Worship and Teaching

• Ruth Valerio’s book Saying Yes to Life  inspired us to  reflect, preach, pray and be challenged together to answer  God’s call to do something about the environmental crisis facing our world.

• The environment is an integral theme of our worship, and at least once a year we designate a service to share the work of the Eco team with our congregation

• Our intercessors usually include prayers for the environment and the work of the many environmental charities and organisations which our congregational members  support.

Church Buildings

·      We do our best to reduce the carbon footprint of our church buildings within the limitations of our available budget and the reality of maintaining our nineteenth-century-buildings.

·      During the winter months some of services take place in the Church Hall in order to minimise our energy usage.

·      We use eco-friendly cleaning products, Fairtrade products and recycled printer paper when possible.

·      We have provided recycling bins with special provision for items ineligible for domestic recycling such as used dental products, crisp packets and pens.

·      Where possible we use energy efficient light bulbs.

·      Our energy supplier has good green credentials.

·       Our toilets have a double flushing mechanism.

·      We have installed a bicycle rack to encourage green travel.

Church Land

·      Our Churchyard is managed as a peaceful haven for people and wildlife. 

·      We have established long grass areas to increase habitat and food sources for various bugs and beasties.

·      We have planted herbaceous borders with pollinator attractor perennial plants and also plants.

·      We have three composting clamps for leaves. This enables us to segregate our composting leaves into years of collection thus enabling a sequential composting system rather a conglomeration of stages. The compost is used to improve the borders in the churchyard as well as being offered to members of the congregation in exchange for a contribution towards Church funds.

·      The dead-hedge constructed from brush wood, which  in addition to securing a boundary and providing an area for reusing the arisings from tree and shrub prunings, is  also a habitat corridor for various fauna including insects, thereby creating a natural bug hotel .

·      We have installed two bird-boxes with different aperture sizes to two trees as an adjunct to the existing nesting areas in hedges, trees and the eaves of our church buildings

·      And Best of All: there are 42 plant, 14 tree species, 11 bird species.  Watch this space as we do more detailed surveys!

Community

·      Church members assist at a weekly food-hub to mitigate supermarket waste

Personal Lifestyle

·      We share ideas via a regularly changing poster display in our church hall. The topics include ideas for green travel, wildlife-friendly gardening and recycling options.