Who we are

Hulme Community Garden Centre (HCGC) is a unique community led inner-city horticultural project. Our mission is to bring the local community together through gardening. As a not-for-profit organisation we provide low-cost plants to the local community but we are foremost a volunteer and education hub promoting horticultural and sustainability issues to schools, colleges, the local community and wider public. We are a community resource in two of Manchester's most deprived areas, Hulme and Moss Side, providing a community garden space and running free workshops for the local community, a wide range of socially excluded groups (in particular people with learning disabilities and/or mental health problems), schools and voluntary organisations. HCGC is underpinned by organic principles and promotes sustainability, horticulture and the environment, civic engagement and voluntary activity, urban gardening and food production, independent living, health and well-being. We also provide back to work and skills training and placements for longer-term unemployed people. We have been established for 10 years and now welcome over 5,000 visitors per annum, all of whom have access to free expert horticultural advice.

Jamie Dickinson Project Manager	As the 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 Storah  Nursery Coordinator Kath Gavin  Nursery Coordinator	Karen Storah 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. She recently gained a Permaculture Design Certificate.
Martin Froud Horticultural Assistant Katherine Moores Horticultural Trainer	Martin grew up in the outskirts of Leigh where he helped his grandad look after plants. After doing a Diploma in Arboriculture from Moulton College and training as an Arborist (posh word for 'tree surgeon') he moved to Manchester and started volunteering at HCGC. Martin now has a full time position as Horticultural Assistant where he grows plants. Katherine plays a key role as a Trainer. She is responsible for delivering the Centre's training programme 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 training and 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.
Sam Chadwick Volunteer Assistant Mark Frith Nursery Assistant Hélène Rudlin Volunteers Coordinator	Hailing from the old industrial town of Oldham, Sam first started at HCGC in the late summer of 2009 as a volunteer. He then progressed onto a placement as Trainee Horticultural Technician under the Future Jobs Fund scheme. Now a full time employee at HCGC as the Volunteer Assistant Sam is champing at the bit to help our commited team of volunteers to get the most from their experience here. Mark is originally form Lostock, Bolton.  From a young age he worked hard, being the son of a Publican, leaning all aspects of the university of life and then later managing their Real Ale bar in Chorley. It was from these early days that he explored his passion for nature, community involvement, horticulture, food, and his love of sharing knowledge with others. Having studied in Accountancy and Taxation whilst working for GUS PLC in Ardwick, and working with the founding committee of Northern Wave swimming club in Moss side, then working in administration for the School of Media Music and Performance at Salford University, Mark is currently working as a volunteer member of Windsor Albion Housing Co-op Management Board and heading the Windsor Albion Gardening Society (WAGS) to redesign the co-operatives communal gardens, he is also studying at Salford University on the FdSc Sustainable Communities and learning Greek.. Omorfo! Hélène, 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.  Hélène has initiated a number of conferences, public art projects, exhibitions and workshops, and in Hulme, when a resident, she ran the Signs Of Lifeart project for the North British Housing Association, is a founder member of Homes for Change Housing Cooperative and managed and implemented a public art strategy for the new Hulme park. Helene established URBED in Manchester along with her husband and specialised  in consultation workshops. 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.
Our Committee Members Thank you for your continuing support	Each month we meet with our vallued committee members to review the progress of the centre.