All are welcome to our Annual General Meeting (AGM). Squash is a Community Interest Company (CIC) – a not for profit membership organisation that is accountable to our community.
From 5-6pm we’ll be undertaking AGM business and from 6-7pm we’ll be sharing soup and having a social.
To R.S.V.P & enquire about becoming a Squash member plea
se contact clare@squashliverpool.co.uk
Squash stands with Palestine & the people of Gaza. We are devastated and horrified by what is unfolding in this genocidal living nightmare. We call for an immediate ceasefire.
We oppose anti-Semitism & Islamaphobia. We abhor the attacks by Hamas on Israeli citizens. We applaud the multitude of people speaking out against the disproportionate response of the Israeli government against the people of Gaza.
This is unjustifiable collective punishment of the Palestinian people, following decades of occupation & oppression. This humanitarian catastrophe will see traumatic ramifications for decades to come.
We are staggered by the callous inaction of the UK Government that is aiding this genocide. Shame on you. Not in our name.
At Squash we offer spaces to come together, to support each other, to offer solidarity & wellbeing, to be in silence, in grief and in hope, now, in the coming weeks, and beyond. Please get in touch with any ideas and to use these spaces for solidarity and conversations.
We are collecting donations for Medical Aid for Palestinians and Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Please donate direct via the above links or at Squash.
With love and hope from all at Squash
Celebrate Samhain; the end and beginning of the Celtic New Year, with food, music & rituals in community in the Grapes Community Food Garden. Bring something for the altar and something to burn.
Join us for a warming social and join in conversations reflecting on this important time of beginnings & endings around the Samhain fire. Book via becky@squashliverpool.co.uk
You are welcome to this nurturing space and exhibition that weaves together 8-fold land-based rituals, creative processes and practices rooted in the Squash community of gardeners, cooks & artists. At this annual point of endings and beginnings in the Celtic tradition, Autumn Alchemy celebrates what has been planted, grown, gathered, crafted & discovered over the seasonal cycles of sharing life together, on Windsor Street.
Autumn Alchemy is a collaboration with artist Angelica Vanasse who from the autumn of 2022 has worked with community gardeners to develop and deepen creative, nature-based, ritual practices in Squash’s community garden. The exhibition builds on this playful series of art-making sessions that explored human identity and our place in urban nature.
This site-specific installation will evolve through activation, with the contributing artists responding to the space through their own creative processes. It is also a contemplative space of welcome, creativity, wellbeing and participation; Alchemy in Action.
Alchemy in Action will be taking place throughout the exhibition opening hours and will take different forms. This will include artists exploring through drawing, painting with natural inks & working with fire, plants & the weather. Come along to witness and take part in this unfolding creative gathering.
When you visit you can get involved in conversations, tastings, intention-setting and connecting with ancestors as we honour the end of the 8-Fold Year and welcome in Samhain, the darker, more wintery half of the year. This is a calm place for stillness, reflection & nurture of the self, within community.
At Squash we embrace the 8-fold year; a celebration of the Earth’s yearly cycle of change – life, death, growth and transformation. We have annually celebrated the 8-fold year as an activating force & reflective tool supporting the evolution of our 100-Year plan since its inception in 2010, through marking the Quarter points – Winter and Summer Solstices & Spring and Autumn Equinoxes and the Cross Quarter Points that fall at seasonal peaks (the Four Great Fire Festivals) of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. These 8 chapters create the Wheel of the Year that connects us to the continuous cycles and changes in nature and ourselves.
ANGELICA VANASSE – LEAD ARTIST / CREATIVE PRODUCER
BECKY VIPOND – CO-DIRECTOR / CREATIVE PRODUCER
CLARE OWENS – ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / SOCIAL ARTIST
HELLEN SONGA – HORTICULTURAL WORKER / CREATIVE PRACITIONER
JACKIE SWANSON – HORTICULTURAL LEAD / CREATIVE PRODUCER
JASON HUGHES – HORTICULTURAL TEAM / CREATIVE PRACTITIONER
With the Grapes Community Gardeners & SQUASH TEAM
‘The old Celtic festivals fall at eight points during the year, and are a means by which we can connect to the Earth’s passing seasons and acknowledge the way this resonates within ourselves, as part of the natural world.’ – Glennie Kindred, Sacred Earth Celebration
Join in our annual harvest auction where great Liverpool-grown fruit & veg and homemade treats will be up for grabs! Come along for a magical eve of comedy & fun, and help raise funds for great local good causes: More info here. Free/ Suggested donation £3.75
On this Autumn Equinox day, come and find your equinox balance! Join in by dancing while cooking up a big feast to share! Add your autumn offering to the altar, sip a fresh herbal tea, and enjoy a gentle chat around the fire. Come to cook from 11am-1pm. Feast from 2pm Book your free spot via clare@squashliverpool.co.uk
Learn about the important work of seed saving by joining in our annual Seed Save – a key part of the food growing cycle – saving seeds from food crops grown this year to sow next year. Join Squash gardeners to sort, clean & pack seeds to replenish the Toxteth Seed Library, established 10 years ago to keep a vital seed store & exchange alive in L8. Drop by and say hi or stay for a while and help in this gentle process.
Join Squash cooks to make seasonal ferments & preserves using vegetables that would otherwise go to waste. Booking essential via clare@squashliverpool.co.uk Suggested donation £10/£6. Some free spaces for Squash members/L8 residents who’re currently unemployed/on low incomes
Come celebrate Lughnasadh / Lammas; the Gaelic fire festival marking the first harvest. We’ll be picking the wheat we planted in spring, making dough to cook in the earth oven and breaking bread together in the Grapes Community Food Garden. Join us for music, chats round the fire and delicious tastes from the garden. Bring your own harvest offerings for the Lughnasadh altar and your own rituals of the season to share.
Also, gather around the Solidarity Tablecloth, sewn by many stitchers lead by artist Tabitha Moses on view for the first time, culminating our Solidarity Banquets project for Eurostreets, the community programme for Eurovision.
Squash’s artistic director Clare Owens said; ‘We’re excited to be working on the legacy solidarity tablecloth this summer, which will be an enduring demonstration of the welcome and support that Liverpudulians have shown Ukrainians arriving to the region and will also share a universal message of solidarity. Beautifully crafted by many hands, it will be an illustration of people working together and standing side by side with those facing oppression.’
The gardeners & cooks of the Grapes Community Food Garden welcome you to explore and relax in our beautiful urban paradise! There’ll be garden tours, live music, garden crafts, delicious food made from garden produce and great company! Bring your friends and family for a lovely summer afternoon!
