Spring update

Lots has been happening over the last few months, but I've not found time to update the blog. One of the highlights was last December's demonstration in London during COP28 - here are Liz and Rosemary outside the BP offices. 

We also had a very constructive meeting with our MP, Matt Rodda, discussing a range of environmental concerns. But disappointingly he still won't commit to supporting the bill recently brought back to parliament as the Climate and Nature Bill.

Closer to home, we are still working on plans for solar panels for the school that shares our premises - a far longer process than we were expecting with our very cautious diocesan schools board! And have begun looking into an air source heat pump to replace the elderly boilers. Rosemary and I had a useful conversation with one of the teachers about eco-activities in school but teachers are so busy we are trying to find ways to support them that are not going to take up any more teacher time. In January several of us took part in the RSPB's Great Big Garden Birdwatch. At the beginning of March we shared a short David Attenborough film after the service and explained current plans for trying to get to net zero in our church and the wider diocese as well as encouraging more action at home.

January's Forest Church included making rather delicious looking seed muffins to feed the birds with (the one on the right is for human consumption); February was very wet but some great den-building went on, and March was in glorious sunshine in the Harris Gardens, perfect for the cherry blossom season.

A couple of weeks ago a working party enjoyed the sunshine and marked Earth Hour a few hours early clearing all the weeds from the forecourt and doing lots of tidying and planting in the borders. Through Lent we've been drawing attention to Climate Stewards' Carbon Fast, and a number of the congregation joined in Greenpeace's Plastic Count. I've just taken down the notices for those and replaced them with posters encouraging more planting for wildlife:

Meanwhile the courtyard garden is looking rather lovely, and we have had quite a few visits from a pair of mallards, so are hoping for more ducklings this summer.

Creation conscious crafts

One of the most difficult things to be rigorously environmentally sensitive about often seems to be craft work with the children - it is so tempting to potter round Hobbycraft and return with lots of plastic packaged, foam-based stuff. I've been trying to resist the sparkly jewels, stickers etc that I used to add to the Godly Play craft boxes, sticking to the dolly pegs, and lolly sticks and trying to encourage more use of junk modelling, but conscious that all these become difficult to recycle or compost afterwards. Over the summer I was tasked with coming up with more structured crafts to go with stories from Nick Butterworth's retellings of the parables. The results are by no means perfectly sustainable, but hopefully heading in the right, reduced-plastic, direction:

The Lost Coin - coins made out of yellow icing; coins of cardboard and foil

The Two Sons - 'Mr Potato Head' style apples (using bits of coloured icing I had left over from a birthday cake as if they were plasticine); decorated paper baskets for carrying - either origami boxes or the easier option of a sealed envelope with the two top corners cut away into a basket shape

The House on the Rock - stone painting, sand pictures, plastic bottle rain gauges

The Lost Sheep - sheep fridge magnets (magnetic tape a bit of a fail here, as was resorting to buying cottonwool from the chemist instead of a more sustainable brand); found sheep party crowns - more cottonwool as the sheep with which the crowns are decorated.

The Good Stranger - my predecessor as administrator bought huge stocks of coloured paper and extra large paper so no purchasing needed for 1) neighbour chains - paper chains with names of everyone who might count as our neighbour and 2) road pictures - large pictures of Bible road stories that can be joined up together as one giant road.

School Fair and Churches Count on Nature

Last Friday was St John's school summer fair and we again ran an EcoChurch stall. 

This time we had plants for sale, courtesy of Lawrence (plus some extra sunflowers that had germinated in the pots children's church planted. Richard C re-potted these for me while I made a mad return cycle ride home at 3.30 on discovering I was missing all the prizes. Had I been in a car I would never have made it back in time through the school pick-up traffic!). We also had two games - one downloaded from the Climate Stewards' website which was a real eye-opener; and one involving a bran tub of jenga bricks with names of plants and animals on - the children had to draw one and then match it to a Wild Cards image in order to win a sticker (appropriately themed with wildflowers or eco messages). We had a lot of takers for the games which was great.

This Sunday I took the children out for our first ever 'Churches Count on Nature' - inevitably it was pretty small scale (and I'll add a few extra creatures spotted during the previous couple of weeks). The duck was of course our star find and there were some lovely damselflies. We also ended up picking a good bowl of strawberries.

Equipping Churches to Care for Creation

On a day when any sane person would be taking a flask of iced tea and a good book to the nearest shady bench, I chose to take the green travel option to Wokingham (bike/bus/more bike) and so arrived looking slightly roasted at Oxford Diocese's Creation Care event this afternoon. I counted at least 45 delegates from Berkshire churches, and soon learned that across the diocese 184 churches have registered for EcoChurch, which feels very heartening. 

The key note speech was both sobering and inspiring as Bishop Olivia drew on her personal experiences of living in drought prone parts of Africa and encouraged us all, in Marianne Williamson's words 'to make manifest the glory of God that is within us' to make a difference in the face of the plethora of environmental issues we face. There were inspiring stories from around the diocese - I kicked off, sharing something of St John and St Stephen's campaigning, and plugging Hamish Preston's still very relevant and useful engagingthepowers website. Peter from All Saints Dedworth spoke about their impressive reductions in energy use (I need to get us some data loggers it seems - data is key!). Then Deborah reported on the wonderful opportunities for local engagement at the Lambourn Benefice's four day big green weekend. Finally Fr David of All Saints Ascot traced his church's recent engagement with the EcoChurch programme. 

There was plenty of opportunity for meeting up with others and sharing experiences in between the more formal sessions, the final of which looked at changing cultures to achieve the radical realignment we need. This was led by Hannah Mann (Diocesan Environmental Programme Manager), Rev Hannah Higginson of the host church - All Saints Wokingham - and Bishop Olivia. Suggestions ranged from getting the PCC to agree an environmental policy and using the church's seasons to structure action, to a multi-faceted approach to engage people of different temperaments, gifts and prejudices. Hannah Mann concluded proceedings with an impressive summary of the resources available, starting with the Diocese's EcoHub.

I came away buzzing with encouragement and throughout was much too focussed to take any photos of the day, but luckily I'd stopped off on my way to the station to look in at the Erleigh Road Community Garden at St Luke's - the first time I've popped my head in since before Covid I'm sure - and it is a glorious oasis there. So here are a few photos from that: