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Tulip festival in Sammatz…
On Saturday and Sunday, Michaelshof celebrated this year’s tulip blossom festival. Thousands and thousands of the colourful and cheerful plants have enchanted the Sammatz gardens with their splendour in recent weeks.
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After the warm sunny days, the natural spectacle had now reached its final climax: many tulips were still in bloom in all areas of the gardens and invited all flower lovers to visit.
Michaelshof thanked the bright heralds of spring with live music, garden tours, a cultural and poetic tulip trail, flower sales, culinary delights and, as always, a wonderful children’s programme.
An event for the whole family – inspired by the good humour of springtime nature!
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Your Event at Michaelshof…
…whether company anniversary, birthday or wedding – we celebrate you!
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Whether it’s a birthday in a small group at a beautifully decorated café table, a confirmation celebration including lunch and coffee with the whole family, or a wedding on a larger scale in one of our celebration locations: we are equipped for all occasions!
We offer everything from breakfast à la carte, a customised breakfast buffet or lunch menu to a coffee break for groups with our delicious cakes. As usual, everything is of the best organic quality and sourced directly from the farm wherever possible.
For a bit of action in between, we offer various guided tours through Michaelshof, depending on what interests you.
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You are planning…
…a birthday party?
We are the perfect place for birthday parties – for coffee & cake or as a day event, it certainly won’t be boring. In good weather, you can also celebrate outside under the parasols in the Café am Michaelshof or in our gardens.
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…a children’s birthday party?
How about a special children’s birthday party? We offer rallies through the Ark Farm and the gardens and prepare a delicious child-friendly menu. Just get in touch with us.
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…a wedding?
We are happy to plan the most beautiful day of your life with you! For weddings with up to 100 guests, we can provide you with modern rooms, cook you a delicious organic wedding menu and even offer a children’s programme if required. The floral decorations are of course designed à la Michaelshof and the perfect photo background is automatically taken care of!
…a company or team-building event?
Is your local company looking for a very special team-building day? Then get in touch with us! We will design a customised day for you, tailored to your needs. You can either fill it with your own workshops on our premises, or you can use our Michaelshof repertoire: input lectures, a guided tour of the Michaelshof project, insights into the bakery, dairy or vegetable farm, or, for example, a workshop on the question ‘What does community have to do with our company?
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…a coach trip?
Coach groups are very welcome! We will show you around the Michaelshof grounds and prepare coffee and cake. Most of the gardens are wheelchair accessible and can be explored with a walking frame. Please book your trip at least 1 week in advance so that we can cater for a larger group.
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…another individual event?
Your event was not listed? No problem at all! Simply contact us with all your ideas for a successful event and we’ll be sure to find a good suggestion.
Feel free to contact us by email at info@sammatz.de or by phone on 05858 970-30.
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Farmyard animal festival
– a short report!
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At the beginning of April we celebrated the first farmyard animal festival of the year and it was really nice! Our Ark animals were happy to be petted so much and the whole family got had lots of fun.
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For the adults there was lots of information about the farm animals, especially during the farm & dairy tours, and for the kids there was face painting and all kinds of activities to get up close to the animals: Grooming donkeys, riding horses, feeding pigs and much more. The highlight was a straw tobe paradise organised by Marc (farmer and construction site manager) – pure farm feeling!
The festival was accompanied by our Sammatz Combo – this time with Felix, our social intern at Peronnik from Austria. Ice cream, chips and farm sandwiches filled many hungry stomachs.
Fancy a farmyard animal festival? Then make a note of the weekend of 20-21 July from 11 am to 5 pm and come along to the family festival with farmyard festival! Look forward to an eventful day for the whole family!
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Kulturelle Landpartie
meets Michaelshof!
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From 9 to 20 May, Wendland will once again be in a state of exception as the 35th Kulturelle Landpartie takes place! As always, there is an incredible amount to see and discover in Wendland in a short space of time – a wide range of cultural activities over twelve days, with many artists opening their doors, showing their crafts or organising a wide variety of other events. Traditionally, the KLP invites you to take a cycling holiday around Wendland.
Although we are not yet participating as an event location, we are there for you as a refreshing breather on the way through the various ‘Wunderpunkte’. For a café and a cake in between or for a snack (our café is open until 6 pm) after a successful day. At the moment we even have a few guest rooms available during the KLP.
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Our first agriculture interns from Taiwan
– in an interview with Amanda
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Anna: Amanda, it’s great to have you here! How did you come up with the idea of doing an internship in Germany with your students?
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Amanda:
I was a volunteer at Michaelshof myself last summer and was very enthusiastic about the time I spent here. Of course, I told all my friends and family about it. That’s why I had the idea that my students could do a longer internship here and get to know a completely different life.
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Anna: Can you tell me more about your school?
Amanda: Our Waldorf school is actually very similar to the school here at Michaelshof. We are quite a small school and teach just over 30 pupils in grades 1 to 12 – we work inclusively and also have a few children with special needs in the school. Many children come to us who no longer want to go to normal school and can no longer cope there. But they really enjoy being with us.
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Anna: What has been the biggest challenge in your time here with us so far?
Amanda: A big problem among the young generation in Taiwan is mobile phone and internet addiction. We are also aware of this at our school. That’s why we decided that our students are not allowed to bring their mobile phones to the internship. Of course, everyone thought that was very annoying. I told them that if they wrote a letter to us teachers with good arguments as to why they had to take their mobile phones with them, then they could do so. After a very “active fight”, lots of discussions and one-to-one conversations, two upper school students were allowed to take their mobile phones with them to work on their project for 30 minutes a day; we were able to convince the remaining students, albeit grumpily, to leave their mobile phones at home.
Of course they missed their mobile phones a lot in the first few days, but after a while all the students have really settled in here and are not bored at all. There are so many things for them to discover, because so many things are very different in Germany than in Taiwan. I think they have forgotten their mobile phones by now.
The work is varied, we spend a lot of time in the vegetable and medicinal plant fields, in the kitchen, with the animals and in the garden. Everything is interesting for them, the people are all very nice and many say that the environment with the animals and plants is very healing.
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Anna: Wow! That sounds like a great success, for you teachers and for the students.
Amanda: Yes, absolutely. I didn’t expect all the students to be so positive. They are in a really good mood, they enjoy their work, the tasks they are given and they help each other as a team. It’s very different to Taiwan, where they often found their lives boring and stressful and didn’t have much interest in other people.
It was important to me that the children take this impression of Sammatz with them, that they see the beauty of the world here, feel the warmth of an entire community and experience life in community. They have really changed a lot. And most of the students are already saying that they definitely want to come back to Germany and Sammatz later on.
Anna: I have to say, it’s a wonderful and very courageous initiative that you’ve started. Thank you very much, Amanda, your visit is a great enrichment for us.
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Michaelshof up to date – all opening hours at a glance!
Ark farm:
Mon-Sun 9.00 – 19.00
Café:
Mon-Sat 8.00 – 18.00
Sun & holidays 9.30 – 18.00
Farmshop:
Mon-Sat 10.00 – 19.00
Sun & holidays 10.00 – 19.00
Der WAGEN in Lüneburg:
Wed & Sat 7.00 – 13.00
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Sun, 19 & Mon, 20 May
Pentecost – The festival of free community
At Pentecost, we celebrate an annual festival that is all about community. How fascinating it can be to exchange ideas and find out that we are basically all concerned, driven and motivated by the same things, no matter which continent we come from. We look forward to seeing you!
Admission free, donation requested! Plus meals
With Hannah, Claudia and Anna
Sun, 19 May
Pentecost buffet – 9.30
Registration required!*
Sun. 19 May
Pentecost walk for the kids – 15.30
Registration required!*
Sun. 19 May
International talk about community – 15.30
What kinds of communities can we join and how can they affect our lives? (in English)
Registration required!*
Sun. 19 May
Cosy get-together… – 20.00
…with the Michaelshof community including an international buffet
Registration required!*
Mon, 20 May
Guided garden tour at Pentecost – 15.30
Registration required!*
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Sat., 25 May – 11 – 17.00
What is the meaning of life? – Let’s talk 1
‘Let’s talk’ – the seminar in which we talk openly about ‘private’ topics and share personal experiences. Today: ‘What is the meaning of life? ‘
Whilst some people ask themselves whether suffering has a meaning alongside happiness, we ask: What is my own personal contribution to this world? Our motto at Michaelshof: ‘Find the value that only you have – give yourself to the world! Let’s talk together about suffering and joy, about life and our personal development.
Admission free, donation requested! Plus lunch: €10
With Anna and Hannah
Registration required!
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What’s life like in the biggest flat share in our community?
As you know, we live a lot in patchwork flat shares at Michaelshof, but have you heard about our XXXL flat share? In summer times, up to 52 people from all over the world live together under one big roof in the Blue House.
The Blue House is the perfect mix of hostel vibes (without alcohol or drugs), relaxation oasis and cultural exchange. Here, 15-year-old interns from Germany, Austria and Switzerland meet up with gap-year world travellers or students from Europe and around the world and career ladder climbers on sabbatical. Each of them brings their own special story, their own individual colour to the shared flat.
The huge living room houses a well-equipped kitchen, sofas and beanbags, a piano, guitars and much more. You have to imagine that no two days are the same in the Blue House. There is a lot of cooking, laughing, music, ping-pong and of course chatting (in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and often with hands and feet for better communication). In addition to meetings during the week, we usually organise evenings together at the weekends: Lectures, potlucks (international buffet – everyone brings something), dance or games evenings and DIY courses – there are no limits to the imagination and that’s exactly what makes the atmosphere incredibly nice.
Of course, XXXL flat share life is not always easy and the number one problem will probably always be the dirty dishes “that don’t belong to anyone”, but are still standing around Social coexistence in the Blue House is also the ultimate mixture of many cultures and upbringings. Tolerating each other radically, identifying differences and working on commonalities are processes that every Blue House flatmate automatically takes with them. And: friendships for life!
The Blue House is ultimately the cultural and social meeting place that we would like to see in every city, in every large village. A place where very diverse people meet and try out living together, where everyone actively tries to work towards peaceful coexistence. Day after day, even if it’s sometimes exhausting.
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Open your ears!
As every month, we take you into our musical world and link to a few songs from the community: Music tips from…
…Anton: ‘Solomon with Bloom – the perfect song to wake up to!’
…Anna: ‘Schüttel dein Speck by Peter Fox is the song that really always gets me dancing.’
…Aslı: ‘Old but gold: Robbie Williams with Feel.’
…Emmanuel: ‘Ed Maverick with Ropa de Bazar for the first summer afternoons!’
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+++ NEWSTICKER +++
Impressions from everyday community life…
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…today with Peronnik everyday life live: Marlena with pretty cute donkeys and the boys always repairing something…
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…Sara gets ready for the first grazing: with mootivation…
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…pssst do you already know our plant sale at the farm shop? With lots of our own perennials & more.
Sam also likes to visit us again and again – our little mascot sparrow is not only at the beginning of this newsletter, but can also sometimes be found in the café…
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…which spring garden area can we see here from above?…
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…down on the ground there are also beautiful fruit tree blossom moments!
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Grund Nr. 10: A different kind of internship!
With your donation, you can support the opportunity for around 200 pupils to do their internship at Michaelshof for two to four weeks every year – including a personal mentor, lectures on the various areas of work and much more.
An experience that brings many young people closer to the idea of community and the importance of nature.
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We are looking for committed and dynamic people for our team who are happy to take on responsibility and enjoy country life. Is a meaningful job more important to you than a “9 to 5 job”? Then you’ve come to the right place!
We are looking for specialists or interns in the following areas:
Social:
Office:
Hands-on:
- NEU: Service help in the Café am Michaelshof
- Gardener
- Construction worker
- Retailer
- Pharmacist
Your qualification is not listed and you are still interested? Just give it a try!
Please send your application with photo to claudia.brady@sammatz.de – we’ll get back to you!
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There is no such thing as bad weather! (That’s what we think anyways!)
We close the May newsletter with an idyllic and colourful spring rain picture.
No matter what the weather does, a visit to Michaelshof is always worthwhile!
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Best wishes and see you next time from Anna
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