Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST) is a horticulture, gardening and management of urban open space charity, based in Bankside, the southern bank by the River Thames, Southwark, Central London, England. BOST services clients in London and supports and inspires people of local communities and organisations, among others Tate Modern community garden, to improve, create and enjoy the parks, gardens, green spaces, and, passive and active recreation areas. The charity supports and services a broad and thriving network of parks, community managed green spaces and open spaces groups to carry out consultation, fundraise and oversee improvements. BOST has supported residents with choosing new play equipment, bespoke garden design and developing new areas, making accessible improvements and re-landscaping. BOST helps to initiate and run community gardening clubs, award small grants for local horticulture projects and both organises and hires out parks and open spaces for celebratory public and private events. BOST has set up a community garden resource centre with a pond and encourages people to grow their own food - vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and bushes - through 'edible projects', utilising raised-bed gardening and planting. They also provide informal horticultural training, landscape maintenance, garden maintenance, grounds maintenance and gardening work experience in the local parks, gardens and open spaces. History Founded in 2000, the charitable work of BOST is based in Red Cross Garden, London's first pocket park and an 1887 Victorian creation of Octavia Hill, the English social reformer and Hill also championed providing green and open spaces to people, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on as well as was one of the three founders of the National Trust. Two key early supporters of BOST (particularly in inspiring London-based companies to contribute to and support their local open spaces) were Vicky Lawrence, who was the first BOST Executive Director, having previously helped to set up the Community Chest Grant Scheme for local people in 1998 and Norman Powell, a Co-Founder & Trustee of BOST. The former MP Simon Hughes who represented Bermondsey and Old Southwark for 32 years commented in his preface to the launch of BOST's June 2002 publication "In My Backyard - Growing a sense of place in Bankside" that 'Life is increasingly pressured and a rush. To enjoy the city in all its infinite variety means that our open spaces need as many of us as possible to