CFGN x LWA: South East: Urban-Rural Exchange + Autumn Gathering

On Saturday 7th November, Community Food Growers’ Network (CFGN) and Landworkers’ Alliance South East are co-hosting an Autumn Gathering, welcoming existing, past and future members to exchange knowledge from urban and rural settings. 

We are bringing our communities together at Sutton Community Farm for a day of conversation, practical learning and connection around one of the challenges that affected many of us this year: climate extremes

Join us for a day of practical advice, discussion, knowledge sharing and, as always, lots of time to connect with each other. We’ll be exploring :

🥕Landwork in hot weather: what has helped us keep our plants, crops (and ourselves!) growing in the heat this challenging season

✊ Thinking about workers’ rights and organising in the heat: what can we do to stay safe at work during heatwaves, and how can we organise collectively for better protections? A peer-to-peer discussion for both workers and employers wishing to nurture healthier working conditions together, sharing experiences, concerns and generating ideas for better practices.

🌍 Tackling climate myths and misinformation: Hate Out of Farming (HOOF) “noticeboard” - share your experiences with the organising team, and find some helpful resources.

Time: 10.30am - 3.30pm. Lunch will be provided.
Place: Sutton Community Farm, 40a Telegraph Track, Wallington SM6 0SH link

More about our Urban-Rural Exchange Programme:
Over the last 5 years, we've been asking and listening to what urban and rural growers, dwellers and workers in our regions want from our networks, and now have funding from Farming The Future to respond to this! Our Urban-Rural Exchange Programme focuses on exchanging skills and knowledge across growing settings and environments, alongside exploring Anti-Oppression in land work. We would love to hear from you about what would support you, your project and your community in this. We seek to hold an emergent space, shaped by what you bring, and what we make together.

Schedule for the day 

• 10.30am - 11am // arrivals, teas and coffees (feel free to join us from 10am)

• 11am - 11.15 // Welcome, housekeeping, team intros, mutual care

• 11.15 am - 12.15 // Session 1 Growing in climate extremes - workshop and peer-to-peer sharing

• 12.15 - 1.00pm: Lunch

• 1.00 - 2.00 pm: Session 2 - Sutton Community Farm tour

• 2.00 - 2.15: 15 mins break

• 2.15 - 3pm:  Session 3 Working in climate extremes - workshop, peer-to-peer sharing experiences, concerns and generating ideas for better practices

• 3.00 - 3.30: wrap up, hang out, AOB’s, shout outs

It is really important to us to make this gathering as accessible as possible, this includes physical, sensory, linguistic, financial, neurological, cultural, social and emotional access, however, as we’re meeting at a working farm, we may be a bit more restricted than some of our other recent gatherings.

Please get in touch with us if you have any specific questions about access and we will do what we can to try to make this event as accessible as possible for you. info@cfgn.org.uk // 07952003624. You can also add a note of this when you sign-up.

For example, if a lift from the bus/station would make this event more accessible for you, please let us know when you sign-up as this could be arranged.

In addition:

• We will have a welfare support person in the space. Please ask our team on the day if you need some support.

• This will be a dry event (without alcohol, with other delicious drink options)

• Children are welcome to attend. We’re visiting a working farm so we may not be able to offer childcare, more info will follow regarding this next week. At the very least, children will be welcome with a supervising adult and we'll do our best to offer some child-friendly activities.
  

Covid policy 

As part of our commitment to resilient communities, we have a covid policy in place to practice collective care and solidarity. We recognise that the pandemic is a mass disabling event, that has disproportionately affected BPOC and disabled communities.

We ask in the spirit of solidarity and disability justice that you DON’T attend if you have any covid symptoms or feel unwell/have symptoms you believe may be contagious.

We ask that you test before coming and encourage mask wearing during the gathering if you feel comfortable doing so. We will provide masks and ensure air flow through the indoor spaces, so please bring extra layers to stay warm with open windows.

If you have any questions or suggestions around this or any accessibility points, please get in touch. 

Safer Spaces 

We are working together to ensure that this is a non-oppressive, respectful and accessible space. We have a Safer Spaces Policy adapted from the LWA’s 2021 AGM - feel free to add your comments, thoughts and ideas to this. We are also creating a safer spaces skillshare /tool kit where attendees and organisers can propose different strategies for bringing the policy and intentions to life.

Food and Drink 

We will be providing lunch and refreshments. 

Tickets

The tickets are priced as a contribution towards lunch costs, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. We have a number of free tickets if anyone needs one - email info@cfgn.org.uk to request one

Ticket Options (all include lunch) 

• Standard ticket -£6

• ‘Gift it forward’ standard ticket + ticket donation -£12

• Solidarity ticket (supported ticket if finance is a barrier to attending) - £2

• Free child ticket - £0

• We have a number of free tickets if anyone needs one - email info@cfgn.org.uk to request one

Transport bursaries + Lift sharing

We encourage LWA SE members coming from afar to travel together. The LWA South East organising team can cover travel to the event - please email southeastengland@landworkersalliance.org.uk to let the team know you need support with travel costs. Travel bursaries will be issued as an expense claim after you pay for fuel/transport, so we’ll need you to provide a photo of receipts and bank details. The travel bursary will either cover the full amount or a portion of your claim, depending on how many requests we receive.

We have set up a lift-share document (link) for attendees to self-organise and travel together. Please carefully read the instructions and do not give out other peoples’ contact details without seeking consent first. We will delete this form after the event.

Getting there
Please note: Sutton has two entrances
Woodmansterne Lane:

• Directly opposite Flitton’s Plant Nursery - 51 Woodmansterne Lane SM6 0SW
• Walk through the gate in the hedge and follow the woodchip path to the main area 
• What 3 Words: banana.down.gently

Telegraph Track:

• This entrance is at 40a Telegraph Track SM6 0SH
• This is the postal address, and where you might be directed if you follow Google instructions to the farm
• This entrance is harder to find, and could take you the long way around

Public Transport
The closest train stations are Wallington, Carshalton, or Purley.
The 127 bus drops you at Woodcote Green, opposite Wallington High School for Girls. It’s then a 10-15 minute walk up Woodmansterne Lane.
If cycling to the farm, you can safely leave your bike in our main activity area.

Parking
Please note, there is no public parking on the farm. If you are driving, please park on Woodmansterne Lane (SM6 0SW). Please ensure that all four of your tires are on the road and not the grass to avoid any fines from the council

A little about our shared history…

CFGN and LWA South East have been working together to organise events and gatherings since 2021. We formed a partnership in 2022 to formally combine our efforts in the region. We have come together with a shared set of values, and a shared vision to support an agroecological movement which incorporates both urban and rural actors. We aim to achieve this vision by sharing knowledge, resources and benefits across our combined communities and memberships.

In September 2024 we produced a Partnership Proposal (which you can read here), and we invited feedback from our combined members, asking what they wanted to see from the partnership in future. Through this gentle, gradual, collective process, we have developed ‘The Urban Rural Exchange’, a 1.5 year long funded project, which launched in April 2026