like to think more deeply about how our networked gardens can play an important role in helping to build ‘community’. We are seeking, therefore, to gather a variety of examples of Quiet Gardens and their hosts that encourage and nurture community as part of their particular nature. Tina Jefferies will then use the examples as part of a new ‘Quiet Garden and community’ resource to share more widely.

Is your Quiet Garden a catalyst for community? Has it helped ‘community’ form? How has it nurtured that ‘community’? If you have an example to share please let us know by email and we will let you know more.

Affiliate Individuals

The affiliate Quiet Garden scheme has until now been open to those that have a garden they would like to open to the public as a quiet space. We are now opening the affiliate scheme up for individuals who lead and organise retreats and quiet days in the outdoors.

Affiliated individuals may organise and lead retreats and quiet days for people primarily in the outdoors, but not necessarily in the same place each time. They may have access to a garden, a nature reserve or other outdoor space to lead events focussed on contemplation and reflection, but they may be different locations and are not necessarily designated ‘quiet gardens’.

We hope this change will allow more people creating space in the outdoors for quiet and contemplation to share what they are doing as part of the Quiet Garden Movement. If you know someone that might be interested or want to know more visit here.

News to share

We will be starting to work on the next edition of the ‘Pause’ newsletter in September, if you have news to share, reports on events you have run, books to review or can contribute an article please do let us know in the next few weeks. All contributions are welcome – simply send us an email or call the office and we will let you know what we need.

Annual Gathering 2019

The Annual Gathering took place in May on a lovely sunny day. We recorded the sessions on mindfulness with Tim Stead, and so if you weren’t able to join us you will find the audio recordings, handouts and pictures from the day on the website – visit www.quietgarden.org/2019/annual-gathering-2/

Quiet Garden Annual Day – Sunday 23 June 2019

A reminder that we have created an Annual Day in the calendar to help people to celebrate Quiet Gardens, and this year it will fall on Sunday 23 June. We are asking those involved with the Movement to mark the day with a focus on Quiet Gardens – it might be an opportunity to open your garden on that day, run a fundraising event to support our work, or arrange to share a little about Quiet Gardens and the Movement with your church or community group. Resources to help are now on the website at – www.quietgarden.org/annual-day/

We know that many of you have already planned events and opening schedules for the year – but we offer the day as an opportunity if it works for you. We will be pleased to promote your plans, so please do let us know the details if you are able to mark the day in some way.

Reviews

Another reminder that if you have lovely comments from visitors to your garden that you’d like included on your Quiet Garden page of the website please do send us any comments/reviews you’d like to appear on your page.

New newsletter – Pause (Pentecost 2019)

Copies of our newly designed Quiet Garden newsletter called ‘Pause’ were posted in early May. We hope you will enjoy the new look and share copies with your visitors. Feedback and suggestions for future content is always welcome.

Financial situation

In April you should have received your annual reminder asking for contributions towards running the Quiet Garden Affiliate and Associate schemes, along with an important letter from the Chair of Trustees about our current financial situation. If you missed it you will find the letter here.

Annual Quiet Garden Day – Sunday 23 June 2019

We are launching an Annual Quiet Garden Day this year – asking those involved with the Movement to mark the day with a focus on Quiet Gardens. You might decide to open your garden on that day, run a fundraising event to support our work, or arrange to share a little about Quiet Gardens and the Movement with your church or community group. It will also be a good opportunity to hold Quiet Gardens and the Movement in prayer on that day as you celebrate the mid-point in the seasonal calendar where you are.

We know that many of you have already planned events and opening schedules for this year – but we hope you will be able to mark the day in some way. It will become an annual day in our calendar to celebrate Quiet Gardens on the Sunday nearest mid-summers/winters day (depending where you are in the world). Resources for the day will be available here – and we will be pleased to promote plans for the day, so please let us know the details of what you are able to do.

Reviews

We have just launched the ability for people to leave comments on your Quiet Garden page of the website. This is a great way for visitors to your garden to share a comment or review of their experience for others to see. Simply direct people to your Quiet Garden page on the website or send us any comments/reviews you’d like to appear on your page.

Survey invitation

We are planning to launch a survey project for visitors to Quiet Gardens, to measure what impact time in a Quiet Garden has on them. This is really important for our continued growth and will help to measure and raise awareness of the benefits of time spent in Quiet Gardens and outdoors in quiet. If you would be willing to be involved in this project by sharing a short simple survey with visitors to your garden and events please do let us know.

Exploring silence and nature retreat – 23-27 September

Finally, on the back of the newsletter we mention the retreat we will be running at Scargill House in North Yorkshire, UK, in September. This is for everyone involved in Quiet Gardens, including hosts, and will be an opportunity to retreat and spend time with others in the Movement. We hope you might be able to join us. Further details and bookings here.

Every year we ask each Quiet Garden for an annual contribution towards the running of the Quiet Garden Trust and Movement, and our Affiliate and Associate schemes.

We also included an important message from our Chair of Trustees to consider as you make your annual contribution this year. Please do take a moment to read it.

The suggested contribution for Quiet Gardens in the UK for 2019/20 remains £40 / €60 / $100 – should you be able to contribute more that would be fantastic. It is helpful for our administration to receive these donations in early April if possible.

You can make a contribution in a number of ways as detailed in the annual contribution form – UK version | Rest of world version.

If you would like a receipt for your donation please do let us know.

If you have already made a contribution this year please disregard this message.

We’ve recently emailed all Quiet Garden Hosts to ask them to check the details for your garden – please follow the link below to make any changes to your garden page.

Also if you have any events that you would like included in the events calendar of the website please let us know.