From Christmas Plans to spring planting and "Wilding"

A shockingly long silence on the blog does not mean we've started resting on our laurels. To accompany a vegetarian curry lunch on the first Sunday of November, we borrowed Phil Chatfield's excellent Fairtrade stall (from Caversham Methodists) to help start our Christmas shopping.

Then on 6th November we were finally able to celebrate our Eco Church Gold Award properly now that Rev Claire had returned from sabbatical. Sadly it was too late for Bishop Olivia to join us (she'd already retired), but it was great to welcome Associate Archdeacon Rev Liz Jackson who presented us with the plaque:

Lots of our community partners were able to come along to help us to celebrate and have stalls showing their own activities. These included Reading Hydro, Global Justice Now, Draughtbusters and an especially lovely stall from Reading Natural History Society that I'm very cross I forgot to photograph.

We had picked a weekday so that some children from the school could join us too and they gave us an excellent and inspiring update on the action they're taking in school to tackle pollution and climate change. Unfortunately they couldn't stay to join the cream tea afterwards - I was pleasantly surprised to discover I actually like vegan cream:

Among those attending was our Area Dean, Rev Mike Smith, who asked us to give a report at the next deanery synod. So we quickly booked that in for the end of the month - it was in the 'good news in the deanery' slot, which was nice, although I think I'd have preferred it to be a 'call to immediate action' slot. I have had an invitation to talk at another local church as a result anyway. And before the synod I was invited to St Catherine's Tilehurst so we could do some learning from one another - they're doing really lovely things with some of the space around their church:

And they have since successfully reached Silver Eco Church standard. Then, on 27th November, several of us from St John's headed over to visit a more experienced Gold Eco Church - Mortimer Methodist Church.  Here Don Graham (one of our Eco Church assessors) welcomed us for a really beautiful and inspirational afternoon. At some point I should post a full report of the trip as there was much too much for this blogpost:

Like us, they have very little land on site. But they've made the most of its possibilities. A tip to remember for any space is that apparently hollyhocks will grow in the tiniest bit of ground so it's worth pushing their seeds into likely gaps around the edge of land.

They have an impressive array of solar panels, carefully monitored:

And a very rural old churchyard on the edge of the village, adjoining their former church building, which they also maintain for wildlife.

In December, we were very grateful to Tricia at EcoNet for arranging for the church to be sent a Christmas tree ahead of the Caversham Court sale - this always happens on the first Saturday in December which, this year, fell after the first Sunday of December. As usual we were able to decorate it after our church lunch, although reaching the top proved rather tricky this year.

BBOWT volunteer Martin sent us the following so I could put up a notice explaining our tree's story: The Scots Pines are cut by Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust volunteers from Barossa nature reserve, managed on behalf of the Ministry of Defence by our sister Wildlife Trust in Surrey.   The site is both a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Protection Area.  Heathland sites like Barossa need to be kept open, free from too many invasive trees, if they are to support the wide range of wildlife which only lives on heathland.   As well as the obvious heathers,  Barossa is home to the beautiful yellow bog asphodel and the carnivorous small leaved sundew, a range of heathland specialist birds such as Dartford warbler, Stone Chats, Woodlarks and Nightjars, at least four species of reptiles and many other species only found on heathland.  Cutting pines for Christmas and other management work  keeps Barossa an accessible wildlife rich site.

Through December we had the usual newsletter advice and posters on ways to keep Christmas greener. Meanwhile we'd also finally agreed the plans for our heat pump, which we hope can be installed this summer, and invited a tree expert over to help us consider ways to make the front of our church greener. Ultimately we decided that it is such a warm space that there is no way to put trees close to the building without cutting through the tarmac for them and then endangering the building itself, so we're starting with a couple of planters. Richard and Rosemary dug a good bit of the soil from my underused home compost heap, and they topped it up with peat-free compost from the garden centre. The plants were chosen for their resilience to heat and attractiveness to pollinators, with some primroses added in for Easter colour (Hebe, Carex grasses, Syringa, Campanula, Viburnum, Choisya, Sibirica and Clematis).

We've had replies from three of our local MPs to our letters about a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, but were naturally disappointed that none of them was prepared to support the CAN Bill: we are waiting to hear what's next on that campaign. One final activity I have to include before ending this overlong report - about a third of the congregation were present last night, with a couple of guests, to watch the inspirational story of the Knepp estate rewilding project in the beautiful 2023 film Wilding. It was quite astonishing how quickly the soil healed and became rich with life when given the chance. As a medievalist, I was, of course, captivated by the fact that our last record of white storks breeding in Britain was in 1416, and now they're back. You can even watch their nest this year on a live webcam which is a mindblowing privilege (I've been listening to the birds in Sussex as I type).

Forest Church and more

 The last couple of Forest Church sessions have been especially creative. In September there was corn dolly making - and these were then used in the decorations for the harvest service at church. 

Then last month was even more adventurous - everyone made bird boxes.

There seem to have been a lot of meetings going on, including our first attendance at ARocha's Gold Award holders online forum, and a very useful Diocesan event ‘supporting churches to net zero carbon’. Our own heating plans are once again being completely rethought since my last post so I'll wait until things are actually happening before reporting on that again!

Another occasion for hearing inspirational stories from other churches was the Church Times Green Awards ceremony at St John's Waterloo. Rosemary and I had been shortlisted in their Green Champions category - the winner was Jean Carletta who set up the HeatHack programme - see video here.

And there has been excellent news about the Climate and Nature Bill - Roz Savage MP, who came third in the Private Members Bill ballot - has selected this as her bill and it will receive its second reading in January. So now we all need to encourage our MPs to be there to support it.

Summer update

 As life returns to its normal rhythms after the summer break, the celebrations in June feel a very long time ago! We've enjoyed harvesting tomatoes most Sundays over the summer and sharing them round. The peas were finished long ago and the squash plants have done less well, but I'm hoping one of the fruits is ripe enough to make it into the next church lunch.

Over the summer we have a simpler rota for children's activities with the usual leaders taking a break and other congregation members just picking up a bag with a story book and some activities in. I've tried to make the crafts as recyclable/compostable and environmentally friendly as possible this year. The books were slightly challenging Old Testament texts so, for Moses and the plagues I included making origami frogs and some facts about frogs (the origami frogs were very popular).

For Daniel and the Lions I included a quiz about lions, and we used some of the paper plates that got put into the back of the cupboard for emergencies about ten years ago and haven't been needed. Cups from the same box finally found a use when it came to Jonah and the Whale and that week included pictures of lots of different sea creatures to be put into size order - not an easy task it turned out.

As usual, many of us attended Greenbelt towards the end of the summer. I spent a few hours helping at the Green Christian stand with its sobering screen counting the rising temperature in real time. This was conveniently close to the Hot House venue that had a great many climate related talks, including one in which I learned a surprising amount about using public transport more effectively (this will be feeding its way into green tips in the newsletter). I was struck by the many different definitions of Hope I heard; more than one speaker rejecting the concept of an interventionist/all powerful God; several mentioning that it's better to have many people recycling badly than only very few doing it perfectly; and Kate Raworth's urging 'Don't be an optimist or a pessimist, be an activist'. We had every possible kind of weather with a vengeance, but were blessed with sunshine for the Communion:

The following week I was at a conference on medieval history where I encountered an impressive display of vegetable planting at a place I would not have expected: Christ Church College, Cambridge. I'm not sure we can replicate this at church, but it's something to think about.

Now we are into Creation Season and Fairtrade Fortnight (I'll be using the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Godly Play to explore the latter this Sunday). For this Creation Season the World Council of Churches have been encouraging churches to support the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty by endorsing the Faith Letter for its implementation so we discussed this at PCC earlier in the week and agreed to sign it as a church. 

Last Saturday we also had a well-attended meeting about plans for a new heating system as our elderly boilers can't be repaired for much longer. The cost of an air source heat pump is pretty eye-watering and naturally we would rather be spending that sort of money on helping other people insulate their homes or 'quicker wins' for the environment. However, apparently faculties for new gas boilers are only being issued in very exceptional circumstances and because our church is used so much of the week the electric options that many churches are turning to simply won't work for us. That does at least mean we can't feel guilty about spending money in this way, but finding the money may take a little while.

At our most recent Eco Church team meeting we started working through the many suggestions sent by A Rocha when we got our gold award. One of them is to pick one of A Rocha's Target 25 habitats and species to focus on trying to support, so we've opted for butterflies. The main focus for the moment is our proper celebration once Revd Claire returns from sabbatical, and plans to make the front of the church greener.

And I almost forgot, I came into work a couple of weeks ago to find this on my desk - I never expected to find our church mentioned in The Tablet:

Celebrations

The summer holidays are almost upon us and Revd Claire is about to start her sabbatical, so we're postponing the big celebration of our Gold Eco Church award until the autumn. However, we did have delicious homemade cake and fizz after the service last Sunday to celebrate and our new certificate is now in situ. Unfortunately neither Dino nor Richard could be with us, so Sally and Christine stepped in for their husbands in our celebratory photo:

It's possible some of the flowers in the courtyard need a bit of thinning out, but they're attracting a lot of bees and in the past week I've seen a scarlet tiger moth and a red admiral in there.