MERRY MOOS FARM PROJECT CIC
Our objectives
We are newly created CIC NOT For PROFIT which stands for a COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY WE ARE REGISTERED WITH COMPANY HOUSE 13485416 So everything that is raised or earned will go straight back to the project. The CIC is a new concept created by the charity commission to fill a void we did not have the income to become a Registered charity there are now a lot of CIC doing a lot of good work.
The background to the CIC was created at the end of June with two other people I had run my own farming business for 25 years as a female farmer but had worked in farming for a total of 34 years with other things thrown in, due to a personnel blip in April. I decided to take stock of what I could give back to other people I had been very fortunate to have worked outdoors and felt that due to covid there had been a huge impact on people well-being.
We wanted to create something that would allow people from older adults from 60-85 plus that they feel when they get to a certain age their skill set has no more value I looked about in the county that I’m looking to create this project which is in Dorset.
People are now opening up their farms to be used as care farms they allow activities for different groups to come onto the farm to help with social isolation well-being mental health.
This would be run along the lines of a working care farm for the improvement of peoples well-being social isolation with a large animal sanctuary running parallel to the farm it has been very well documented that handling animals even giving a pat or a hug can greatly improve someones well- being some people can relate to animals rather than people so the sanctuary part of the project would be ideal for them.
There is nothing for ladies there is a project for the gentleman to go and socialize we wanted to provide a host of activity’s whereby they could come and take part.
There is no reason why we could not include people on low income that are struggling with finance and going to spend quality time on a project like this would be way out of their budget so once up and running there would be no cost involved.
We would also look to include people that have a disability and we would like to work with organisations that work with ex-service personnel that might like to send their clients somewhere different that would provide different activity’s onsite.
Although if someone contacted us and felt that they would benefit from spending time outdoors then we would look to include them, there is a new thing which is called a social prescription whereby someone with mild depression can go to their GP rather than they just give them more tablets they could ask to have a social prescription to come and spend quality time improving their well-being making new friends be it human or animal.
There is nothing like this in Dorset which we would very much like to achieve it would help a huge number of people, So yes this project does matter a lot.
Our activities
- The activities which would be available to the clients would range from Above ground planter for growing vegetables growing in ploy tunnels Milking some quiet jerseys cows the milk would then be turned into soap and cheese and the clients can help at each step along the way.
- Helping with putting bird bat and owl boxes around the farm helping to create a small wildlife area for the wild native birds and mammals.
- Planting native trees species and some fruit trees.
- Bees would be introduced and the honey cones can be turned into liquid honey the clients can assist with this process.
- A large animal sanctuary would run parallel with the small working farm it has been a well-document that handling animals even given a pat a hug has a huge impact on the well-being of people there are some people that cannot interact with people but can with animals so this part of the project would greatly help them.
- Chickens would be introduced and allowed to be free-range so one of the morning activities could be hunting the eggs as some of the chicken has a tendency to lay somewhere other than the nest boxes and when they decide to stop laying then they can retire to the sanctuary.
- There will be basic cooking lessons provided
- And activity, when it's too cold and wet outdoors, can be found indoors.
- We need to get there first a lot of people think its a very worth project we just need help to get it to this point