If you love our groups, services and facilities at St Mary’s, please consider donating towards our heating improvements! We urgently need to replace the old boiler that heats the church and hall, as the running costs are high and the carbon footprint needs tackling, a big step on our journey towards Net Zero. We have had an independent energy assessment and this is by far the most effective immediate improvement we can make to save carbon and keep costs manageable. The old boiler is G rated and a new one would be A rated, saving tonnes of carbon every year! But we will need everyone to chip in please to help make it happen. If we all give a little we will raise a lot! Can you help?
In an effort to give nature a helping hand an area of grass behind St. Peter’s Centre is being made more wildlife friendly.
The Rainbows Group that meets at the Centre made a wonderful bug house, and we have bee-friendly plants, bird roosts and a bird feeder. We have sown wild flower seeds and made a log pile and a compost bin.
Work in progress!
Contact: Barbara Rose 07761808727
The Chapel Project, Ash Vale: Going Greener
We are very lucky to have Revd Gina Hoff co-leading the Chapel Project, and she brings lots of wisdom with her as the Green Christian UK Chaplain.
The Chapel has made some eco-friendly changes, starting with where we spend our money! We buy fair trade tea, coffee and other supplies, and over lockdown have switched our gas and electric to Bulb, where we now get 100% green electric and carbon-offset gas (other suppliers are available of course!) The Chapel Kids group are in on the act as well, planting a mini ‘food forest’ in the garden and learning all about plants, pollinators and permaculture gardening. Our friend Mel W has been very busy setting up a seed swap station at The Chapel as well, so you won’t even need to buy seeds to start planting things at home, and anyone with spare seeds can pop them in the seed swap for local people to use. We will be restarting our monthly “Chapel Greens Coffee Chat” soon; pop in and say hello!
St Mary’s have a superb Eco Champion in Lesley, and she has been instrumental in helping us to earn our La Rocha Eco Church Bronze Award recently. Lots of people in our church family are environmentally conscious and help out with recycling, gardening and trying to be good stewards of church resources. We are looking at greener transport next. Watch this space for bike parking and electric cars!
Another passion at St Mary’s is food, and we can’t stand seeing it go to waste. We have joined the Foodiverse with Fareshare Go and the local Co-Op Foodshare, (joint project with the local Covid support Group) to save ‘on its last date’ food from landfill and make it part of the local food parcels project—more of that on page 24/25
Contact: Parish Office 07863 311165
St Paul’s Tongham: Charity Recycling Hub, come and join in!
The team at St Paul’s have done amazing work to set up a recycling project to support local charities. Please keep an eye on the website for the next event, and in the meantime have a look at the list below for what you can save to recycle. Thank you for your support!
