Going for ‘Gold’ or are we going for ‘Green’?

Team. St Mary has worked with the congregation and the wider community to achieve theSilver ECO church award in recognition of the work completed to be more environmentally friendly within our church community.

What does this mean? Every day we all make decisions that could impact the environment and here in church we seek alternative options that have less impact on the world around us. This means that we make positive and thoughtful decisions including the use of environmentally friendly products to clean; we serve fair trade coffee and tea; we serve refreshments in re-useable cups and on ‘real’ plates: we encourage car sharing and walking to church activities; our porches are decorated with treasurers found in local charity shops; we offer a safe haven for wildlife; we support local environmental and recycling initiatives whilst encouraging people to be more aware of their own impact on the environment at home.

The team are now working towards the ‘Gold’ award, over the next couple of months you will see changes taking place around the church and we need you to support and encourage the team to complete this work. 

So what can you expect to see in the next couple of months? 

–       You will see a major project in the autumn that will close the church for a couple of weeks as we change our lighting in church to LED lights that will not only be brighter but also environmentally friendly. 

–       We will be adding to the wild areas in the churchyard as we support the ‘Nature isn’t Neat’ initiative and will be allowing an unused area in the ‘Garden of Remembrance’ to grow.

–       There will be new ways of working as more environmental options become available, these will be tested in church whilst we find ways to continue our journey.

–       We will encourage more personal reflection to take up the challenge of a ‘carbon fast’ to reduce our personal carbon footprint.

We would welcome your ideas and thoughts, please contact a member of the clergy, a member of the congregation or just leave a note in the green box at the back of church.