Green Flag Community Award
Yes, we've done it again! In 2024, we've just won our 15th consecutive award that shows we meet the global standard for well-managed open spaces. This reflects the financial and voluntary effort that the Tarvin Community provides to keep it running.
The Green Flag Award® scheme recognises and rewards well-managed parks and green spaces, setting the benchmark standard for the management of recreational outdoor spaces across the United Kingdom and around the world.
Purpose & Aims
- To ensure that everybody has access to quality green and other open spaces, irrespective of where they live.
- To ensure that these spaces are appropriately managed and meet the needs of the communities they serve.
- To establish standards of good management.
- To promote and share good practices amongst the green space sector.
- To recognise and reward the hard work of managers, staff, and volunteers.
Jim Grogan School Award
Jim Grogan came to live in Tarvin during the war and grew up in the village before it started to grow to the size it is today. His childhood was spent exploring the fields, hedges, lanes, woods, and ponds that surrounded the village, and he developed a countryman's understanding of wildlife and nature that never left him. He was especially concerned that young people should learn about nature and wildlife, so they would understand the importance of the environment and all of the living things that inhabit it.
When he was beginning to develop Tarvin Community Woodland, he wanted to involve the young people in the school in what was being done. His ambition was to have an award for the school, to be presented annually, recognising the qualities and achievements of the student who had shown the greatest breadth of knowledge and the best understanding of the animals and plants that make up the immediate environment of Tarvin School and Tarvin Village.
Sadly, Jim died before such an award could be created. However, the Trustees decided to set up the "Jim Grogan Countryside and Wildlife Award" in his honour. Each year's recipient receives a plaque, a book token, and a certificate. Simultaneously, a hand-made book was created, with one page for each of the 125 years of the lease that the Trust had been given for the woodland. Each page bears the citation for the child who is the recipient that year, and in time, it will form a document that becomes a part of the history of both the school and the village.
The Grogan family subsequently sponsored the creation of a beautiful hand-made display cabinet for the book, which is permanently displayed at the school entrance. The book remains open on display at the page for this year's recipient for the entire year.