We are working towards signing a long-term lease with an option to purchase, with a view to acquire The Beeches within the next 3 years from the current owners, Quaker Community Bamford. Our vision is to bring property into community stewardship, ensuring it is an asset that is shaped by and governed by the diverse communities we serve - both locally and nationally.
We are growing a new ecosystem of partners, stewards, advisors and networks around The Beeches. We are currently forming our governance structures, advisory groups and building a relational ecosystem of people, organisations and groups that all play a role in stewarding our shared vision and it’s implementation together.
Vanessa English is an Occupational Therapist specialising in mental health, whose approach draws on trauma-informed, creative, and embodiment practices with adults and young people. Vanessa has been a frontline worker across diverse communities, advocating for systems change in response to racial, cultural, and class inequities, leading the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion work in multiple NHS services. Her past experience covers drug and alcohol support services - addressing trauma and homelessness, and working as an anti-human trafficking advocate and first responder to female survivors of human-trafficking and modern slavery. She has since worked for NHS services in a medium secure forensic mental health setting and, most recently, for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). Vanessa is currently engaging in an embodied movement therapy foundation, guided by deep nature connection practices, to support the development of her creative space holding.
Hellen Songa is a Rwandan-Zambian social artist, nature guide, and creative producer raised in Greater Manchester. Her multidisciplinary work weaves together community, ecology, and ancestral knowledge through creative nature connection. She has facilitated workshops, events, and public programmes across the UK, spanning herbal medicine, community gardening, foraging, cooking, visual storytelling, and participatory art.
Rooted in a commitment to place-based programming for ecological justice, her practice centres the voices and leadership of marginalised communities. She is co-owner of a family-run organic farm in Masaiti, Zambia, an Associate Artist and third-term Board Member at Squash Liverpool CIC, and a founding member of The Visionaries Collective.
She has led and co-facilitated with a wide range of organisations including Squash CIC, Arts Council England, Open Eye Gallery, Groundwork UK, Granby Winter Garden, Growing Sudley CIC, The Visionaries UK, Tate Liverpool + RIBA North, Scouse Flowerhouse, Greenpeace UK, the BIPOC Herbalism Conference, and SOS-UK.
Currently training in herbalism and forest school leadership, and continually upskilling in land-based education, her work is guided by land stewardship and seasonal cycles.
Max Girardeau is Co-Founder and Director of The Visionaries, a UK-based charity and network of youth practitioners and young people leading systems change in education and learning by bringing a more relational, ecological and reparative justice lens to the ways we support and work alongside young people. He is also a Strategic Advisor to The National Trust, working with their directorship to increase nationwide access to and participation in nature. Max’s work draws on systems change theory, eco-psychotherapy, embodiment practices, cultivating imagination and deep nature connection. He is a trauma-informed practitioner, wilderness rites of passage guide, qualified Mountain Leader and Bio-Leadership Fellow.
