NE Charity Awards 2025, Maya Patterson

Youth Social Action / Know Your Neighbourhood Project / Benfieldside Community Garden / January 8th, 2025

NE Charity Awards 2025, Maya Patterson

One of our fabulous volunteers, Maya Patterson achieved the Highly Commended Award at the NE Charity Awards in September 2025, for her voluntary work with Building Self-Belief CIO. She was recognised as a Young Charity Champion of the year for her major contribution to Building Self-Belief, in particular for her support with the youth clubs and at Benfieldside Community Garden. Well done Maya, this is very well deserved!

Benfieldside Community Garden / October 21st, 2024

Duncan Barnett - Volunteer Podcast

Take a listen and discover the origins of our very own community garden. As a district councillor representing Benfieldside in the 1990s, listen to Duncan Barnett's description of the establishment of a community garden in Benfieldside, the very garden that we now call Benfieldside Community Garden.

Aspirations and Future Planning / October 17th, 2024

Know Your Neighbourhood Project / October 17th, 2024

'Inclusion - How to Include without Excluding' A talk for the Digital Leaders online Conference

A talk by Christine Thomas with thoughts about how to empower individuals, particularly those with SEND, and within the context of her experiences as a teacher and manager of English in secondary schools.

Consett Heritage Project / February 3rd, 2025

Designing a Steel Statue for Consett

On Tuesday 28th January, we hosted a fundraiser and design session to generate some ideas about what the community want the Ray Lonsdale statue to look like. We were very lucky to have renowned artist Ray Lonsdale with us, who gave a talk about his artistic journey and past designs, and answered all of our questions about his statues and how we should go about creating our own for Consett.