Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks

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Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks

A New Home for Company Drinks – see our Kickstarter campaign here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/797601

Until 60 years ago thousands of east Londoners travelled to farms in Kent each summer for a working holiday picking hops. What would happen if Londoners today grew and harvested crops, produced drinks and set-up their own company? This is what the Company project has been set up to do. Developed by international artist group Myvillages and led by artist Kathrin Böhm, the project will establish a

self-sustaining community drinks co-operative in Barking and Dagenham, owned and run by local residents. This summer the project will be running a wide range of activities from hop- picking reminiscence sessions to fruit harvest trips, cola and lemonade making workshops and farm visits. The project website with all the details will go live on Monday 21st July but you can find some information on our holding page www.c-o-m-p-a-n-y.info

The full range of drinks will be launched later in the year and the profit from the sales will set the foundation for a new community enterprise. The project is open to everyone in Barking and Dagenham including those who remember hop picking, who like to garden, and young people with business ambition or an interest in making drinks and catering. Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks is a project by international artist group Myvillages delivered in partnership with Create and supported by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

17/08/2026

Tending and looking after our pavilion together 🧹🪣🔧

This wonderful building gives us space for the different things we wand to do - from sharing knowledge to socialising, running art and craft and well-being sessions for all ages, making drinks and development reciped, meeting and reflecting and planning, resting and being in good company.

Together with the collective we organised a day for the pavilion and took on the to do list

📚 sort out bookshelf
🚪paint doors
🔧sort tool cupboard
🖼️ refresh the art display
🧹 tidy and tend

Thank you to everyone who came

Art From The Start.
Sarina Mantle Visual + Sound Artist
Jacqui Mann

14/08/2026

Another successful couple of weeks of our Explore the Wild HAF program.

A fun filled (very warm) time!

Thank you to our facilitators, our play coordinators and our brilliant food team.

How wonderful to spend time together, eat together and explore together.

🌳🍂🌸🌤️🥑🥕

12/08/2026

Two days of apples this weekend, and you're welcome at both.
Sat 15 Aug, 12-3pm. Valence House Orchard, Becontree Avenue, Dagenham RM8 3HT. A drop-in session in the orchard. Come and have a go at pressing apples into juice with our scratter and press, and have a chat with the ranger about how the orchard is looked after through the year. The apples will already be harvested, so it's all hands on the press. There's a cafe on site for drinks and snacks.
Sun 16 Aug, 12-3pm. Eastbury Manor House Museum, Eastbury Square, Barking IG11 9SN. We'll head into the orchard together to pick crab apples, learn a bit about these small, sharp fruits and what they're good for, then press what we've gathered into fresh juice to share out. Whether you're new to picking or you've been out with us before, there's a place for you.

07/08/2026

🖤 BLACKBERRY PICKING 🖤

Wednesday saw us out at Eastbrookend Country Park with a wonderful community group, picking blackberries for our next batch of community cordial.

There's something really grounding about moving slowly through a hedgerow, working out where the ripest berries are hiding and reaching in carefully past the thorns, taking your time so you don't get caught. We talked about it as we picked, how it makes you slow right down and pay attention to what's in front of you, which is half the joy of the whole thing.

We tasted as we went, properly tasted, not just the odd one, everyone was reaching for the sweetest looking berries and comparing notes on which bush was giving the best ones. Some went straight in mouths and plenty more went in the buckets for the pot.

New faces and familiar ones out together in the sun, swapping recipes, sharing why picking wild fruit means something to them, and coming away with stained fingers and full buckets.

Thank you to everyone who came and picked with us on the day, your berries are going towards our next community cordial for everyone to enjoy.
More cordial updates soon, keep your eyes on our newsletter 🖤

IMAGE ID 1 a close up of ripe and unripe blackberries on a bramble, some black and ready to pick, some still red

IMAGE ID 2 a man in a hat picking berries from behind a bush

IMAGE ID 3 a hand stained deep red from blackberry juice holds a pair of secateurs over a bucket of picked berries

IMAGE ID 4 a group of people stand together smiling, holding buckets and baskets of freshly picked blackberries

IMAGE ID 5 a group of people walk together along a dry grass path through the park under a cloudy sky

IMAGE ID 6 a bucket filled with freshly picked blackberries sits on a table next to a blue water bottle

IMAGE ID 7 a man in a green shirt reaches up to inspect a plant among tall grass and hedgerow, holding secateurs

21/07/2026

Save the Date 📍

Join us for our annual Community Open Day on Saturday 12 September, 12–5pm 🌱☀️🌱

Come and spend an afternoon with us celebrating the many different things that make Company Drinks what it is.

Organised together with the Dandelion Circles, this day is all about bringing people together, sharing skills, stories, food, ideas, and spending time in good company.

Our pavilion and garden will be open and full of activities, conversations, and opportunities to get involved. Meet the Company Drinks team and the Dandelion Circles—a network of local artists, organisers, gardeners, makers, historians, crafters, food lovers, and community-minded neighbours.

There’ll be plenty to join in with, reflecting what we do throughout the year: from collective harvesting and communal cooking to caring for our wellbeing and shared green spaces, exploring art and nature, and finding ways to learn, make, and grow together.

Whether you’re a long-time friend of Company Drinks or visiting for the first time, we’d love to see you there.
This is a free event and everyone is welcome.

If you’d like to volunteer, share a skill, host an activity, or contribute an idea, send us a DM or email: [email protected]

09/07/2026

Sunday was Scything Day with long-time Company Drinks friend and supporter Ida Fabrizio 🌱☀️

Ida is passionate about making reconnection with nature accessible to everyone and addressing what many describe as our growing nature deficit. At a time when so much of our relationship with the land is mediated by screens, machines and speed, scything offers a different approach: slowing down, paying attention, and working in direct partnership with the living landscape.

Ida’s session introduced this traditional tool and technique, a beautifully simple, low-tech practice that requires no electricity, fossil fuels, large machinery or extensive safety equipment. Instead, it relies on skill, rhythm and an embodied understanding of place.

The scythe – in this case the Austrian scythe – is a sustainable tool for managing meadows, shrubland and even young woodland. As conversations around biodiversity loss, ecological restoration and more regenerative ways of caring for land become increasingly urgent, traditional practices like scything have much to teach us.

Ida’s beginner session explored the relationship between the body and the tool, demonstrating a movement that is closer to yoga than force, as well as the art of sharpening and maintaining the blade. We learned how land management can emerge from attentiveness and cooperation.

Grow Club and Dandelion Circles members joined the workshop, and we hope this is just the beginning. Watch this space for future “Meet and Mow” gatherings, where community, care for the land and practical ecological skills come together.

“Scything is like ironing a rainbow on the land” was the phrase that stayed with many of us 🌈

We also managed to make a mini haystack – or, as someone affectionately called it, a hay stackette.

Community scything and haymaking is something Ida and Kathrin have been organising since 2013, mainly on Lammas Land in east London. This year marked the first time the community scything and hay making came to the Company Drinks garden.

04/07/2026

Our mid summer Dandelion Circles gathering was a gentle invitation to slow down, connect, and care for ourselves and each other.

Members of the collective, Sarina Sarina Mantle Visual + Sound Artist and Jacqui Jacqui Mann , generously shared two sessions centred on wellbeing, creating space to pause, breathe, and simply be.

With the pavilion doors wide open, the club room calm, birdsong drifting in and Sunday unfolding around us, the morning softened into midday.

Sarina guided a painting workshop inspired by the biorhythm of a sunflower via PlantWave . Together, we painted with attention on what we could see, hear, and feel in the moment. Time seemed to stretch as we settled into the process, and it was such a joy to see the different paintings at the end.

Jacqui then welcomed us into a deeply restful yoga and sound session, using instruments from her beautiful collection. Surrounded by gentle vibrations and soothing sounds, we were invited to rest, listen, and let go. For a while, it felt as though time no longer mattered. Thank you, Jacqui, for holding such a nourishing space.
🌱🌱🌱🌱

If you’d like to meet more of our members and experience what the community is all about, come along to our Community Open Day on 12 September, 12–5pm.

Sarina and Jacqui will be running drop-in workshops, alongside plenty of other nature-connected, creative, and nourishing activities.

We’d love to welcome you 🌱🌻🌱
The latest programme can be found on our website.

17/04/2026

Picking season is nearly here, and we’re starting to notice the first wild flavours and flowers of spring. These pics show some of what’s around right now: violets, nettles, jack by the hedge, cleavers, bramble shoots and cherry blossom.
Violets bring a soft, pretty splash of colour; nettles are one of the best-known spring greens; jack by the hedge has a fresh, mustardy edge; cleavers are a familiar sticky hedgerow plant; bramble shoots are young and tender at this time of year; and cherry blossom reminds us the season is shifting.
A quick foraging reminder: only pick what you can identify with complete confidence, avoid polluted or sprayed areas, and never eat anything unless you are sure it is safe. If in doubt, leave it out.
Our picking season is just beginning, so keep an eye on our newsletter for future picking dates. 🌿

10/04/2026

Explore the Wild: Family Saturdays begins again tomorrow.

Free family friendly activities. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

1-3pm.

The themes for the upcoming sessions:

Saturday 11th April - Rain Or Shine!
(Sunshine and cloud-themed games - fun whatever the weather!)

Saturday 25th April - Earth Day!
(Celebrate our awesome planet with eco activities)

Saturday 9th May - What a fun-gi!
(Get messy (and inspired) with mushrooms and more)

Saturday 23rd May - Bee Happy
(Arts & Crafts inspired by our busy, buzzy friends for National Bee Day)

Saturday 6th June - Go Fish!
(For World Oceans Days we will be having some splishy, splashy fishy fun)

Saturday 20th June - Summer Solstice Garden Party
(Outdoor games ahoy for our sunny shindig)

Book your place via our website, but also feel free to drop in.

See you there! 🌳 🎨

03/04/2026

Another brilliant week of our Explore the Wild HAF program.

Thanks again to our facilitators:
Lauren Russelink.etc
s

Gratitude for our Explore the Wild team:
pittoni
lovelock

And always a massive thank you to for feeding us all 💚

Address

London

Website

http://www.companydrinks.info/

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