Derbyshire farm shop Croots has created two special sausages to mark the upcoming Rugby World Cup and to raise cash for the farm shop’s adopted charity.

Croots Scrummy Sausage and Croots Scrumpy Sausage are the latest in a long line of original bangers invented to celebrate sporting occasions and follows its ‘Olympig sausages’ and its football-inspired ‘Bangerooney’ sausage.

Now the farm shop near Duffield has launched two new flavours of sausage in celebration of the Rugby World Cup, which kicks off on 18^th September.

Global car giant Toyota is the latest member to sign up to the ‘Made in Derbyshire’ campaign celebrating everything that’s great about the county.

A Derby brewery has smashed through its £5,000 crowd funding target after receiving a £2,500 pledge from local farm shop Croots.

Pub entrepreneurs George Lambert and Walter Scott, who own a micropub in Derby and a pub in Burton, launched the appeal in the hope of raising £5,000 to grow their original venture, Wentwell Brewery.

The pair ran the crowd funding appeal through Crowdfunder, a website that allows the public to donate money in return for rewards….in this case ale.

Croots Farm Shop has struck gold in this year’s Great Taste Awards, with gold stars for a trio of products.

Croots sloe gin earned two gold stars and the label of ‘outstanding’, with judges saying: “Beautiful looking sloe gin, great colour and lovely ‘on the nose’.”

The drink is made by Croots Farm Shop owner Steve Croot from sloes collected around Farnah House Farm, in Wirksworth Road, Duffield, where the farm shop is based.

We liked the ideas behind this month's poem by Frances Fermer and thought it would be a good choice for the summer holidays.  Frances says of it:

I wrote this poem on holiday in Scotland in February 2015 after watching a beautiful sunset over Loch Ailort.  I stood outside the car in the cold for as long as I could as I did not want to lose any of the beauty of the moment.  It reminded me of other times when I had felt the same sense of wonder. - Frances

Sunset Question

Buxton Festival Fringe has become the 500th member to sign up to the ‘Made in Derbyshire’ campaign celebrating everything that’s great about the county.

Derbyshire County Council is a lead partner in the campaign working with other local councils, cultural groups and tourism organisations to promote and boost the local economy through its products, culture, festivals and sporting events.

Local arts and music groups are being encouraged to sign up alongside businesses, museums and tourist destinations – and Buxton Festival Fringe is the 500^th to sign up.

An international project which will link visual and dance artists in Derby and India’s fastest growing city Vadodara has been launched thanks to Arts Council England (ACE) support.

Normanton-based visual arts charity Artcore and Derby-based regional dance house Déda applied for development funding from ACE to launch the project ‘Derby to Vadodara and Back’.

Having secured £30,000, representatives from Derby will be visiting Vadodara in October where they will meet leaders from arts organisations and the region’s university to finalise the project.

Business students at Derby College will be working with the UK’s leading designers of triathlon wetsuits, apparel and accessories thanks to a new partnership initiative.

Students enrolling on the BTEC level three Business course at the College this September will have the chance to join the new Huub Marketing and Product Development Academy.

Students will gain valuable work experience at Derby-based Huub Design, take part in marketing and product development projects and will have a guaranteed interview with the growing company at the end of their two-year course.

Support is gathering pace for an innovative creative project led by East Midlands’ professional orchestra Sinfonia Viva to win a prestigious National Lottery Award.

Sinfonia Viva, based in Derby, is up against six other creative projects across the UK to clinch the Award.  It is in recognition of the success of its ‘Dark Clouds are Smouldering into Red’ education project which, last year, commemorated the 100^th anniversary of the start of World War One.

I'm Chris Seddon, a professional photographer who recently moved back to Derbyshire after living and working in London for a year where I started working with a number of London businesses to create a 'Day in the Life' photographic service for artisans, craftspeople and small businesses.