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.

Campaigns, Courtyard Garden and Collecting Litter

The Climate and Ecology Bill was reintroduced to Parliament earlier this month, so a couple of weeks ago we sent postcards to our MPs encouraging them to support the bill. We used cards with images from the Lost Words, which seemed appropriate.

Last week I welcomed the St John's School Eco Club and Gardening Club members to do some planting - tomatoes, strawberries, peas and salad. Hopefully the former two will be ripe before they break up for the summer while the latter should be ready for a church lunch eventually. The children were hugely enthusiastic and the courtyard was a whirl of industry - when the dust settled not all the plants were quite where I was expecting them and there weren't enough pots left over for the rocket (which is why it's still by the back door), but it was great fun and they're keen to come back and keep watering when they get the chance after their half term break.

Last Sunday I used resources from Tearfund's Rubbish Campaign to frame our Godly Play session on the Good Samaritan. I was hoping to get the older children to write some campaign letters afterwards but a couple of them were certain there was no point because the government never listen - that led to other discussions, but sadly no letters. More positively, they were very keen to help clear up the rubbish in the local park, with the litter pickers borrowed from a Green Party councillor in the parish. 

Sunshine, wind, and not much rain

Having put into practice many of the 'quick wins' suggested by the energy audit that Oxford diocese have subsidised for us, we've been looking at some of the more challenging tasks to improve our energy efficiency. Finding anyone prepared to offer a sensible quote for the cavity wall insulation is proving nigh on impossible. Quotes for solar panels are not easy to come by either and we're aware that churches are often not the most efficient buildings on which to put these panels because of the short periods of time for which they are in use. Consequently, we're exploring working together with St John's school so that energy produced on our roof can support them. Unfortunately, the only way to do this will be to link in to their electricity supplier which is not as green as ours, but is part of a much more economical scheme used by the schools. In terms of our EcoChurch score, we would lose as many points for switching our energy supplier as we would gain by installing solar panels, but we've decided that in the bigger scheme of things the latter is the greener option and we're going to keep pursuing it.

Back in May some of the congregation joined Greenpeace's Big Plastic count. Greenpeace recently launched their final report from this, revealing that "the UK’s homes produce 96.6 billion pieces of plastic packaging waste a year, with only 12% being recycled in the UK. The rest is exported to other countries to deal with (17%), buried in landfill (25%) or burnt in incinerators (45%)."

Another May highlight was the St John's School Fair at which we set up a stall for the first time (pictured above). The centrepiece was a craft activity that had proved popular at Forest Church - cardboard hearts (from old boxes) with elastic bands (salvaged from post) across them, into which the children could thread flowers we supplied. It proved a great hit at the fair too. We also encouraged people to make a commitment to green their life in some way, and to put a pebble in the jam-jar marked with their good intention so that we could see which was most popular - walking to school and eating less meat got the most votes; closely followed by picking up litter and turning off the tap when brushing your teeth. A number opted for choosing their own green commitment. The next highest votes were for avoiding buying fruit and veg in plastic and buying fairly traded. Trailing these were a handful of commitments to turn off 'vampire' devices, tell politicians what they thought, and learn about Reading hydro. In addition we had a treasure hunt, using postcards with images from The Lost Words - anyone who found all (or nearly all!) of the 'lost birds' could pick a prize (the results of a recent playroom clearout - some of which proved surprisingly strong incentives). Behind the stall we had a collection of information boards including encouragement to act for the planet - unfortunately nature wasn't entirely on our side in this as high winds through the afternoon meant we eventually had to take a couple of these down.

Now that summer is here we have been holding outdoor services again for the first Sunday of the month. Admittedly the threat of rain sent us back indoors in June, but last month we followed this up with a picnic (and had the additional entertainment of Scouts dragon-boat racing on the Thames). Next Sunday there will be another picnic, hopefully a little more peacefully.

Last Sunday I spent a couple of hours (divided either side of the service) attempting to deal with the weeds that have been sprouting up in our courtyard while no one was looking. I'm sorry to say I realised then that we had also made the classic error of everyone assuming someone else was taking responsibility for the watering over this heatwave, with the inevitable disappointing consequence. Luckily most of the plants had been chosen for their resilience, but a watering rota is now top of our next agenda!

Environment Sunday update

Last Sunday was Environment Sunday and the theme of our Worship Together was 'feast'. Afterwards we had a vegan lunch (chickpea, apricot and cashew nut tagine from a Schumacher College recipe book) and the donations people gave will all be going to The World Land Trust as part of Green Christian's campaign to find 100 churches to spend £100 each on protecting rainforest (we're hoping it'll be a bit more than £100).
Since my last blog quite a few of the church enjoyed the Christian Aid walk the country sponsored event, as usual. Plus our new youth group, Elements, had a speaker who had attended Friends of the Earth's Community Campaigning course and he shared his school's campaign to reduce plastics. Also, Bridget has wonderfully volunteered to ensure a compost bin in the kitchen is emptied in the middle of each week, so now we can make sure all the coffee grounds etc aren't going in the bin.