Sound Beginnings

Yesterday the Concert for Babies and Young Children took place at Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre, part of the 2010 Newbury Spring Festival.

The Sheepdrove Trust sponsor the Sound Beginnings programme, which holds concerts here each year.

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Still to come this weekend we are hosting two more classical music treats on Sunday 16 May – the Sheepdrove Piano Competition Final at 2pm and then in the evening, a recital by Russian pianist Mikhail Kazakevich begins at 7.30pm.

Book your tickets online now!

• Sheepdrove Piano Competition Final (afternoon)

• Mikhail Kazakevich – piano (evening)

Alternatively make your booking by calling the Newbury Corn Exchange – Tel: 01635 522733

Please watch our Forthcoming Events page for more excellent reasons to plan a trip to the Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre located in the heart of the Lambourn Downs.

Last chance to see The Nutcracker

The candles are lit, the majestic grand pianos are poised on stage, the nutcrackers are stood to attention. But have you booked your place?

Here’s your last chance to buy tickets to see a unique concert performance of the famous Tchaikovsky story THE NUTCRACKER. There are just a few tickets left, and only 3 performances. If you’re lucky you might get in…

View the Oak Room

Come and experience a musical storytelling in the dramatic setting of the Oak Room in the Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre. The venue is easily reached from the nearest villages and towns including Lambourn, Hungerford, Newbury, Wantage or even Oxford.

Live and untamed

Maxine Parsons the event organiser says, “We have lots of local families coming. They love the fact that this countryside venue gives their children a chance to enjoy live classical music that they otherwise would not experience. You can feel the music through the floor – it’s untamed, not moderated on an mp3 player.”

“The music is beautifully arranged for 2 pianos and a narrator, and it is to be presented by internationally acclaimed musicians, Mikhail Kazakevich, Elena Zozina and Richard Morris. We devised this original event for these very few 2009 pre-Christmas performances.”

Performance times & inclusive refreshments:

Fri 4 Dec – 6pm mulled wine and buffet supper. Performance at 7.30pm.

Sat 5 Dec – 2pm afternoon performance – followed by high tea.

Sat 5 Dec – 6pm mulled wine and buffet supper. Performance at 7.30pm.

Suitable for children over 7 years of age. Browse our conference centre gift shop during your visit, and place your Christmas Turkey orders!

Tickets: £12 per adult, £8 per child
For bookings please call 01488 674737

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at Food for Life 2009 Awards

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall dishes out school food awards
Yesterday, ethical and sustainable food hero Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall presented Food for Life Partnership Silver and Gold Awards to schools, who have excelled in creating a healthy and climate-friendly food culture within their schools and communities.

The ceremony took place at Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said: “What makes this project so inspiring is the way that young people in more than a thousand schools are now learning about real food in a hands-on way, growing and cooking it themselves and even rearing their own chickens! I would urge the Government to do more to encourage all schools to follow their lead.”

Children and teachers took tours of Sheepdrove Organic Farm – seeing the Organic Free-Range Turkeys just before the birds go on their Christmas holidays. Our award-winning guests ate in the unique Eco Conference Centre dining room and took foodie lessons in the marvellous Food for Life cooking bus!

Find out more about Food for Life

More love than ever

We have seen more weddings than ever this year, and still the list of enquiries grows with couples calling us up to two years in advance of the big day!

Sheepdrove provides the discerning bride and groom with an unforgettable alternative wedding venue. Our eco-friendly building is adorned with art and surrounded by a stunning landscape, high on the Berkshire Downs. People fall in love with the place when they come to see it. The Oak Room – the ceremonial hall – takes your breath away. Its high timber arches are topped with a line of windows at the peak of the room. The Dining Room has two levels and a spiral staircase. Outdoors the courtyard awaits and the heavenly fragrances of the herb garden.

Wedding photographers enjoy the place, too. Take a peek at some pictures by Paul Glavin and A Little Different Photography.

Sheepdrove Eco Conference Centre’s full-time job, as it were, is to be a beautiful countryside meeting place for businesses, our daily client set who return again and again for the excellent service, gorgeous cuisine, and the inimitable setting.

But on very special Saturdays, we have enjoyed hosting some very wonderful weddings. To make yours one of them, please call our friendly team on 01488 674737 and ask for a viewing. 

 More details on our website…

Breaking the Silence

Saturday night’s premiere of Breaking the Silence was a fantastic success! Liz Rothschild carried off a marvellous performance of a cleverly crafted script – highly evocative – offering the audience a tangible sense of the life of Rachel Carson and what it meant for her to break the silence surrounding the impact of pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s.

Liz Rothschild wrote the play as well as performing it solo. This makes her Breaking the Silence all the more impressive, and the small production team have done a wonderful job of realising this production. Simple props on an open stage allow your imagination to complete the experience, while subtle sounds carry you back to Rachel Carson’s landlocked childhood and to the coast where she found a passion for the sea – the subject of her first books.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring – which nearly didn’t get published because chemical companies threatened to sue – opened the eyes of ordinary Americans to the destruction being caused by the profiligate use of pesticides and a whole range of chemicals. The Rachel Carson in Liz Rothschild’s play shows us why this truth is still relevant to us today. Not just by stating scientific facts, but also with emotional devices, such as swimming with Belugas. A beautiful image tainted by our awareness that these whales have developed cancer as they swim in waters we pollute.

See the play
Breaking the Silence is now on tour, so catch a performance as soon as you can. Don’t go to be ‘converted’ to eco-friendly ideas, go to enjoy an unusual and intelligent play. Discover dates and your nearest venue here.

“You have the right to be free of pesticide pollution” – discuss!
You don’t, actually. Read why Georgina Downs of the UK Pesticides Campaign and organisations like PAN (Pesticide Action Network) campaign to give you this right, by visiting their websites:

• http://www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk/ 
• http://www.pan-uk.org/

Georgina Downs’ presentation after the play premiere gave a complete overview of the inadequacies of pesticide policy, why they fail to protect people from pesticides, and what needs to be done in order to give people the high level of protection they deserve. Then Georgina, Laura Potts and Liz Rothschild held a panel discussion. We took a short video clip (below) of the very end, just as they suggested that they expect helpful legislation to trickle down from the European Commission. Laura and Georgina felt that the precautionary principle – the idea that pesticide users should prove low risk before they are allowed to spray – is taken more seriously in Europe.