Cricklade Bloomers’ Fund Raising and Finances

Bloomers have again made grant applications within the Town.  We have applied to Cricklade Town Council, Cricklade Sportsman’s Association and to the Feoffees of Wayland Estate funds to continue the bulb planting within the Town and to obtain more planters for the floral displays.

We were successful with our application to Waylands in 2005 for a community bulb planting project in Autumn 2005 and planted over 7500 bulbs for Spring 2006 in the Town.  These were planted by many different organisations such as the Cubs, Scouts, the Churches, Woman’s Institute, Schools and Pre Schools .

We made and sold gingerbread men at the Town Christmas Lighting up evening in December 2005.  We achieved the almost impossible by actually having a snowstorm as the festivities started.

We held three ‘Fritillaries Tea Rooms’ weekends, to coincide with the Snakeshead Fritillaries flowering period in North Meadow.  We displayed our portfolios and the rose bowl awarded in 2005, together with photographs of our accomplishments in the two years we have been active.  Members of the Cricklade Court Leet also had a display showing the Towns heritage and members of the Court Leet were on hand to explain to visitors the history of the Town.  Cricklade Garden Club sold plants and fritillaries (specially grown for the event by us) and answering general gardening questions.  There was great interest in the biodiversity garden, constructed jointly by English Nature, Bloomers and the garden club.  This drew the many visitors and the community to the Tea Rooms where we made over £750.00 for our projects and a further £500.00 for Cancer Research.

We have allocated funds to individual projects and initiatives and this year have managed to complete one new bed, The ‘ Gold Garden ’ to celebrate our Gold Award in 2005 and we chose to purchase a variety of planters for the gateways into the town and to enhance the town centre.

Amongst our future plans, finances has been allocated to ensure all our sponsors are recognised by placing plaques on the gardens and planters in recognition of their help, labour and financial support