Case Study: Defence Gardens Scheme
Sally Coulthard, former Army Officer and founder of the Defence Gardens Scheme, shares her experience working with the Scottish Tech Army (STA) to establish their website and meet legal requirements. Volunteers Lauren Kennedy and Jason Wan provided invaluable support with website structuring, search engine optimisation, privacy notices, GDPR compliance, newsletter setup, and social media channels. The assistance received from the volunteers made a significant difference in setting up a professional showcase for the Defence Garden Scheme and proved to be an excellent communication vehicle.
View the transcript below:
Good morning. My name is Sally Coulthard. I'm a former Army Officer, and I am the founder and CEO of the Defence Garden Scheme. I spent a career in the military, initially in education and training, and then moving into personnel strategy, and in particular, looking at the policies for looking after the wounded, injured and sick. The Defense Garden Scheme was established in November 2020. On my retirement from the army, while I was transitioning, I studied social and therapeutic culture. And in particular, I was awarded a Churchill fellowship and I went to the United States and to Scandinavia to study nature based therapy for the Danish and American armies. This gave me a great insight into the support that it can provide for military personnel who are struggling with transition.
And as a result, in November 2020, I established the Defence Garden Scheme. So the problem I came to Scottish Tech Army with was to establish our website, just around the launch in two years ago though nearly three years ago now in 2020. So I needed help for both establishing a professional showcase for the Defence Garden Scheme, but also in particular, for the legal requirements around privacy and GDPR.
The volunteers that helped me were Lauren Kennedy. And then when she moved on to another project, Jason Wan, they provided assistance initially with the structuring of the website. But in particular, in the bit that was very helpful for me, because it was a whole new world was the sort of back engine support the search engine optimization, the Privacy Notices, GDPR, establishing our newsletter, with all of those relevant safeguards, and our social media channels, of which we have a LinkedIn channel and an Instagram. Both of those have proved very successful, we now have over 800 followers for LinkedIn, and over 400, for Instagram.
Well, as you've heard, it clearly made an enormous difference at the start of setting up a new charity. There's obviously an awful lot involved. So to have that expertise behind me and that confidence that we were setting up a professional showcase shop window for DGS was very helpful. And then it has proved and is proving an excellent communication vehicle. For as we as the network grows, new stakeholders and new gardens and new beneficiaries, understanding what we do across the country.
I'm delighted to say we're just starting obviously the growing season this spring season, we deliver our 10 week programme twice a year starting in the spring and the autumn. For this spring, we have six major gardens delivering our services across the United Kingdom. And I'm delighted to say that we're just launching our first garden in Edinburgh, the Linburn Walled garden, we have an Open Day on March the 23rd. And we start service delivery on April the 20th.
As you can hear, it's been a great support to us as a small not for profit. And the support I got from the two volunteers was was reliable and professional. And in particular, I think very enjoyable because they both engaged with the project. They both believed, once they started to understand what we were trying to do, they identified with it. And that made it very enjoyable. Both for them I think and but certainly for me.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank formally thank our funders. We have two major funders from the military charity community, the Armed Forces covenant fund trust and the Veterans foundation. Without their support, there's no question that the network would not be delivering in the way that it now is.
