Green Skills Supporters
OnePlanet
Our founder, Donna Stimson, is an ambassador of OnePlanet.
OnePlanet sees its mission as empowering individuals, companies and governments with the technology to collaborate to tackle climate change, build resilient communities and regenerate the living systems of Planet Earth, on which we all depend.
One Planet Living®, a sustainability framework comprising ten easy-to-grasp principles created and developed by Bioregional, in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund, with the knowledge gained from the South London BedZED eco-village, believes its vision of a world where all of us everywhere are able to lead happy, healthy lives within the limited space of the Earth and its limited resources, and allow space for nature to thrive and proliferate, is eminently achievable, despite us currently behaving as though we live on more than one planet.
Leo Lion Foundation
The Leo Lion Foundation, formerly the Coins Foundation, exists to usher in a transformative shift in the way businesses are conceived and operated.
“We firmly believe that when values take center stage in corporate endeavours, businesses become a potent force for securing both social and economic prosperity. Our values transcend the boundaries of traditional social responsibility, philanthropy, and sustainability efforts. Our unwavering belief in this innovative approach drives us, and we foresee it as the catalyst for economic evolution.”
We were grateful to receive a significant donation of £10,000 from this foundation almost a year ago, which helped us work grow staff to work with OnePlanet and the community, to develop in person courses, and ensure we were open for the public three times a week, as well as pay for our insurance, electricity, and other sundry costs.
They have been our biggest donor to date, and we would not be here were it not for them!
L&G Tempo
The Legal & General Tempo office building is one of the greenest, most sustainable, occupier-focussed buildings in the Thames Valley with outstanding ESG credentials
L&G Tempo have helped us raise over £5000 by giving us second hand furniture to sell. This allowed us to join the OnePlanet network and donated £1000 to the local EcoAction network. Both L&G Tempo and ISG, their contractors, continue to support us, along with other local charities, in sustainability and social action,
The Repair Barn
Mission: To try and keep items in use by repairing in our Repair Barn in Princes Risborough or to connect people and companies with repairers or the tools and skills to do the repair themselves
Vision: to offer an alternative to the ‘throwaway’ culture by providing items with an extended life.
Contact Details
Phone: 07879 420263
Email:
The Community Fund
The National Lottery Community Fund distributes over £600m a year to communities across the UK, raised by players of The National Lottery.
In June of 2023 we were fortunate enough to have been awarded £8900 to enable us to improve our website and create new courses so that we could reach out to more of our community to both help people understand the value of each of the UN SDGs, but also how important improving mental wellbeing is, and how we can improve it through using our hands and quietening our minds.
Waltham Place Farm
Waltham Place is a biodynamic farm that has devised a programme of lessons for all those interested in growing vegetables and fruit all year round (SDGs 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12 and15).
The Waltham Place philosophy is based on a belief that the farm and surrounding gardens, woodlands, lake and fields, where wildlife is valued and protected, should be managed holistically, and that an understanding of the links between plants and animals, as well as the health of the vibrant landscape there, should be encouraged.
CSK Architects
RIBA award-winning CSK Architects have created a Building BridgesFood for Thought programme for us so that communities and individuals, wherever they live, can grow herbs and vegetables and learn how to create the window boxes, planters or cold frames they are grown in (SDGs 7, 8, 9 and 12).
CSK Architects have proposed a community-based initiative, a system of community workshops and guidance documents that use abundant, easily accessible resources to enable anyone to grow their own crops easily, support the improvement of public health and wellbeing and encourage healthier and happier lifestyles, .through local biodiversity and home food production. They aim also to create discussions on the wider ecologies around food production
EcoAlly
Ecoally are a sustainable LED lighting consultancy with an office in Maidenhead. We were delighted to be given LED panels to replace the old high energy fluorescent ones that lit the hub previously. This reduced our electricity consumption by more than half, bearing in mind that the time we spent in the hub also quadrupled during that time. They also made bespoke plant lighting for us to show off the wonderful planters that were decorated by our MIND Friends in Need, that create a lot of interest as they can be seen from the shopping mall, and are on during mall opening hours, whether the hub is open or not.
Ecoally are involved in Neom, where new technology to create a city in the desert is being developed all the time, so we are fascinated to hear how they progress.
Watch this space for a case study in the carbon saving and financial saving that has arisen as a result of their support!
Graphenstone
Graphenstone is the ultimate ecological range of products, composed of natural elements that purify the air we breathe inside our homes.
The health benefits resulting from the use of Graphenstone materials for individuals living in eco-sustainable homes are: improves air quality of indoor environments, limits pathogens derived from sick building syndrome (sBs), prevents mould growth, fungi and bacteria, guarantees safe domestic environments and increases comfort and quality of life.
Graphenstone donates paints that customers have rejected because of the colour to charities, and The Green Skills Library are fortunate to be given the most wonderful palette of colours with which to decorate the hub, as well as use those for projects inside and outside the hub. We are so grateful to them for their generosity, as colour can lift a mood, and inspire budding artists
Anthropy 2023
Anthropy is a national convener dedicated to fostering cross-sector collaboration to address national interests. It focuses on facilitating public-private-non-profit understanding and partnerships, bringing together leaders from all sectors. It acts as inspiration, to build engagement for collective impact.
Our national gathering brings together leaders and leading organisations to consider Britain’s future and its place in the world. Being based at our unique venue partner, the Eden Project in Cornwall, creates a compelling backdrop for the widest range of debates, panels, discussions and workshops, covering all aspects of our national agenda. Our next national gathering is 26-28 March 2025.
Berkshire Community Foundation
The Berkshire Community Foundation (BCF) is a charity that works across Berkshire to raise, then distribute, money directly to vital local causes.
The BCF ensure that any form of philanthropy, whether from an individual or an organisation, brings greatest benefit to those most in need in our local communities.
The Green Skills Library is delighted to have been awarded a surviving winter fund amount just in excess of £1215 so that we might make our hub cosy to encourage our community to spend more time with us, and make volunteers feel more welcome too! From November to May it is colder than the enclosed corridor in the shopping centre! We have to step outside the hub to warm up! Please tune in to watch our numbers increase!!
NHS Frimley & Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead
Thanks to the RBWM NHS Frimley Innovation Award we were able to give CSK architects a sum of £5000 to create specifications for planters for our Building Bridges project.
This is the project that keeps on giving, as these are to be used for both the Optalis Library project and the new Gather&Grow Maidenhead Project, and many more besides. This was always the intention for the Innovation awards, which stemmed from the RBWM world cafes held in 2022 and 2023. By asking what residents needed, and awarding those who could deliver them with funding, the communities part of RBWM and NHS Frimley have made good inroads into helping those communities.
RBWM – thanks to the revenues and benefits part of the council, the Green Skills Library has been able to stay in 27 The Nicholson. We are very grateful for the statutory and voluntary rates relief that you have afforded us, and hope that it will continue into 2024.
Travis Perkins
Travis Perkins have very kindly agreed to collect pallets from the Legal & General Tempo Maidenhead site, and deliver them to their depot in Maidenhead, where they are storing them for us until we need them to build community projects – find out more about that here.