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News and recent activities We have one big piece of news to start with. Transition Lichfield is evolving. Our website is up for renewal in March 2025 and Philippa Birch-Wood and I (Pam) have taken the decision to not renew. After several years acting as Transition Lichfield we are taking the opportunity to combine forces with Nurture Community CIC and bolster their impact going forwards. This will mean less time on admin and more time on meaningful action. We will keep the Transition name going for now but will reassess this a little further down the line. We have the same values, we can benefit from Nurture’s reach and project focus and they too can see benefit from our connections and areas of expertise. Nurture have a 5 year plan for their activities and funding in place to support a lot of their work. We will continue to promote groups and initiatives that are making a positive difference. We will transfer much of the content from our website to Nurture’s website and support their social media channels. We will continue with a newsletter, most likely a combined one with Nurture, so we will be in touch with a sign up link for that once we know more. We are looking forward to this new adventure helping Nurture Community CIC to maximise positive climate impact and we hope you are too. Repair Cafes We have come to the end of another very successful year for our 2 monthly repair sessions with an average of 50 items brought to us each month and an approximate 65% success rate of either repair or advice on spare parts/action to take to resolve issues. That’s a lot of items saved! We have had some lovely stories of family heirlooms being restored and everyday items that make a real difference being mended. We have also held a number of ‘skillshare’ sessions which attendees have enjoyed. So, a big thank you to all our repairers and volunteers who make these sessions happen. We look forward to more successful repairs and sharing activities throughout 2025. Our thanks also go to Burntwood Town Council and Lichfield City Council for grants to support out room hire fees. Christ Church Primary School Christ Church school are very lucky to have a large outdoor space. The School Association have big plans for developing this area further (they already have an environmental area and raised beds for growing) and have put together a detailed 3 year plan for a Forest School which they hope will provide the children with a much greater opportunity to spend more time outdoors; whether it’s to learn about nature and protecting our environment, taking their science and geography lessons outside or for looking for inspiration in their art creations and creative writing. The opportunities are endless. Transition will be able to support the school in various ways, such as signposting to funding opportunities or to people with particular expertise. If you think you could help in some way then do let us know and we can put you in touch. Beacon Park Lichfield District Council want to hear your views on their plans for introducing different sports/leisure activities to Beacon Park. More information can be found here. Lichfield City Station Friends Group Make sure you take a look at the festive décor at the City Station! Beautiful wooden Christmas trees with wooden ‘baubles’, alongside the wonderful Litter Legends wheel hub display. Looking very festive indeed and the choirs performing over the coming Saturdays will add to that Christmassy feeling! Well done to all involved. Learning opportunities, inspiration and handy hints Read If you take an interest in where your food comes from then there are a couple of interesting articles here. One is looking at factory farm waste and pollution – you can check out how polluted your local area is – and this Farming UK one has details of how all 8 big UK supermarkets are promoting British growers/farmers by having a button on their websites. There is a lot of discussion going on around Staffordshire about food – production, buying local, supporting small farms, sharing land etc so keep your eyes peeled for initiatives or get involved if you want to do more. The Staffordshire Nature Recovery Strategy – sign up to their mailings to find out more about what’s going on and read the blog for ideas about suitable things to plant for particular environments. Look what are Sunderland are planning! Wouldn’t it be great to have this kind of thing in Lichfield – a central hub for the community to make use of and share resources/ideas. Listen/Read The music industry is looking to decarbonise. There have been some excellent discussions on 6 Music (Mary Ann Hobbs show last week), including music being made with mushrooms (!) and the band Massive Attack’s work “Act 1.5” . Listen back on BBC Sounds or just follow some of these links to find out more. Massive Attack - and more info here in the NME. The music industry climate foundation – EarthPercent SWG3 - a music venue in Glasgow experimenting with capturing body heat from audience to help with overall heating! And other initiatives…. Visit Take a trip to the National Memorial Arboretum to see the national collection of Amelanchier trees – they are colourful from Dec to Feb! We hope many of you have called in to check out our wilding area on Backcester Lane (back of Lichfield Methodist Church/car parks) and admired the amazing artwork on the abandoned wooden pallet! Mariana Karasel is a Ukrainian artist now living in Lichfield and she was only too happy to help transform the pallet, along with some beautiful rocks from Louise at Lichfield Kindness Rocks. Mariana will take art commissions so do get in touch if you would like her contact details or find her on Instagram – @artstudio_karma. Currently also adorned with festive wellies!! There are even some wildflowers still flowering! Bulbs have been planted so it will be lovely to see them pop up in the spring. To Do Stop using Google as your main search engine and try Ecosia instead! Do good whilst searching the internet. They plant trees for every search done and you can check out the extent of their impact here. Amazing! Make sure you have checked out what government support there is for home insulation and other energy saving initiatives. Get your Christmas meat order in with Woodhouse Farm before the end of 2nd Dec (today!!) for gammon or 11th Dec for everything else. WISHING YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR! Dates for your diary December 3rd - Lichfield Wildlife Group. Talk – Bees, by Ron Rock. Wade St Church. 7.45pm £3.50 5th – Lichfield Science and Engineering Society talk - THE CHALLENGES OF MEETING NET-ZERO BY 2050, Professor Michael Kelly, Emeritus Prince Philip Professor of Technology, University of Cambridge. 8pm, Lichfield Garrick 7th - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB (this is final repair session before Christmas) 7th - NCT Cloth Nappy Library. 10.00-12.00am, Lichfield District Children's Centre WS13 7PH. [email protected] 7th - Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-3pm (tbc) 14th - Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-3pm (tbc) 14th – Whittington Traditional Christmas Market, Village Hall, 9.30-2pm 15th December – Festive wreath making, Forest Harvest, 10am Email [email protected] 21st - Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-3pm (tbc) January 2025 4th - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB 4th – Lichfield Wildlife Group NY Bird watching walk, 10am Tucklesholme Nature Reserve 18th – Lichfield Repair & Share Café, 2-5pm, Curborough Community Centre WS13 7NY Burton Conservation Volunteers have a range of activities – if you are interested in helping with projects around the Burton area then contact Lawrence Oates – [email protected]
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GET INVOLVED – GO GREEN – GET READING – GET ACTIVE (All images referred to are at the end of the text) News and recent activities Transition Network As most of you are (hopefully!) aware, our group is part of the national Transition Network. As part of their on-going plans for helping groups and working together, the Network have an event planned for February 2025 where there will be lots of opportunities to share ideas and listen to what other groups have been up to. More details here if you are interested in being part of that. Do let us know if you would like to attend though as there is only capacity for two people from each group to attend at the moment. Lichfield District Council Food Partnership Lichfield District Council are facilitating the creation of a Food Partnership, to ensure that groups and organisations are better connected and share opportunities and good practice. Regular meetings of representatives from the groups will be held and a central resource created that all can access. The aim is to ensure that opportunities for learning to cook, improving nutrition, growing your own veg, accessing free or reduced price food etc are available to the community. If you are interested in being part of this then contact Charlotte Fu, the project co-ordinator – [email protected]. Resources such as this one from the Eden Project will be shared and adapted. One initiative that has had a mention is the community orchard at Larks Rise in Burntwood. This orchard came about as part of a local business thinking about sustainability, circular economy and staff wellbeing. You can read about Mercian Labels mission here. A lot that can be learned from businesses like this one. Friends of Lichfield City Station There will be lots of local choirs performing at the station in the lead up to Christmas. See diary dates below for further details. Foraged Art We had a lovely message from a member via Facebook who took her daughter to our Three Tree Triangle wilding site for a spot of ‘foraged art’ and this is one of their creations! Some inspiration to us all – maybe we could have a ‘gallery’ of images of people’s nature art on our website! Send us pics if you do create something please! Woodhouse Farm A busy time of year for gathering produce and making preserves, chutneys, jams and cakes! Quite a haul, with the help of volunteers from Liberty Jamboree – quinces, medlars, huge range of pumpkins and crab apples. Pop over to the shop to try out some of the creations! Learning opportunities, inspiration and handy hints Read Carbon offsetting is quite a difficult subject to get your head around. This article on the Ecologi website about carbon offsetting (compensation) v carbon contribution is a useful one to read. And whilst you are there, you could create an Ecologi account and buy into projects all around the world, to help with your own carbon compensating! Great for birthday and Christmas gifts for people too! The Money Saving Expert website has a whole host of useful resources, as many of you will be aware. These three recent posts are handy reads – Gardening on a budget; the latest on how to get funding for home insulation projects, and how to make best use of your heating. There are many innovations going on in housebuilding and construction generally. You may be interested to read about the Salford based ‘Energy House’ and also a new technique for roadbuilding that will cut the carbon emissions significantly. Watch Have you ever thought about the impact that advertisements have on climate change/environment? This short documentary features people who work in the industry discussing the impact they have and ways of changing their approach, to use the platform for good rather than being all about consumption. Visit If you are in London then take a walk around the newly created gardens at the Natural History Museum which are linked to their urban nature project. And there’s the golden dinosaur skeleton of course too! Do Did you know that we have a thermal imaging camera available to borrow? You do need to have an idea of how to use it (there is a basic User Guide) and what the images are showing you but feel free to get in touch if you would like to give it a go. Shenstone Environment Group also have one and have a proper loan system and user instructions in place for theirs. Get involved Climate Ambassadors Needed Just covering this again in case anyone missed it. Su Farrah and Pam Beale have signed up and have started their training and DBS checks. Early years, schools, colleges and other education settings across the UK are eager for help in delivering better climate education, mitigating their climate impact, improving their biodiversity, and adapting to the extremes of weather associated with the changing climate. By helping make climate and sustainability education more widely available to all learners, you can help develop the citizens and workforce needed for the green transition. Climate Ambassadors is a two-year project, funded by the Department for Education as part of its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, which states that by 2025 all education settings in England are expected to have a designated sustainability lead and a climate action plan. The role of a Climate Ambassador is to provide free support to educational settings in England (early years, primary, secondary, Further Education (FE) and Special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision) to develop and deliver impactful Climate Action Plans which cover four themes, as set out by the Department for Education: Decarbonisation Adaptation & Resilience; Nature & Biodiversity; Climate Education; & Green Skills. You don’t need to be an expert in all or any of these areas - you can focus your time working on things that align with your passion and experience - and we will provide you with the training and development to help you make the most of your skills. Contact Emma on [email protected] for further details. EV Charging in Staffordshire Have Your Say on EV Charging in Staffordshire! Staffordshire County Council needs your input! They are conducting an Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Survey to help shape the future of EV infrastructure in our county. The results so far (as at 28th Oct) show that 96% of EV users in Staffordshire that have completed the survey are satisfied or extremely satisfied with their vehicles. Around 80% said that saving money on fuel costs were there top motivation for choosing an electric vehicle. Resident feedback has highlighted 375 locations for potential Electric Vehicle Charging sites that will guide Staffordshire County Councils future expansion efforts. Participate in the survey and help us build a greener future for Staffordshire. Take the survey today! - https://letstalk.staffordshire.gov.uk/let-s-talk-transport/surveys/ev-survey Dates for your diary November 2nd - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB 2nd - NCT Cloth Nappy Library. 10.00-12.00am, Lichfield District Children's Centre WS13 7PH. [email protected] 3rd – March for Clean Water (London) – 1-5pm. More info here. 5th – Lichfield Wildlife Group. Talk - Flowers of the Mediterranean’ by Peter Coxhead. Wade St Church. 7.45pm £3.50. 5th – Lichfield Science & Engineering Society lecture, Garrick Theatre, ‘Recent Advances in AI – what they are and what do they mean?’ 7.30pm 13th – Ecoprinting morning at Forest Harvest, Yoxall, 10.00am Email [email protected] 15th – Pamper Night, Spark and Springhill Primary Academy, 6:30pm-9:30pm. Tickets £6 per person 16th - Lichfield Repair & Share Café, Curborough Community Centre, 2-5pm (this is final Lichfield one before Christmas) 16th – Whittington Produce Market, 10-12pm, Bell Car Park, Whittington 17th – Dovehouse Gardens Working Party, 11-1pm 18th – Wheel hub art session, 7-9pm at Shenstone Library. Glass of fizz whilst you work! Get free ticket from the Library 30th – Shenstone Library Repair Café, 10-12pm (last one of 2024) 30th – Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-12 December 3rd - Lichfield Wildlife Group. Talk – Bees, by Ron Rock. Wade St Church. 7.45pm £3.50 7th - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB (this is final repair session before Christmas) 7th - NCT Cloth Nappy Library. 10.00-12.00am, Lichfield District Children's Centre WS13 7PH. [email protected] 7th - Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-3pm (tbc) 11th December – Festive wreath making, Forest Harvest, 10am Email [email protected] 14th - Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-3pm (tbc) 14th – Whittington Christmas Market, Village Hall 21st - Christmas Choirs at Lichfield City Station, 10-3pm (tbc) Burton Conservation Volunteers have a range of activities – if you are interested in helping with projects around the Burton area then contact Lawrence Oates – [email protected]  GET INVOLVED – GO GREEN – GET READING – GET ACTIVE
JULY 2024 News and recent activities Fuse Festival - Transition Stand and Climate Choir What a wonderful time was had by all! The Lichfield Arts Fuse Festival was a great thing to be part of. We had a Transition stand so that we could promote our activities and the groups under out umbrella and the enthusiastic volunteers from Spark Burntwood, lead by Esther, ran the ‘junk instruments’ making and playing tent! We had some brilliant instruments made by some of the repair café volunteers and from the Lichfield Society of Artists. So imaginative! Esther and her team ran making sessions so that children could make instruments out of ‘junk’ – shakers, drums, mini guitars…..allsorts! Quite a racket but a real joy to see everyone enjoying making noise. Ayliffe Edwards had been working for a few months on co-ordinating 3 choirs to create a ‘climate choir’ for Fuse, to perform joyous songs about nature and the planet. A brilliant collaboration and all involved enjoyed the experience, along with the audience. Great job Ayliffe! Here’s to many more performances! Lichfield City Council Community Day – 29th August, 10-3pm Groups have been invited to have a stand at the LCC event in the Market Square so Transition will be joining in. Feel free to come and help out on the stand and to represent your group as well as Transition. The aim of the day is to bring together local organisations, charities, and service providers in a central location to engage with the public and promote the wonderful work done in our community. To add to this special day there will also be live music, face-painting, and ice-cream. Lichfield District Council Cllr Janice Sylvester-Hall has taken over from Cllr Mike Wilcox as lead on Environment, Climate Change and Visitor Economy. Janice is a very proactive councillor so please do get in touch directly with her if you have questions or suggestions – [email protected] Nurture Community CIC – Memory Threads and Growing Communities Nurture have been doing a brilliant job with two major projects over the last few months (and will continue with the Growing Communities until later in the year). They have engaged with hundreds of people on issues around memory loss and dementia and even had a short play written and then performed for them at a number of locations. And the veg growing is going well so we all look forward to sampling some of those courgettes soon Charlotte!! Free Water Butts! Did you know the typical house roof collects enough rainwater in a year to fill about 450 water butts? All of that ends up going down the drain! Severn Trent is offering some Staffordshire residents a free water butt this summer. Not only is the butt free, but delivery and fitting is too. By having a water butt:
Learning opportunities, inspiration and handy hints Read Some positive news on how giving up some space for nature can make a real difference in the urban environment. The new Labour government has acted swiftly to remove the ban on on-shore wind power, opening the way for an increase in green energy production and lower bills for consumers. Visit Lots of you probably haven’t discovered our small wilding areas around town so do go take a wander, especially down Tamworth Street and then round the corner onto Backcester Lane where we have transformed a piece of neglected land into a real haven! If you know if other plots that could be transformed then let us know! We have been given wildflower seeds by Florette so that we can plant up more places. Find out This initiative in Tamworth was brought to our attention. What a great way of getting young people involved in growing! Self Sufficient Children “By engaging children in the process of growing their own fruits and vegetables, we challenge their taste buds and channel their boundless energy towards productive, enlightening endeavours.” Take a look at their Facebook group here. Get involved Staffordshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) SCC held a session at the Staffs Wildlife Trust to engage with groups on the Strategy. You can read more about it here and get in touch with your thoughts/ideas. Gardening/growing We will keep mentioning this as we really do need your support and there were no new offers after the last newsletter sadly. We are always in need of extra hands for our wilding patches around Lichfield and the City Station planters. We can add your number to our WhatsApp group to keep you posted on what needs doing where. It might only be a couple of hours every few weeks, so not that onerous as the more people who help us the better. And if anyone has veg growing expertise who would be happy to teach others, then we would love to hear from you! We plan to hold some skill share sessions at Dovehouse Gardens at some point. Dates for your diary You can also check out the Events listing on the Transition website. August ***No Repair Café sessions in August!*** 10th – Ron Rock will run the popular Bee Safari for at the Wolseley Centre. Details can be found on the SinCH website. 17th – Jane Rock from the Staffs Bat Group will run a late evening Bat Walk for us – details on the SinCH website. 18th - Dovehouse Community Garden Working Party, 11-1pm 29th – Lichfield City Council Community Day, 10-3pm, Market Square, Lichfield 31st - Lichfield Wildlife Trust Bat Walk: Led by Heather Lomas, in conjunction with SE Staffs Bat Group, 8:00 p.m at Fisherwick Lakes, Fisherwick Wood Lane, Whittington WS13 8QF. Meet in the car park. September 3rd – Lichfield Wildlife Trust AGM followed by talk: ‘Dangerous Animals’ by Peter Norbury. 7.45pm Wade St Church 7th - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB 7th - NCT Cloth Nappy Library. 10.00-12.00am, Lichfield District Children's Centre WS13 7PH. [email protected] 15th - Lichfield Arts Folk on the Farm, Woodhouse Community Farm 12.00-8.00pm. Tickets available here 20th - Globe Foundation Climate Expo (Uttoxeter) - https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globegroup/1192030 21st - Lichfield Repair & Share Café, Curborough Community Centre, 2-5pm with ‘how to use your tools’ workshop! 21st - Midlands Permaculture Festival - https://earthedup.com/learn/midlands-permaculture-festival-2024/ 22nd - Dovehouse Community Garden Working Party, 11-1pm Burton Conservation Volunteers have a range of activities – if you are interested in helping with projects around the Burton area then contact Lawrence Oates – [email protected] News and recent activities
Grace Cares – Pimp My Ride Schools, colleges and local groups joined in this brilliant initiative to showcase the issues with excess medical aids and how more recycling/reuse is needed. Zimmer frames were given to the groups to decorate and these are now on display at the Hub at St Mary’s, following an excellent fundraising night held there last week. Check out all the fun here. The event even features on ITV news! Transition also decorated one (not entered into the competition though). Staffordshire Green Network The ‘Green Conversation’ on 14th June looked at the role of community energy and other avenues to explore for venues and groups looking to reduce their energy costs and emissions. Further details on contacts can be obtained by emailing [email protected] Free online workshops organised by Phil Beardmore - a real expert on energy-saving for voluntary, community or faith organisations. Come along to the ‘Energy Saving In Community Buildings’ free Zoom workshop on 16 July 2024 (10am-12.30pm) and 17 July 2024 (10am-12.30pm), and learn how to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions and your fuel bills. Follow the link to book (you will need to attend both sessions). Repaint Scheme Staffs County Council have opened the Repaint Scheme at Lichfield Recycling Centre, a week earlier than planned. This will allow people to leave their part used/unused tins of paint for others to make use of. Find it in the corner to the right, straight ahead from the entrance. Speak to a member of staff if you would like to make use of the paint. Great Big Green Week - Shenstone Library Shenstone Library Environment Group organised a wonderful range of events and activities during GBGW, including a very successful Gardeners' Question Time! Lots of ideas and tips to take away. The “Cherishing Our Wildlife Through Art” exhibition was a great success, with some very generous donations from artists and some lovely contributions from school children. Over £1500 was raised – what a brilliant amount – and Staffs Wildlife Trust will be the recipient. Well done to all involved. Rethink Food initiative The Rethink Food group (currently a WhatsApp group) had a very successful evening showing of the Six Inches of Soil film, followed by a panel discussion. Annamarie of Woodhouse Farm was one of the panellists. Certainly a lot to think abut in terms of valuing the soil and land and bring about change to working practices. Learning opportunities, inspiration and handy hints Watch If you are in need of an inspiring film to watch then take a look at the ones on offer from the Waterbear platform. A brilliant selection. Read It was heartening to read that Costco is doing a pretty good job re sustainability and reducing food waste, considering its size and the type of business it is in. Read more about here and here. The topic of geoengineering was raised recently at an event I was at. Should we be ‘messing’ with weather systems to try to bring about change? This article from a few years ago gives a good introduction to the issues. Next year sees the introduction of the Future Homes Standard 2025 – a new standard for energy efficient homes. Is it too little too late? Will all those new homes around our local area need retrofitting in the not so distant future? How has your garden fared this year, with warm winter, heavy rains and then not a lot of sunshine? This article from Kew has some advice on adapting gardens for climate change. Parliament will be transformed (we hope!) by the end of the week. No Caroline Lucas though – she will definitely be missed. The speech she gave during the debate about the loss of biodiversity and failure of government to protect nature was excellent. You can read it here. Visit Have you seen the glorious stumpery in the forest at Trentham Gardens yet? And whilst you are there, you can look out for the beavers that have been introduced into the lake! Get involved Lichfield Arts Fuse Festival, 12th- 14th July, Beacon Park We still need a few more people to come forward to help on the Transition stall at Fuse. Setting up on the Friday and manning it over the weekend. We are happy to have info from our connected groups on the stand so do get in touch about joining forces. And the Fuse organisers are still in need of helpers for the festival in general. We will have some musical instruments made from ‘junk’ for people to play on or make their own so if you have expertise in that area or have items that would make great instruments then let us know! Staffordshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) SCC held a session at the Staffs Wildlife Trust to engage with groups on the Strategy. You can read more about it here and get in touch with your thoughts/ideas. Eco Together Eco Together is a Friends of the Earth initiative, aiming to get people talking about climate change who otherwise might not engage. It is based on the idea of small groups of neighbours/friends getting together for 6 sessions over a few months. All the resources are provided. Stephanie Boyle who runs sessions in Birmingham is working with a local Lichfield resident who is wanting to start groups here. If you are interested then email us on [email protected] and we can put you in touch. Gardening/growing Don’t forget that we are always in need of extra hands for our wilding patches around Lichfield and the City Station planters. They have been quite a challenge to maintain over the past few weeks with some of the grasses going bonkers! We can add your number to our WhatsApp group to keep you posted on what needs doing where. It might only be a couple of hours every few weeks, so not that onerous as the more people who help us the better. And if anyone has veg growing expertise who would be happy to teach others, then we would love to hear from you! We plan to hold some skill share sessions at Dovehouse Gardens at some point. Dates for your diary You can also check out the Events listing on the Transition website. July 6th - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB 6th - NCT Cloth Nappy Library. 10.00-12.00am, Lichfield District Children's Centre WS13 7PH. [email protected] 13th - Spark Burntwood – LGBT+ Family Weekend Playgroup session, 10-11.30am. Spark Springhill, Springhill Academy, Mossbank Avenue, Burntwood. 20th - Lichfield Repair & Share Café, Curborough Community Centre, 2-5pm 21st - Dovehouse Community Garden Working Party, 11-1pm 27th - Sausage & Cider Festival, Woodhouse Farm, Whittington. Tickets available from the farm. 27th - Shenstone Library Repair Café, 10-12pm August ***No Repair Café sessions in August!*** 10th – Ron Rock will run the popular Bee Safari for at the Wolseley Centre. Details can be found on the SinCH website. 17th – Jane Rock from the Staffs Bat Group will run a late evening Bat Walk for us – details on the SinCH website. 18th - Dovehouse Community Garden Working Party, 11-1pm 31st - Lichfield Wildlife Trust Bat Walk: Led by Heather Lomas, in conjunction with SE Staffs Bat Group, 8:00 p.m at Fisherwick Lakes, Fisherwick Wood Lane, Whittington WS13 8QF. Meet in the car park. September 3rd – Lichfield Wildlife Trust AGM followed by talk: ‘Dangerous Animals’ by Peter Norbury. 7.45pm Wade St Church 7th - Burntwood Repair & Share Café, 10-1pm, St Joseph’s RC Church, Cannock Road, WS7 0BB 7th - NCT Cloth Nappy Library. 10.00-12.00am, Lichfield District Children's Centre WS13 7PH. [email protected] 15th - Lichfield Arts Folk on the Farm, Woodhouse Community Farm 12.00-8.00pm. Tickets available here 20th - Globe Foundation Climate Expo (Uttoxeter) - https://www.tickettailor.com/events/globegroup/1192030 21st - Lichfield Repair & Share Café, Curborough Community Centre, 2-5pm with ‘how to use your tools’ workshop! 21st - Midlands Permaculture Festival - https://earthedup.com/learn/midlands-permaculture-festival-2024/ 22nd - Dovehouse Community Garden Working Party, 11-1pm Burton Conservation Volunteers have a range of activities – if you are interested in helping with projects around the Burton area then contact Lawrence Oates – [email protected] News and recent activities The new community plot We have made a start with the new plot at Backcester Lane. This plot is owned by Three Spires Shopping Centre but they had no plans for it so we asked if we could make use of it. With a lot of support from members of Lichfield Methodist Church the mesh cover and weeds were cleared then cardboard and compost put down. Wooden planters were made by Jukes Funeral Services for us specially (great to have them on board!) and plants and seeds are starting to be added to the plot. The Church youth groups will be contributing in a number of ways (eg pebble painting) so please do pop down and take a look as it develops and if you have anything you can add or time available then get in touch.  Morris the Mound In case you did not catch the story in Lichfield Live then our living mud-creature now has a name – Morris the Mound! The name was suggested by Matilda O’Connell from Yr 4 at Christchurch School. Pam visited the school to announce the winner and gave out nature-related books as prizes. The children were very pleased to have been involved in the process. Morris’s grass ‘hair’ is growing very vigorously and needs regular attention!  It was a delight to work with the children of Christ Church Primary School to come up with an origin story and name for our 'mud creature' at Three Tree Triangle on Festival Gardens. The winning entry was by Matilda O'Connell, and she went for.... Morris the Mound! ‘Morris lived in the woods with his family but got taken away to be studied because the scientists had never seen anything like him! Morris was born peculiar looking. The scientists studied Morris and decided that they would let him live in the Wilding area. That's how Morris got there!’   We are delighted to say that following the receipt of grant funding via the Transition Network, provided from National Lottery funds, we have created a fun 'living sculpture' on our Festival Gardens wilding area. We hope it will attract interest and be enjoyed. We are awaiting the results of a 'give it a name' competition so we will announce the winner shortly!  |
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