The year got off to an excellent start at Friends of Grove Farm. 6 of us came together to hold the kick-off meeting for our new project - Grove Farm Freshwater Watch. This citizen-science programme from the charity Earthwatch, will allow us to monitor the water quality and freshwater ecosystem health in our wet woodland area and in Coston's Brook.

We've awarded £350 for Grove Farm, by completing the 30 day challenge as part of setting up this project on ChangeX. We plan on spending this to continuing the water monitoring next year.

It's not too late to join our team. We'd love more volunteers. It doesn't take up too much time, we'll be testing each month once we are trained and will be happy to have others to come along to learn. The testing itself is quick, taking 30 minutes. If you’d like to join - please sign up at our page on ChangeX and you'll be signed up for regular updates https://www.changex.org/gb/freshwater-watch/freshwater-watch-1

If you’d like to learn more about the programme see here: https://earthwatch.org.uk/program/freshwater-watch-in-the-uk/

If you have any questions, e-mail at friendsofgrovefarm@gmail.com. We hope you’ll join us.