Appendices #3

#3 Introduction Letter
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a mature student pursuing a Masters Degree in advanced environmental studies and energy at the Center for Alternative Technology/University of East London Graduate School of the Environment.
I am interested in finding out what factors are most effective in promoting and supporting households in Sheffield in growing their own food in gardens, back yards and allotments. I am asking many in your neighborhood as well as in several other neighborhoods in Sheffield to please fill out the enclosed questionnaire. It shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to complete. I will choose 20 to 25 representative households for follow up based on the results of this questionnaire. Of course it is up to you if you want to participate. If you are selected and agree to participate your household will have an opportunity to;
• be assessed for growing potential and current growing activities. This will involve measuring growing space, rating solar resource, and noting gardening related activities.
• be provided with a list of existing food growing support available to you as well as book recommendations and gardening tips.
You will also be;
• interviewed once in person for no more than 3/4 hour and once on the phone, both of which will be recorded,
• asked to fill in a follow-up questionnaire.
• Re-assessed, as in the first assessment, to determine any level of change in behaviour at the end of the trial period, which will be 2 to 3 months.
Please be assured that no personal details will be shared from this research and no respondents will be identified by name or address in the final report. Also any questions you find objectionable at any stage of the research can be ignored.
If you are happy to be involved in this study please fill in the questionnaire and mail it back to me within the next week. Even if you don’t want to participate in the in-depth study, which you can indicate on the form, the questionnaire alone will be useful to me and I would very much appreciate it if you would fill it in and send it back. Remember, you may skip any question which you do not wish to answer.
Yours faithfully,
C. Robb Worthington crobbw@gmail.com