Celebrating 'Eco-activity'
Wimborne has held a festival to celebrate all that is happening in and around the town to lessen the damage we are causing to the environment.
The ‘Wimborne Green’ Festival started with a showing of 'The True Cost' film about the clothing and fashion industry. The impact of just making one t-shirt or a pair of jeans on people and the environment is huge.
Saturday 3 November saw ‘Green Bites’ inside the Minster. A series of talks was interleaved with musical interludes, thanks to organisations such as Wimborne War on Waste, Friends of the Earth and Dorset Wildlife Trust. The talks covered environmental actions we could take, including alternatives to using disposable and plastic items, recycling, our food and economics.
Music was provided by St Michael’s School African Drummers, the Quayside Cloggies Band and a duet by Minster Accord.
St Michael’s School African Drummers
‘Wonky trees’ were exchanged for donations. Proceeds from these, and from coffee and cake, were split between Wimborne Food Bank and Hilfield Friary.
‘Wonky trees’ awaiting donations
On Saturday evening Muir Miller, of Peel Energy, gave a talk on low carbon energy, with information about how it has evolved from fossil fuels and where the future will take us with renewable solutions. There was also a delicious LOAF (Local, organic, animal friendly, fair-trade) supper.
As part of the Wimborne Green Festival, Wimborne Minster received the Eco Church Bronze Award at the Parish Eucharist service on Sunday 4 November. It was presented on behalf of Eco Church by David Morgan, who works with the organisation behind the awards – A Rocha UK.
David Morgan presents the Eco Church bronze award
Social Justice Programme Manager Colin Brady said, “I am really delighted with Wimborne Minster’s Bronze Eco Church award. The team there have had to work extra hard to achieve this with some of the particular difficulties associated with landmark buildings. But they have been very strong in campaigning on environment issues and I am sure that they are in a great position now to work towards that Silver.”
The award is achieved by completing an online survey covering five different areas of church life and churches are encouraged to change their practices to show they are caring for God’s earth. It might mean using different cleaning products, or changing to a 'green' energy supplier, or working locally or globally to reduce carbon emissions and pollution. The congregation was encouraged by David Morgan to work now towards a silver award.
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