National Allotments Week highlighted the benefits of growing your own produce regardless of gender and age – but it’s not just people who benefit.  At Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park on Pershore Road, the animals tuck into home-grown fruit, veg and herbs all year round. From lemon balm, lovage and lettuce to blackberries and bamboo, the meerkats, monkeys, lemurs and lynx all enjoy a healthy diet with food grown just whiskers away in the park’s Eco-Garden!

How do you get a tech loving child to step away from the game consoles and tablets and start making memories this summer? Get a dog! A survey by Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, found that parents cite** the family dog as a distraction for kids that are ordinarily glued to tech, 42% say the family take more exercise thanks to the pet dog and (44%) think their dog is their child’s best friend.

John Smith's is launching a campaign that is truly out of this world. The best selling ale brand has acquired the first ever pint shaped constellation, made up from 100 stars in the night sky, and is giving ordinary British blokes with extraordinary talents the chance to own one of them.

Dedicated services designed to eradicate homophobic, biphobic and transphobic (HBT) bullying from the classroom to the playground are up and running in Midlands. Three schemes will be run by Educate and Celebrate, the Anne Frank Trust and The National Children’s Bureau after being awarded money from a £2 million government fund specifically aimed at finding innovative ways to help prevent and eradicate the problem in schools across the country.

Parachuting teddies, a Poldark evening and sheep racing are just a few of the entries highlighting the creativity and broad-appeal in church insurer Ecclesiastical and Church Times’ Church Fundraising Idea of the Year Competition 2015. The nation-wide competition sets out to reward the best initiatives that have helped churches and other places of worship to raise much needed money to support their activities, building works, maintenance, etc. The top prize is £10,000, with five runner-up prizes of £2,000.