Review of the Year 2024
22nd December 2024
Well, it’s been a huge year at Get Out More! We’ve finally made a move into our own premises in Cliffe Castle, Keighley, which has realised our long-held dream to run nature-based programmes from our own community space.
We’ve hardly had space to include all the amazing projects we have been involved with this year. Thanks to everyone who has helped to make this happen and we look forward to building on the success in 2025!
We wish you a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.
Winter offered us the crispest of weather in parts, and we took full advantage of it in January with our Winter Wellbeing group for adults, funded by Bradford Council. The fresh and chilly air at Park Wood was the perfect backdrop for circular walks, nature identification, fire lighting and natural crafts (not forgetting plenty of cuppas to keep us warm!)
Bravo to those who came along in what was in parts, a very wet and windy winter.
Summarising six years of family play, training and community events in parks across Bradford, sounds like a big ask doesn’t it? On a snowy February day the cameras were rolling at Bowling Park for the making of a film about our Forest School Play Project.
Although Better Start Bradford is coming to an end we won’t be saying goodbye to the Forest School Play Project so soon however. With new funding from the Pears Youth Fund we’ll be back delivering a range of family play, forest schools and training in Bradford in 2025!
MARCH:
Sheltered from the winds of a blustery March day, the Outdoor Taskforce helped lay the groundworks for terraced planting stations at East Riddlesden Hall. A handy group of volunteers, including Get Out More staff spent the day digging and laying a membrane layer, a perfect spot for a plant nursery.
We are looking forward to seeing how this site develops in the future.
The Tales and Trails programme from the National Literacy Trust made it’s way to Cliffe Castle in April, bringing with it an American style library bus! This event was the culmination of visits from the library bus across Keighley and Bradford, with over 700 people attending on the day!
The team brought the campfire, ziplines, natural art activities and a storyteller from Mud Pie arts to bring books about nature to life! Each family got a copy of a nature based book to take home, continuing the fun once the day was over. Tales and Trails was a unique initiative and it was a joy to be a part of.
The big one! After months of I-dotting and T-crossing we finally moved into our new premises at The Gatehouse, set in the stunning grounds of Cliffe Castle.
Cliffe Castle has been the home of projects such as Wellbeing Wednesday for years now, so moving in felt more like coming home. The move has transformed the way we work, with more activities delivered for the community at Cliffe Castle, the goal of a community hub is well within reach.
We’re keen to extend outdoor wellbeing activities to older people and loved sharing nature activities with care homes as part of the Mental Wellbeing grant from Bradford Council The residents loved listening to birds, smelling herbs, growing seedlings and reading nature poems. All set against a backdrop of stories told of their experience in nature in the past.
We have continued to develop ideas with care settings across the district, keep your eyes peeled for more in 2025!
July saw our Mini Explorers cement itself as a firm favourite through the week. Wednesday lunchtimes were all about little ones taking their first steps into the world of outdoor play. Children splashed, jumped, played musically instruments, hunted for minibeasts, built dens and so much more.
Mini Explorers has gone from strength to strength with sessions still being fully booked in the chillier months. The Gatehouse has really shown it’s worth as a community space, with parents free to drop in and out whenever they need.
Festival season hit Keighley this year, with the the first event Creative Earth EcoFest bringing a range of artists, photographers, outdoor wellbeing practitioners, musicians and more to the grounds of Cliffe Castle. The team ran a host of activities including natural art and play and forest bathing.
It was great seeing such a large gathering of like-minded individuals in the park, same again next year?
With the Summer holidays coming to an end, Sue and Sam took off their Holiday Forest Schools hats and returned to delivering wellbeing programmes through school time. The Leap is a project focused on delivering natural artwork workshops with adults and children alike. Pictured is an incredible weaving project that children from Carlton Keighley created, with help from Emily from Keighley Creative.
OCTOBER: 
This year, we ventured into delivering our first forest school level 3 training course. 11 learners attended the Level 3 Forest School Practitioner course with a further 3 undertaking the Level 2 Assistant Practitioner course, meaning there are 14 more practitioners well on their way to qualifying and enabling more forest schools across our district. Trainees include community workers and volunteers, school staff and parents so with the sessions they each delivered during the summer and autumn, they are already making an impact in their communities and enabling more children to discover the joys of forest school
The Level 3 will be running again in June 2025, with bookings being taken now!
As we headed into autumn and winter, our attentions turned to the Play Futures programme, funded by UK Government via Groundworks. Play Futures aimed to support unemployed people into jobs in outdoor community jobs and youth work through a range of training.
Participants had the opportunity to gain qualifications in forest school, food hygiene, first aid and safeguarding, as well as work placements on Get Out More projects.
Congratulations to everyone that completed the course!
Finishing off the year strongly, Hazel launched the Nature Natters, a group focused on getting creative with natural materials and making space to have a chat and a cuppa. In December we have had wreath making and Christmas decorations, supported by local artists.
With a healthy number of people coming along to each session, and exciting new developments in our work with older people in the pipeline, we are really excited to see how this and other projects grow in the new year.
