sustainable st albans

Save the Date SustFest2020

Gallerygf Leave a comment

Sustainability Festival 2020

The Sustainability festival is unique as it is run by you – individuals and groups in the district encouraging each other to live with a lighter touch on the planet.

Welcome to the website for the Sustainability Festival 2020!

A working group for SustFest2020 has been meeting…plans prepared, fund-raising started… (as usual we have to fund-raise from scratch – so sponsors wanted!).. and events are now rolling in!

Volunteers from Sustainable St Albans charity and St Albans Friends of the Earth are already working hard to get the festival off the ground.

Dates will be: Saturday 23rd May to Sunday 7th June 2020

From residents’ associations running litter picks or local bike rides; pre-schools running events on reducing single-use plastic; schools holding eco-weeks on recycling; or businesses encouraging employees to use reusable water bottles. Why dont’t you organise something for the festival?

Bike repair

There will be art events, talks, walks, tours…

View original post 240 more words

SustFest20

gf Leave a comment

Groups across the district are being asked to organise an event for the fifth Sustainability Festival in 2020 which will take place across two weeks from Saturday 23rd May to Sunday 7th June. Groups must register the event before 9th February.

For local businesses – from cafes to warehouses! For local community groups such as residents associations, women’s groups, wildlife groups, allotment groups and more. Includes all of our district’s faith groups – you can organise a walk -to -church day, or eco-mosque talk. Schools can be very creative; with school-based litter picks, or plastic recycling days, or creating art work on one of the environmental themes.

The festival is created by local groups; community; business; faith and schools (and other youth groups) in St Albans District, across St Albans, Harpenden, and villages such as Sandridge, London Colney, Redbourn and Wheathampstead.

Groups should organise an event that will take place during the festival weeks. The event must be about one of the ten themes of environmental sustainability – taken from Bioregional’s One Planet Living principles.one planet living themes whitepicFor more information about how to organise an event please look at the website www.sustfest.org

 

Ver Players donate £1500 to Sustainable St Albans

gf Leave a comment

Did you see this wonderful news in the Herts Ad: the Ver Players donated £1500 to Sustainable St Albans from their annual charity concert! It is a huge donation that will make a significant impact on the work that we can do locally – we are so grateful to all the musicians – and their supporters – for thinking of us.

They held a really exciting concert for their annual fund-raiser – and its fantastic to see that local musicians can garner such support from around the district – great music and a brilliant atmosphere.

Sustainable St Albans is a charity, and we are run by volunteers – both the six people on the trustee group, and the committed volunteers who work all the year round to provide the Open Food Gardens, the Thermal Imaging Camera sessions, Our Planet, Our Future events, talks and films in the Harpenden area, and the exciting new Playing Out project – where streets can close the road for a day to allow residents to meet and chat, and children to play outside. And, of course the volunteers who make up the SustFest working group, and all the volunteers who help us with running events and stalls.

Fabulous news – Ver Valley chose to gift the proceeds from their charity night to Sustainable St Albans – first time ever that our environmental charity has been selected in this way by a local group – and we hope to do them, and you the local community, proud!

 

Lets get growing – in our local – Sopwell – community

gf Leave a comment

‘Grow Community – Sopwell’ is a group of volunteers in Sopwell ward, St Albans who want to encourage and enable local residents  to grow their own food at home and in community spaces, to reduce food waste and to share surplus food in the community and with local charity groups. See the delicious Pumpkin soup recipe at the end!

They also aim to promote local wildlife conservation and restoration projects, connect ongoing initiatives and bring the community together through these activities.

In this week’s blog we talk to Kate Swindells, a Sopwell resident who has started this new local growing project – Grow Community – Sopwell – which is supported by Sustainable St Albans and the growing project FoodSmiles.

Why have you started Grow Community Sopwell?

Having set up an eco Facebook group for mums in St Albans (SAMs eco team)  I can see so many people wanting to do better with plastic-free and low carbon emissions living.

“Growing your own fruit and veg is a great step to being ‘greener’ and is pretty easy once you’ve got started.”

Knowing our local community pretty well and being into gardening myself, it made sense to start off a community growing group in the area where I live. Luckily for us a similar group  Foodsmiles have already set up the Incredible Edible community gardens in the city centre, and we are gaining advice and support from them about how to set it up!

Are there any local groups who want to get involved?

We’ve got the support of our local councillors, churches, and some of the local youth groups already. The local primary schools are also very happy to be supported in what they are already doing and we have strong links with the local allotment society. In the wider St Albans community, we have support from Sustainable St Albans and Foodsmiles which we’re really pleased about.

Do you grow food in your garden at home?

I love to grow food at home, it’s my escape! This year we’ve grown potatoes, loads of leafy vegetables, beans, peas, tomatoes, leeks and pumpkins, and we’ve just bought a miniature apple tree. A lot of the veg is grown in our old recycling boxes! They’re a good size, deep, and have drainage holes already.

Find out more about Grow Community – Sopwell

There will be refreshments, kid’s activities and a pumpkin soup demo as part of Hubbub’s #PumpkinRescue food waste campaign.

Looking for a schools co-ordinator for SustFest2020

gf Leave a comment

Could you help us involve schools in next year’s SustFest2020?

Are you experienced in working with schools? Are you looking for some short-term voluntary work at the moment?

Session with Sheila from the Festival

We are looking for a volunteer to help us get schools involved in next year’s Sustainabilty Festival – across St Albans, Harpenden and the villages.

Last year’s Sustainability Festival involved over 30 schools – infant, primary, secondary – (and scouts and guides and brownies) across the district – they got involved with some fantastic activities – and did stuff from plastic-free lunches; school litter pick; pond-dipping; jazzing up junk to reducing air pollution around the school entrances.

We now need to get the ball rolling for 2020 and are looking for someone to join our small team.

We have a small Sustainable Schools group and do have a couple of people already on board to help with Schools SustFest2020 – but we are lacking the experience of a teacher, or teaching assistant – someone who is familiar with how our local schools operate.

recycled materials

What kinds of things will the schools team do?

The team will have  to send out emails and follow these up to get some traction with teachers or eco-staff within the schools – and then passing on information to our communications team.  Some schools ask for someone to come in to talk to the children; that could be one of the SustSchools team. For the festival itself we also need to publicise activities within the schools’  newsletters to parents, and try and get some photos from engaged schools. We also need to make sure the schools get hold of programmes to distribute.

Contact us

Is this something you could help with? Or do you know someone who could help? Do let us know – email us through the contact form here.

SS Alban and Stephen school

Growing using recycled materials

Bird Watching