St Peter / Balsall Common

Weekly Eco Tip by Rachel Westwood:

Find hope and fun in nature this advent and Christmas

On Sunday, Suzy helped us think about how we can see the hope of advent in nature - seeing new shoots on trees and plants at what can seem the darkest time of year. We can also find lots of fun in nature, even in piles of leaves, even though they can hard to tidy up.

There are lots of great craft ideas using leaves and other things we can find outside - here are a couple of ideas.

You can find more ideas on the Wildlife Trusts website https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/ and also on Pinterest and You Tube.

You can sign up to 12 Days Wild https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/12dayswild, the Wildlife Trusts' festive nature challenge encouraging us to do one wild thing a day from 25 December to 5 January, including things to help nature like recycling a Christmas tree or feeding the birds. When you sign up you can get a free online resource pack to download that includes ideas for each day, a word search and puzzles and a wall chart to record what you've done. You can also get a resource pack (online or by post) to help you get your daily dose of nature, recognising how it can contribute to our health and well being https://support.wwf.org.uk/daily-dose

There are lots more sustainability linked activities and resources for home learning available at https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1sWe5JynLYVDf-NWegEHU0_MEZhYjtzEUDqRb1Fqvl4g/mobilebasic "

Where are we Now?

                
We are proud to say that we have achieved the ‘Silver’ award level of the A’Rocha scheme. We intend to build on this and achieve Gold by recycling more, encouraging our church members and other churches to follow environmentally sensitive policies, and looking after our site (the churchyard) to promote ecological diversity and the wellbeing of the natural world. As part of this, we are thrilled to say that we were able to host the YCCN pilgrimage to the Glasgow Climate Summit!
Greening our church grounds:

           

Not only have we planted a wildflower area (see below) but we are developing our Memorial Garden as a place for people to relax and refresh - and we have installed waterbutts to facilitate watering the plantings and the planters around the church. 

Here’s our newly planted native (organic!) Yew hedge and our bee-friendly wildflower area which is showing good results!

Recycling Notice:

As from 1st April 2024 we are no longer accepting clothes or shoes for recycling. We may restart collections later in the year.

Please take your donations for recycling to a charity shop. We used to be able to rehome all the following items, but our existing destination can no longer accept them, so please let us know if you could help with any of these?

Recycling:

          

We have “recycling” boxes in the entrance to the Church and Hall where you can leave old mobile phones, stamps, spectacles and printer cartridges! These can often be sold to raise funds for the needy or passed to charities who can use them. We also can help with the recycling of many other things - contact us if you would like to help our Recycling efforts as we do need a new Coordinator!

We also try to feed the birds, encourage native wildflowers to grow in our grounds, and welcome people to use our space to relax - but please do so responsibly and do not leave litter! That’s what the bins and recycling boxes are for. 

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