We an 18 acre organic care farm in rural Cambridgeshire. Our farm and garden team placements are open to people with additional needs, our Co-workers. We specialise in providing therapeutic horticulture to people with learning difficulties, disabilities and those with varying health needs. We are a real farm providing real work experience producing real organic products and produce.
Prospects Trust at Snakehall Farm is a vibrant working and learning environment. The farm is managed by a friendly, committed and organised team who foster a real community spirit. It is rare to find a social firm which provides such a welcoming, accessible and supportive environment in combination with an efficient professional approach. We have a very positive ongoing relationship with Snakehall Farm and are always delighted to have the opportunity to work with them.
Individual Curriculum Team at Cambridge Regional College
CRC
I love The Prospects Trust’s Farm Shop. It is the one place where cucumbers don’t come shrink wrapped and tomatoes that taste like a perfect summer day!
A loyal Farm Shop customer
Prospects Trust Trainee Placements are now available, starting from September 2019, we are bringing a new way to learn on to the high street of Ely. We are looking to recruit 20 new Co-worker Trainees to be our first cohort to gain accredited qualifications in retail and food safety.
Take a look at our flexible training programme, with 2 day placements starting from £50 per week. Download our Placement Pack or contact us on 01638 741551 for more information.
Well it has only been a month! We opened Prospects Trust Unwrapped, our new Ely GREENgrocery in September and we have already grown so busy we need a part time Barista to keep the Hot Numbers coffee flowing. Head over to our https://prospectstrust.org.uk/vacancies/ page for all the details.
We have just harvested something a bit different at Snakehall Farm and we want you to share the Snakehall Song as far and wide as you can. Do you think we could be Christmas No1 or get the Gold Buzzer from Ant & Dec?
The Prospects Trust’s Co-workers and support staff came together, bringing with them their dulcet tones and awe-inspiring personalities, to sing The Snakehall Song, penned by Snakehall Farm’s very own singer-songwriter Adam Vaughan. They practiced daily in preparation for a live performance at the 30th Anniversary Farm Open Day. The impact the song had on the audience, resulted in shouts for an encore and left our co-workers and staff elated. Now Prospects Trust wants their Snakehall Song to go viral!
With each daily farm rehearsal, the co-workers’ (people with additional needs) confidence grew and many individuals, who were nervous about performing in front of a large crowd, pulled it off on the big day and overcame their stage fright. The Snakehall Song is now captured in film and ready to go live. The Snakehall Song has been a fun and inclusive way to showcase the many different people who are part of an exemplary Cambridgeshire care farm & social enterprise that has been “growing differently” since 1989.
Adam, Support Worker and the farm’s music maestro said “it has been a pleasure and a delight writing a song with the Co-workers of Snakehall Farm. It was a humbling experience helping Co-workers overcome their fears around singing and performing, seeing them learn the words and actions and creating our first musical masterpiece to celebrate 30 years of growing (and now singing) of The Prospects Trust.”
Hannah, Deputy Manager said “in the seven years I have worked here I have never come across anything that has unified the Co-workers, staff and supporters of the farm and brought as much joy as the Snakehall Song. I am ready to perform it in front of Simon Cowell but they won’t let me leave Snakehall.”
The Snakehall Song project was funded by the DOSOCO Foundation, a local charitable foundation that supports music therapy, music access, music education and the innovative use of sound and music for social good. The whole process was captured by the Snakehall Farm team on an iPad funded by The Devil’s Dyke Morris Men. These small grants and donations have helped make magic happen.
Development Manager Maz said “we have a great desire to make this song go bigger than the Sausage Roll Song last Christmas. We are also raising funds for our 30th Anniversary year and are asking for people who love our song to donate to our £30K for 30 Years appeal, donations can be made online at: localgiving.org/charity/prospectstrustatsnakehallfarm/project/SnakehallSong
Thank you to everyone who supported our 30th Anniversary Open Day on the 14th September 2019. We have never seen Snakehall Farm so busy. To everyone who supported the day, volunteered their talents and time or donated a prize or donated to our 30th Anniversary Appeal – a HUGE Snakehall Farm thank you.
Raffle Donors including pilot Chris St John for a money can’t buy flying experience, Woburn Safari Park for their Family Day Out plus Gloof, Pleasurewood Hills, Tesco Ely, Costa Coffee, M&S, The Barber Lounge, Dion Gallichan Photography, Trustees of Snakehall Farm, Elk, Sealife Centre, Bedford Lodge & Spa, Belle’s Beauty Boutique, Zoe Slater-Tropic, our new venture Prospects Trust Unwrapped, The Farm Team at Prospects Trust, The Roberts Family and many others for their amazing prizes & donations.
Our super staff team (from office to field to shop) who always go the extra acre plus their friends and families. Our Co-workers plus their families, carers and friends who make Prospects Trust the place to be! Our Trustee Board and our other volunteers who give us their time expertise and support freely. Our Donors, Supporters and Funders – too many to mention. Our Solidarity Partners Emmaus Cambridge for making it a “smashing” one. Our new social landlord Lighthouse Ely & our 30 years (and many more) farm landlord Cambridge County Farms. The 1st Baldock Templars for their car parking expertise and proving many little hands making light work.
Finally special mentions to the super duo Ken and Trish Harris, Turners, Ernest Doe, The Days, The Roberts, The Thakes, The Peaks, The Reeves, The Cornells, The Ashtons Families. The Employee Volunteering corporate volunteers from Gilead who helped the team get the farm fit for an Open Day and all the other unnamed (because they are shy) supporters!
Please share any of your photos from the day with us on social media @tillytractor or email them across to the Farm Office.
Finally our £30k for 30 Years Funding Totaliser is currently at £22,230….will hit our target before Christmas? You can still donate online at: £30K for 30 Years Appeal or why not come along to our next hair-raising fundraiser Spooky Snakehall 2019, book your tickets here: Get Tickets Today!
We have created a niche for the artisans and the local creatives in our “Pod” wall within Unwrapped. We wanted to bring a “Not on the High Street” flavour to Ely’s actual High Street and showcase the talent in the neighbourhood. With only four more pods available to rent (£10 per month plus a very low selling commission) we have filled our pods with some unique, eco and oh it will so go go products. We will feature our Pod Producers in future posts but if you want to see what the likes of Dragonfly Soaperie, Lil Glad Rags, The Faraway Tree and Eveterraniums have created you will have to pop in the shop.
To book a pod please contact Tom Cockerton at Unwrapped 01353 662010
While you are all dreaming of refilling your reusable containers strange things are going on in Ely. Shopkeeper Tom is putting the finishing touches to Prospects Trust Unwrapped and we need a few shout outs to the people who are getting us across the finishing line:
A big shout out to our local Mayor, Cllr Mike Rouse, who will be turning the key on the 4th and who has captured our faces in the front cover of the Elyi Magazine.
Sean from SG Auto Tint in Soham who at 11pm is preparing our window decals. We hope Tom is practicing his barista skills and keeping Sean fuelled up on the Hot Numbers caffeine?
The new Unwrapped Staff Crew – Clare, Paul and Kin who have been training on the till, kitting up the kitchen and sprucing up the shop – as well as keeping Tom company.
The wonderful volunteers from the Lighthouse, the local Ely Job Centre cohort, SE Electrical Services, Ruth at Re-imagine and our firm Farm Friends from Emmaus and of course Ken – our now resident decorator!
The amazing local businesses, from Cutlacks & Samovar down the hill to 68 Market Street around the corner, the sustainable champions from longstanding farm wholesale company COFCO and the exciting new Cambridgeshire Sustainable Food Hub, lot of our new suppliers including Yare Valley and Gourmet Brownie – we look forward to working with them and many more as the shop builds up a footfall of customers.
A huge wow from Eco Ely – Hayley and her social media subscribers have been keeping us in the loop and drumming up local support.
A big thank you to the start up funders and donors, from Cambridgeshire Community Foundation/Cambridgeshire County Council’s Innovate and Cultivate Fund, Enterprise East Cambs and our crowdfunding family – seriously without your financial backing we would still be working on the business plan.
A recognition to those that have already paved the way in Zero Waste – our neighbouring businesses across the border in Norfolk – a wave to Graham at Ethical Ernie, Cata at Re.Source and Elizabeth at The Green Parrot for sharing their stories in creating refill larder shops of their own. We also wish to thank all the other like minded indes sharing their stories on Zero-Waste Start Ups on social media.
And finally here’s to working in partnership with Thera, Mencap, Cambridgeshire County Council and the Learning Skills Department in creating a hopefully sustainable and innovative project that becomes the norm for Ely. Now our plea is to the residents of Ely – please come shop little, light and often in our new shop, support our trainees in their learning and eat local, seasonal and ethically. Together we really change change the world (one tiny corner at a time).
We don’t have a PR department, a MarComms Team or even a Webmaster (is that still a job) but we are blushing on the telly, grinning our radio faces off and signing autographs on the latest edition of the Elyi Magazine. Suddenly after 30 years of “growing differently” we appear to have become popular! Now we are not contemplating making Tilly Tractor audition for the next series of Love Island, Farmer Mark isn’t trading in his trademark hat for botox, Hannah hasn’t traded her steel-toe caps for red carpet stilettos, Shop Manager Tom hasn’t got an agent (yet) and Maz knows she is only in the photos to make everyone else look much, much taller, but we are feeling a bit more like local celebrities thanks to some great articles, telly slots and radio interviews.
We hope you caught some of our recent interviews but for those who have missed them or those (erm yep Farmer Mark’s family) who want to relive the magic moments, here, for a short time only, are some links to the media malarkey:
Listen to Tom, Hannah and Maz talk about the new Ely Shop and the Prospects Trust Open day with Chris South on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07kv6z9
The Farm captured in action by BBC Look East
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and finally!
YES you can ask for our autographs at the 30th Anniversary Open Day on the 14th September but you will have to buy a raffle ticket or two!
After almost a year in the planning, months in the funding and practically weeks in the shop fitting we are almost ready* to turn the key to the door of Prospects Trust Unwrapped! *who are we kidding we shall never be ready but we are very eager.
The Grand Opening Ceremony will take place at Unwrapped HQ, 13 Lynn Road, Ely, Cambs CB7 4EG from 11 for a VIP key turn at 11:30 am. You can rsvp a place on our Facebook Events page: https://www.facebook.com/events/947315945617658/
We have all the gear from Hot Numbers Roastery, including a state of the art coffee machine and the tastiest of beans sourced fairly and ethically. Now we just need to transform the milky foam into coffee art in time for service! Our new Support Worker Clare has been rehearsing for the Grand Opening this Wednesday 4th September.
With just two more sleeps to our grand opening we are still looking for local support with our Crowdfunding appeal: https://chuffed.org/project/unwrap-prospects-trust-unwrapped-fill-the-refill-stock-the-shop or donations can be made through our localgiving page: localgiving.org/charity/prospectstrustatsnakehallfarm/project/unwrapthesstock/
Thank you to all those who have already donated, volunteered or supported this exciting new venture, we could not have done this without your help. Team Prospects Unwrapped!
