Friends & Patron’s Party

We were very excited to host our first Friends & Patrons Party on the 1st July, welcoming Clive Conway, Vauxhall City Farm’s new patron, as well as inviting Friends of the Farm and prospective future friends of the farm, to learn all about what we do here at the farm and why the charity needs your support.

On arrival, each guest was taken around the farm by a member of staff or volunteer, to learn about our animals, our projects and programmes, and our past achievements as well as our aspirations for the future. The tours concluded outside The Old Dairy cafe, where guests could mingle and chat, while watching the ducks frollick in their pond.

Once everyone had arrived, we had inspirational speeches from Faith Boardman, Chair of Trustees – welcoming the guests and giving a brief background on Vauxhall City Farm, and the history of the area and the farm within it; Bernard Donoghue, Mayor of London’s Ambassador for Cultural Tourism – talking about the importance of city farms and Vauxhall City Farm in particular; Chris Maturine, who had attended our New Shoots programme in 2017 and explained how it changed his life and how he is now working as an adult support worker; and of course Clive Conway himself, chair of the Tutu Foundation UK and patron of Vauxhall City Farm, who explained why he became a patron of the farm and why he thinks people should support the farm.

Clive thanked everyone for coming, and opened up the The Old Dairy cafe for refreshments, which allowed the guests to further mingle and talk to each other, farm staff, and volunteers, find out more about the charity in a less formal setting and pledge their support to the future endeavours of the farm.

It was a wonderful evening and we would like to once again thank everyone who attended for their enthusiasm and kind words.

We had a great evening, and we cannot wait to see everyone back at the farm!

Clive Conway called it “a glorious evening full of humanity” and we couldn’t agree more!

If you would like to support the farm, you can read all about how on our Support Us page!

Huge thank you to Gregory Hale for capturing the moments below