News

Grant from Gatwick Airport Community Trust

Thank you to GACT who have kindly awarded us a grant of £1,000 towards our refurbishment of our community hall, The Burrow.

Ewhurst Carnival Donation

Thank you to the Ewhurst Carnival for donation £250 towards our work here at Sayers Croft Trust.

Grant of £3,500 towards our Burrow refurbishment

Thank you to Community Foundation for Surreys Kaye Family Fund for a grant of £3,500 towards our community hall refurbishments! This will allow us to purchase new tables and chairs and also go towards new flooring! THANK YOU!

Grant helps to keep Wild Club free!

Thank you to the Ellens Green Mission Hall Fund for their kind grant of £500 towards our Wild Club. This grant enables us to keep the Wild Club absolutely free for parents and children 5 years and under.

Christmas Trail

We had a lovely sunny day for our Christmas Trail this year. Thank you to everyone who came and helped Santa with his jobs before Christmas. Check out our Facebook page to see the pictures!

New kitchen for The Burrow

We are happy to say that the new kitchenette for The Burrow should be installed before the end of the month! This will include extra storage, more work surface space, new sinks, fridge and microwave. Thanks very much to Ewhurst Secret Gardens for donating £500 towards this project.

Thanks to Ewhurst Secret Gardens

Thank you to Ewhurst Secret Gardens for donating £500 towards the upgrade of our kitchenette in our community hall - photos of the refurbishments will follow soon!

Members Fund Allocation

Thank you to Cllr Alan Young for donating almost £2,500 towards our community hall refurbishment! This will allow us to install a new fence, buy new books and storage units as well as a new loft ladder for access! Thank you!

Bridge Tea raises £519

Thank you to everyone who came to our bridge tea fundraising event in Ewhurst Village Hall. You raised a fantastic £519 towards our SEN programme!

Thank you to Cridfords Porsche Specialists

Thank you to Cridfords Porsche Specialists for sponsoring our marathon runner Andy to the tune of £360! This has pushed us over the £1,000 mark so THANK YOU!

Brand New Adventure Activity!

We are happy to announce that we will have a brand new adventure activity by the end of April this year. Our new 85m long, custom built caving complex will be installed on site during the Easter holidays and will be ready to use with groups soon after! Watch out for Try Caving dates soon!

Email Problems

We are currently having issues with our emails - some email deliveries and receipts are being delayed or not getting through at all. We are looking into this and hope to have it fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are not ignoring you! Please call 01483 275 990 to speak to someone!

Stormy Winter Weather

Happy New Year! We are now back after the Christmas break and are getting back to normal. The severe storms knocked out the power over the Christmas break meaning our email server has been down for a little over a week. If you emailed us during this time (Christmas eve until the 6th Jan) please resend as it may have got lost in the ether!

Christmas Trail

Thank you to everyone who came on our Christmas Trail! Check out our Facebook page for photos!

Sentence for teenager who burnt down roundhouse

An arsonist who completely destroyed our Iron Age roundhouse in a deliberate fire has been sent to a young offenders institute. The teenager from Ewhurst, was given a 16-month sentence for setting fire to the thatched house and admitted using his lighter to set fire to a piece of hessian cloth on the interior wall of the roundhouse last November, which sparked the blaze causing £17,000 of damage.

New pages on our website!

Have a look at our new photos in our gallery, new videos and our new dedicated Special Educational Needs page!

Active Westminster Awards

We are pleased to announce that our community officer, Sarah, has been shortlisted for an ActiveWestminster Award under the Inclusive and Active category. This award is open to an individual, a sports club or facility that provides excellent support for disabled participants and the winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on the 29th November. Check out Sarah and the other nominees here: http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/leisureandculture/active/activewestminster-awards/

Ewhurst Open Gardens Donation

Thanks you to Ewhurst Open Gardens who have donated £500 from their summer proceeds towards keeping our community work going. We are looking forward to next years Open Gardens!

Fantastic Open Day

Thank you to everyone who came to our Roundhouse Grand Opening today - we had a fantastic time. Photos to follow soon!

Main Cranleigh to Ewhurst Road Closed!

Please be aware that the main road between Cranleigh and Ewhurst (B2127 Bookhurst Road) is closed for up to six weeks due to road works. There seems to be either no diversion in place (we have been in touch with the council) or a very long diversion up to Shere and back down the one-lane Shere road. However do not despair! There is an easier and quicker route that you can take which will still get you to Sayers Croft without any one-lane roads. Please get in touch for the easiest diverted route!

Kallikids approved activity provider

We are now an approved and accredited Kallikids activity provider! You can look at feedback from our users and leave your own reviews on their website! Check it out on http://www.kallikids.com/en/provider-detail.cfm/page/the-sayers-croft-environmental-educational-trust

Roundhouse Rebuild

Our roundhouse rebuild is going from strength to strength with the walls being daubed with clay this week! Check out our facebook page for photos!

Contact Us Page Fixed!

Oh dear! Our Contact US page seems to be broken - we are working on fixing this and in the meantime you can email us on: trust(at)sayers-croft.org.uk Fixed as of 27/06/2013!

Thank you to the Gatwick Airport Community Trust

Thank you to the Gatwick Airport Community Trust for giving us a grant of £1500 towards maintaini9ng our nature reserve and developing our volunteer programme!

Awards for All

I am very happy to announce that we have received a grant of over £5,200 from the Big Lottery Fund - Awards for All programme. This will be used to support our community outreach programme, helping to buy resources and materials to take to local events, fairs and carnivals. This will help us to promote our charitable aims and reach a wider audience. The grant money will also be used to buy additional tools for our volunteer groups and a secure equipment shed to store everything in. A huge thank you to the Big Lottery Fund for this much needed support!

Great night at The Bulls Head Charity Pub Quiz

Thank you to The Bulls Head Ewhurst for hosting a great charity pub quiz last night and raising £304.20 for The Sayers Croft Trust!

Thank you to the Cranleigh and District Lions

A huge thank you to the Cranleigh & District Lions Club for donating £500 to the Sayers Croft Trust! This will go towards our Roundhouse Rebuild

Job opportunity

Job opportunity: Domestic Supervisor required at Sayers Croft Field Centre. Full time, permanent post. Experience in a cleaning or catering environment essential, evening and weekend work will be required. Salary £16,269. For details contact helen.hart@sayers-croft.org.uk or call 01483 275541. Closing date for applications 15.03.13

Ellens Green Mission Hall Fund

A huge thank you to the Ellens Green Mission Hall Fund for awarding us a grant of £500 towards the running of our two youth clubs. The Mission Hall Fund has supported our youth clubs for many years and without this wonderful support we could not continue to run our youth clubs.

Grant from the Co-operative Community Fund

A big thank you to the Co-operative Community Fund for awarding us a grant of £1,880 towards our conservation work, family days and volunteer activities.

Recruiting now!

We are very happy to say that we are now recruiting for a new post, a Community Engagement Officer, to help us to expand our services. This will initially be on a part time basis and hopefully the hours will increase if we secure more funding. Anyone interested in applying is encouraged to email jobs@sayers-croft.org.uk for more details and an application pack.

Communication Problems

The phone lines and email/internet at Sayers Croft is down due to thieves stealing the copper from some of the phone lines in the village - most of the village is in a similar state. We have been told that repairs could take anywhere up to 2 weeks so we may be offline for a little while. Please contact us via our facebook or twitter feeds for the time being.

Community Coppice Day Postponed

Due to the snow and the Met office's amber warning we will be postponing our Community Coppice Day scheduled for Sat 19th. We hope to rearrange this day for Sat 2nd Feb (2 weekends time). Hope everyone stays safe in the snow and has fun building lots of snowmen!

Google Grant

A huge thank you to Google who have chosen us for one of their Google Grants giving us free Google AdWords advertising worth up to $10,000 per month! Watch out world here we come!

More donations for our Roundhouse Rebuild appeal

Thank you to the local Ewhurst School Governors for donating £200 towards our Roundhouse Rebuild appeal!

AVS Fencing Supports Roundhouse Rebuild

Thank you to AVS Fencing in Rudgwick for donating the main pine poles for our roundhouse rebuild!

Donations

Thank you to everyone for all the support and kind messages that have been flooding in since news of our roundhouse being destroyed was released. We have been overwhelmed by offers of help as well as donations made through our website. We are hoping to rebuild next year and details of community volunteering days will be available soon.

Arson attack

It is with great sadness that I must report that our wonderful Iron Age roundhouse was destroyed in a deliberate fire on the 18th November 2012. This is such a blow to us. The roundhouse inspired young people. It was a beautiful organic structure, almost a work of art, created through hundreds of hours of volunteer labour. The roundhouse was used to teach young children about the pre-Roman period of our history in an exciting hands-on way including during our community open day in September last year. The roundhouse was also used for story-telling and as Santa’s grotto in our annual Christmas Trail. It was visited by several thousand children every year and never failed to create a wide eyed reaction as they entered its darkened interior. We hope to rebuild this wonderful, unique resource in the future and if anyone would like to donate their time or money to help achieve this we would be extremely grateful.

Schools are back!

Great to see the schools are back and coming to Sayers Croft for lots of team building sessions for the children to get to know one another.

Fantastic improvements for users with SEN

We are very pleased to announce that a very kind grant from the Community Foundation for Surrey has allowed us to make some fantastic improvements to Sayers Croft over the course of the summer. We had a pool hoist installed at our outdoor swimming pool allowing users with mobility issues to use our pool which they have previously been unable to do and we are very excited about this! We were also able to design and commission our very own assisted archery equipment specific to our needs here at Sayers Croft which again will allow people with mobility issues, especially with a lack of strength in their upper body, to take part in our archery activities. Finally, our climbing wall has had a much needed refurbishment and now boasts a whole new climbing face complete with new proffessionally graded routes to challenge people of every ability.

Ewhurst Carnival

A great day had by all at the local Ewhurst Carnival despite the rain!

Minibeast Mayhem

We had a great time looking under logs, shaking trees and meadow sweeping to find as many minibeasts as possible with our parent and child club this morning. And thankfully the sun shined for us!

Ewhurst infants come for a spring walk

Reception class from Ewhurst CofE came to us for a spring walk this morning. We played lots of games and they dazzled me with their knowledge of spring flowers including bluebells, forget-me-nots, primroses and daffodils!

Green fingers

Our parent and child club and our Really Wild Club both had great days painting flower pots, planting sunflower seeds and getting crafty making grass heads. Only time will tell who can grow the tallest sunflower and who's head will have the best grass haircut!

Bushy Hill

The year 6's from Bushy Hill had a great time doing stream studies and orienteering today at Sayers Croft. 99% went home with very wet feet from our stream walk but loved it!

Longacre Prep

Thanks to all the year 1's from Longacre who came to visit us yesterday. We had a great time learning about opposites as well as our senses.

Spring is here!

Spring seems to be well and truly on it's way. Snowdrops and bluebells emerging, woodpeckers pecking, ponds unfrozen...a few more weeks and the woodland will be a riot of colour again. Check out our events page to see how you can come and see it all!

Snowy Sayers Croft

Sayers Croft is covered in lots of snow and looks beautiful. Crisp white fields, frozen ponds and lovely icicles! Just like a winter wonderland.

Ellens Green Missions Hall Fund Grant

A huge thank you to the Ellens Green Mission Hall Fund for giving us a grant which will help towards covering the costs for our leader to run our monthly youth clubs for another year!

Disability Awareness Training

A huge thank you to Nick and Clare from the Calvert Trust in the Lake District who came down and gave all the education staff at Sayers Croft 3 days of disability awareness training. This will help us to improve our all-access services at the centre and has given us some great ideas. Check out their great work at http://www.calvert-trust.org.uk/

Nature Photography with the Really Wild Club

Our RWC were greatly inspired during our nature photography session this weekend. To have a look at some of the photos they took please visit our Facebook page.

Fantastic photos

Wonderful Parent and Child club this morning - lovely morning and some nice pictures were taken including a one of a cucumber spider!

Christmas Trail

Thank you to everyone who came to our Christmas Trail - the weather was dry but cold and everyone had a great time meeting all our Christmas characters and we even made it onto the front page of the Surrey Advertiser!

Christmas Wreaths with The Studio ADHD Centre

The Studio ADHD Centre made some fantasic Christmas wreaths today with material collected from our woodlands, well done to all!

RWC Christmas Crafts

Thank you to our Really Wild Club who planted 100 spring bulbs in our new flower bed before getting crafty making christmas cards and decorations and eating mince pies!

Chistmas Crafts

Thanks to everyone who came for our Christmas Crafts Parent and Child Club. Everyone had fun making cards, snowflakes, stars, gift tags, tree decorations and much more! Hope to see you all again soon!

Basket workshop

A great basketry workshop - 10 of us made some fantastic Catalonia baskets with expert tuition from Christine Llewellyn. Great thing was that although we were all making the same thing - all the baskets looked so different at the end!

Really Wild Club

The RWC started our spring planting today by replanting our flower boxes that we made last year and starting to dig a new flower bed. We even made some solitary bee boxes! Well done guys, thanks for your hard work!

Deadly detectives goes down a storm

Thanks to everyone who came to our free deadly detectives morning - we had a number of families taking on the challenge of solving our nature crime and exploring the site on a lovely sunny day as well!

Half term activities

A great week of half term activities including a fantastic Halloween nightwalk complete with a visit from a friendly ghost! Look out for our February half term activities in the New Year!

Burrow revamp

The Burrow is currently undergoing a revamp with a deep clean, painting and new displays. During this time The Burrow will still be available to use but may look a little bare until our new displays go up. Please accept our apologies for any inconveniece caused.

Digging up Sayers Croft History

A great film made by the Community Film Unit about the excavations going on at Sayers Croft! Check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYxRk8t0jSk

Open Day

Thank you to everyone who made our open day a huge success!

BBC cover air raid excavations

The BBC have been over to look at our air raid excavations. Have a look at their coverage at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-13702097

Half term activities

A fantastic end to our half term activities. Look out for events during the summer!

Air raid excavations

Our air raid shelter excavations started today with the year 5's from Duke of Kent school, Peaslake coming to help us get digging!

BBC Radio Surrey

Our 5 minutes of fame on BBC Radio Surrey this morning at 7.25am - myself and Tom Rice talking about our air raid excavations!

Fantastic turn out for Easter Egg Hunts

We had a great turn out for our Easter Egg Hunts and had plenty of fun cracking the code to open the treasure chest full of choocolate!

Disability Awareness Training Course

I have just returned from a fanatstic week long training course at The Calvert Trust in the Lake District. I now have many new and exciting ideas to help make Sayers Croft more accessible to people with disabilities and we will hopefully be running a disability activity week in the near future.

Really Wild Club

We had a great day today with the RWC sawing, drilling and planting some new flower boxes. These have been planted with native flowers such as daffodils, snowdrops and foxgloves and put next to our bug hotels to attract bugs, butterflies and bees. Well done RWC!

Duck Eggs!

We have 8 duck eggs in a lovely nest on our ponds. We will be keeping a close eye on them and will let you know when they hatch!

New Projector Screen

We have a lovely new projector screen for The Burrow which can be used for meetings, presentations or even films.

Hedges for Dormice

I went to a training course in Reading today looking at hedges for dormice. Hopefully we will have Jim from the People's Trust for Endangered Species coming to check our dormice boxes soon. Fingers crossed that we have some dormice in them!

Cranleigh C of E Day Visits

Two great day visits from year 3 and 4 from Cranleigh C of E. We had great fun in the sunshine looking for pond creatures!

First frog spawn

The first frog spawn of the spring was found in our ponds by year 3 and 4 from Cranleigh C of E today.

World Book Day

Happy World Book Day! Our Book Exchange is open for the next 3 days so come along and pick yourself a good book to read.

New Website!

Our new website launches today! Tell us what you think of it.

BBC Children in Need

Our grant application for BBC Children in Need was successful! We have a grant for the next 3 years which will help us run activity weeks for disabled children.