We now have an online calendar to easily find events that eco-congregations are hosting around the country. Network meetings, our Environmental Chaplain Rev Trevor Jamison’s worship-leading and talk sessions, as well as events such as our Annual Gathering and supported events such as Fast for the Climate will all be included.
Please do let us know if you have any events coming up that you would like us to add to our calendar!
The report and summary report from the Local Networks Seminar held on 6th September are now available to download. You can access them here:
For years the Congregational Board at Alexandria Parish has grappled with how they could make better use of the large grounds at the rear of the Church. We were awarded our 1st Eco-Congregation Award in June 2012 and our local councillor commented that there was a long waiting list for allotments in the Vale of Leven area and West Dumbarton Council had no sites identified. A chance meeting with the Council Greenspace Officer, Linda Adam, the following spring kicked off a project to use the ground for allotments. We set up a working group with four members of the Kirk Session / Congregational Board and all the people on the waiting list. There was great enthusiasm from the community and Lomond Community Gardens & Allotments Association was formed in October 2013. We were delighted that West Dumbarton Council provided a project grant and contracted a local company, Greenlight, to establish 10 plots and access path. Work started during a very wet spring in February, but by July we could see all the plots flourishing.
The ‘allotmenteers’ presented the church with a basket of plenty for Harvest Thanksgiving and we used the veggies to make soup and sweet lunch for the congregation. We raised over £650 for Water Aid as our Harvest Appeal. The Allotment group have agreed that £5 of their annual fee of £25 will be a donation to Water Aid. The group have been recognised by Keep Scotland Beautiful as a developing site, and are bidding for funding to add more plots, a poly-tunnel, community orchard and a bee-hive. Several of the home-owners who overlook the site at the back of the church have joined the association and a local nursery is interested in having some raised beds for the children to grow their own food.
Mary Sweetland
Eco-Convenor, Alexandria Parish Church, Balloch
Before – January 2014
After – July 2014
Basket of Plenty for Harvest Thanksgiving
We would be interested in publishing articles from registered eco-congregations on our web site news page and in our monthly newsletter. So, if your congregation has done anything interesting recently why not write this up and send it to manager@ecocongregationscotland.org ?
We will put the article on our news page, local network page and consider it for inclusion in our newsletter.
The Local Networks Seminar 2014 will take place on Saturday 6th September, 11am – 3.30pm at Dunblane Cathedral Halls.
We hope you agree the programme (menu!) available here sets out an exciting and challenging day. It is, in fact, a “feast” for all those involved with our local networks aimed at providing food for thought for the year ahead!
It is important that as many networks as possible are represented at the Seminar and we have already circulated an invitation to network co-ordinators and key network members. However, we are now opening the invitation out to all network members but, as space is limited, please book early to avoid disappointment!
TO REGISTER FOR THE SEMINAR: please email margaret@ecocongregation.org.uk with your name, network and church by Monday 25th August.
Dunblane Cathedral is about a 5 minute walk from the train station, up the Main Street (see http://www.dunblanecathedral.org.uk/Location.html) . Trains from Glasgow and Edinburgh arrive in Dunblane approx. every 30 minutes and some trains from the North also stop at Dunblane, although it may be necessary to go through to Stirling and change. There are also some intercity buses that stop in Dunblane. If it is necessary for you to come by car, please let us know if you are able to offer a lift.
Write-up by Elizabeth Lambert:
Situated close to the motorway network, the facility takes food waste from North Lanarkshire, Glasgow City and Stirling council. The original composting plant was built in 2005 on the 12 acre site of a decommissioned sewage treatment works -Cumbernauld Sewage Purification Works, which had been redundant since 2002.
It was initially used to turn garden waste into compost, primarily converting local authority collections into environmentally friendly ‘pod’ compost. The facility benefited from a £1.7million grant from Zero Waste Scotland.
In 2010 an anaerobic digestion tank capable of turning 30,000 tonnes of solid and liquid food waste into around 8,000 megawatts of power each year (enough electricity to power up to 2,000 homes) was completed.
The Deerdykes facility, created by Scottish Water Horizons, the public utility’s commercial and renewable energy business, is the largest organic recycling facility in Scotland and the first site in the UK to combine anaerobic digestion and in-vessel composting.
This means that not only is more waste efficiently recycled, away from landfill, but that the Deerdykes plant is self-sufficient in energy. The anaerobic digestion process breaks down the waste to produce biogas which can then be used to provide electricity to power the works itself.
The process also creates nutrient rich digestate which can be used as a fertiliser to improve the Scotland’s soil, reducing the need for chemical fertilisers whose manufacture has a significant environmental impact, helping Scotland towards zero waste.
Helensburgh and Lomond meet at the United Reform Church, 35 West Princes Street (next to the Post Office) in Helensburgh on Friday 28th March at 10.30am. Adrian Shaw, the Church of Scotland’s Climate Change Officer will be speaking and leading a discussion about “Fracking: sensible solution or disastrous development?”
2013 saw the initial development of fracking in the UK. Reviled by some as a dangerous and unnecessary prolongation of gas as an energy source and an environmental hazard, it has been strongly supported by others, including the UK Government, as a useful source of cheap gas for future decades. The furious debate and demonstrations it has sparked off have not been conclusive or very enlightening and facts about fracking in the UK seem hard to come by. Yet this an important debate and, along with other controversies such as wind energy and nuclear power, is central to the future of our energy use and how we respond to climate change. How can we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and address fuel poverty? These are big questions but ones that eco-congregations should now think about.
Everyone is welcome!
