With the number of options growing you can choose to:
Come and meet like-minded people and find out how you could become involved with this fantastic cooperative community based group. The meeting date is normally published in June or July.
There’s something quite delightful about an orchard in the summer; the air humming with insects and birds, the dappled shade from the trees. It’s the time where we prepare for our busy harvest season and we get together, welcoming everyone, to our annual meeting. Come and join us, give your ideas and feedback on how we run this Cooperative organisation going forwards.
We now have the details for this year’s Annual Members Meeting (AMM), which will take place on Tuesday 14th July at The Bear Skittle Alley, starting at 7pm. All members are warmly encouraged to attend — it’s our main meeting of the year, where we review progress, elect the Board, and look ahead to the coming season.
This year’s meeting will begin with a Special Members Meeting to consider proposed constitutional changes, followed immediately by the All Members Meeting.
Autumn is our busy season as we encourage volunteers from the community to join us at apple picking and pressing events throughout September and October called ‘Power of the Press’. We have our apple pressing kits to hire to make your own tasty juice and we hold community juicing sessions on Thursday evenings to juice at our HQ The Greenhouse. We even offer a service to produce juice for you. It’s a great time to get involved, meet people, learn the traditional skills that our ancestors would have used each harvest. All our volunteers are rewarded in apple juice for their time and effort!
As we get into November and December the majority of trees have been picked and juice made, so calm resumes in the Greenhouse. It’s the perfect time of year for pruning and maintaining your fruit trees, so we offer courses and services to help you. In January we ‘chase the evils spirits away to ensure a good harvest for the following season’ as the tradition says, with some Wassailing under the trees with mulled juice and cider, song and dance. Join us for our Free* Wassail right here in Wiveliscombe – see poster below for details. *Donations are always gratefully received for a chosen charity
This is a time where the orchards explode with colour, insects and wildlife. It’s a special habitat for nature and one that’s lovely to walk, photograph, relax, play in. So many orchards have been lost over the last 100 years, here at Brendon Orchards we want to support existing orchards and encourage you to plant new ones. Take a look at the courses we have on offer and look out for our juice at fairs and markets around the region.