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.
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).
