Minstead Study Centre goes 'green'
Minstead Study Centre is moving with the times by holding a programme of community events to teach people about sustainability and offering itself as a ‘green’ venue.
Since adding a new eco-dormitory four years ago, assisted by a grant of almost £18,000 from the New Forest National Park Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund, the Centre has enhanced its reputation for offering a unique type of residential stay. It is visited by 1,500 children and adults from the Hampshire, London and Surrey region every year, and during the summer it also hosted a visit by 15 children from Chernobyl with their teacher.
Minstead Study Centre’s focus on sustainability was born when Jane Pownall arrived as its Head in 1992. ‘We were ahead of the game - right at the forefront of the carbon reduction agenda,’ she said. ‘Our curriculum integrates the global and the local with aspects of social responsibility and encourages children to ask questions about an unthinking society. Basically it’s a fun way to learn what it takes to be a good human being.’
Sustainable features in the eco-dormitory include paperpulp insulation, rainwater harvesting to flush the toilets, solar panels, energy monitoring and a social area with a woodburner. The three-acre grounds offer an Iron Age roundhouse, a maze-labyrinth, willow tunnels, sheep, chickens and a ‘muck and magic’ vegetable garden.
The Centre has received a grant of over £6,000 from the Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund to help it put on a programme of community events to teach people how they can live more sustainably. Courses such as preserve-making and using more raw foods, as well as activities that put people back in touch with themselves and the planet, will be held over the coming months: for details go to minsteadstudycentre.ning.com/ or call 023 8081 3437.
Spending cuts mean that Minstead Study Centre will lose its major source of local authority subsidy. ‘We are going to have to stand on our own feet and must look at ways of raising revenue,’ Jane said. ‘We have already hosted an environmentally-friendly wedding reception in a tepee as well as children’s parties, and a walking group has booked to hire the bunkhouse and kitchen. We need people to know that this isn’t just a facility for education.’
The Centre employs eight staff and there is also a dedicated band of volunteers. Jane is determined that the facility will continue to thrive in spite of the difficult economic times ahead.
‘The messages that we have been spreading for the past 18 years are going to be even more important in the times ahead,’ she said. ‘Children come back to visit the Centre as young adults and tell me that staying here made a big impression on them. One pupil went on to become an environmental lawyer.
‘It isn’t an exaggeration to say that for some of them, coming here has changed their lives.’
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Written by Claire Sherwood, New Forest National Park Ranger