The Country Calling Trust

Dorset’s Homeless: All Year Round, Not Just at Christmas…

It is a cold, bright winter day in Poole, the sun is glinting on the harbour, seagulls screech overhead and the streets are packed with Christmas shoppers. Round the corner in the United Reform Church men of all ages are filing in for a free lunch of baked beans on toast. read more

Harnessing Music to Change the World…

Country Calling throws the spotlight on Superact, a pioneering music and arts charity in Somerset

Superact is a groundbreaking Taunton based charity which harnesses the power of music and art to help disadvantaged people including prison offenders, dementia patients and children with special needs. read more

Jamie’s Cornish Utopia

Jamie Oliver with the current cohort of Fifteen Cornwall apprentices

It is a beautiful bright, sunny day in the height of tourist season and Fifteen Cornwall is packed with families feasting on bacon, eggs and perfect cappuccinos before carting buckets, spades and surfboards onto the two mile golden stretch of sand that is Watergate Bay. read more

Clouds House: Calmly Saving Lives 24/7

Photo Credit: Ken Goff

What an extraordinary place Clouds House is. Built by architect Philip Webb in 1886 for the arty, aristocratic Wyndham family and dubbed the ‘house of the age”, for almost 30 years it’s been a famous rehab centre and now has the Duchess of Cambridge as patron. read more

Please Join the HeadSmart Campaign and Help Save Lives

Join David Langton-Gilks in his inspirational fight to raise awareness of child brain cancer

Country Calling is urging parents across the West Country to support HeadSmart, a campaign promoting awareness of brain cancer symptoms in children. read more

‘Our National Debt’: The Wounded

This image was used for the iconic H4H logo

When the Wiltshire-based charity Help for Heroes launched in October 2007 it seemed to ricochet straight into the public heart, garnering support across the ages and in the highest places. Four years on and £126 million later, meeting the inspirational co-founder Bryn Parry it quickly becomes clear why H4H has become such a success, not only for its legendary fundraising but also for bestowing heroic status on those who risk life and limb for their country. read more

Soldiers On Surf Boards

I caught Rich Emerson, co-founder of Cornwall’s extraordinary Surf Action charity, which teaches wounded war veterans to surf, at the end of a day spent on Gwithian Towans Beach near Hayle. The weather had been too rough for surfing so Rich and 16 ex-military vets spent the day cleaning the beach, drinking coffee at the Sunset Surf Cafe and in his words, ‘chewing the fat.’ Rich says: “You start talking and very quickly you can see who is in a good place and who is not.” read more

Garden Therapy For the Soul

Getting out in the fresh air is an age old cure for the blues. Now a Somerset-based charity has taken it one step further by offering therapeutic gardening sessions to help those suffering from depression. read more

Wardour Workshops

The West Country is stuffed full of artisan businesses frenetically working behind the scenes and Wardour Workshops – makers of exquisite contemporary furniture – is a case in point. The company is buried at the back of an industrial estate in the heart of rural Wiltshire – if you weren’t looking for it, you simply wouldn’t know it was there. Once inside, though, the workshop is a hive of noise-filled activity, planes screeching, sawdust everywhere and some pretty crazy-looking saws slung up on hooks overhead. read more

A spotlight on rural enterprise and charities

At the heart of our site is a dual ambition to connect people who live in the country and promote the benefits of rural living.

The Country Calling Trust is launching specifically to highlight interesting rural businesses and locally based charities which might otherwise remain under the radar.  Many of the businesses featured will offer work placements to sixth formers and school leavers, providing young people with an opportunity to learn new skills and experience the diversity of enterprise in the country. A recent Government report revealed that around 200,000 young people are leaving the countryside each year in search of jobs or housing. Often having left for further education they see no point in returning.

By featuring a diverse selection of organisations – anything from small internet start ups to grass roots charities  - we hope to convince the next generation of entrepreneurs and charity workers to stay put.  Charities and businesses we want to hear from you.

Email info@countrycalling.co.uk

Coming soon: Wardour Workshops – a Dorset based company making handcrafted contemporary furniture