Eco Church
To reduce our carbon footprint and to try to achieve carbon neutral by 2030, we signed up to follow the Eco church scheme. By following this scheme we the hope it would help us achieve our target. Safeguarding the earth that we live on is an integral part of our Christian understanding. We see our environmental action as part of our worship and life together.
With all the things we already do in our church we managed to achieve the bronze Eco church award. We continued to review what we did as a church and have now achieved the silver award.
Work towards our gold award has now began.
Some ideas to get to Gold
We have already reached gold in the Worship category and we need to look at the four other categories
Land – Ideas include putting up birds boxes, bug hotels, bird feeding stations, create a pond, more wildflowers etc.
Buildings – Getting an Energy Audit, having a ‘Green’ gas tariff, collect rain water, have recycled toilet paper, Cycle racks etc.
Lifestyle – Encourage the congregation to reduce their carbon footprint, Get people to do a personal footprint audit, encourage reduction in car use etc.
Community & Global Engagement – This category is the one we struggled with to get the silver award, some ideas for this section are – organise speakers from local environmentalists, take part in local and global campaigns,
Take part in regular sustainability initiatives such as Carbon Fast or WWF’s annual Earth Hour
Are any members of the congregation involved with local conservation work?
Resources
The Eco Church website is full of helpful resources. It gives churches lots of support and advice to make changes to the church and the congregation’s lifestyle.
For more information about Eco church please click the button
Eco tip
Make ‘enjoying nature’ your priority. From bird watching to writing about or drawing something that inspires you in nature, growing your own fruit or vegetables, or exploring an area of outstanding natural beauty in the UK, be sure to fall in love with nature in a new way this year and allow it to lead your thoughts towards God our Creator. Further ideas can be found at arocha.org.uk/ideas-to-enjoy-nature/ Click the link belowto reach the site
Events
Helm Mission Community Environment Prayer and Action Group
We meet on the fourth Saturday of each month, either at one of the churches in the Mission group or visiting a place of interest such as the RSPB site at Leighton Moss or walking to raise money for the Bumblebee Conservation trust. The meetings are open to everyone. For more information either contact us on this website or email Lucy at revlucyfoster@gmail.com or just turn up to a meeting.
The group has visited the Dog Kennel Wood in Kendal where we celebrated Communion (inside because of the pouring rain!) then heard about and saw some of the wonderful work of the Kendal Conservation Volunteers. We were so privileged to visit such a tranquil and inspiring site.
We have hosted an open free talk by Jack Ellerby, project officer of Friends of the Lake District about the value of Dark Skies and the impacts of light pollution on wildlife, environment and people, good and bad lighting, and found out how we can all help tackle light pollution.
After a break in September, we came together in Crosscrake in October to share news, and to pray and look ahead to the climate COP 29 in Azerbaijan.
At other meetings we have looked ahead to forthcoming COP meetings and we have considered how to celebrate a greener Christmas.
For more info look out for posters or contact Lucy: revlucyfoster@gmail.com
All meetings 4th Saturday of the month. 10.30am, refreshments from 10am. Please travel in the most planet-friendly way you can
Fairtrade Coffee Morning
2024 marked the 30th birthday of the Fairtrade mark and Fairtrade fortnight will move to September (9th – 22nd) We held a coffee morning during the fortnight to raise money for Fairtrade foundation. The sum of £132 was sent to the foundation.
Did you know that the tea and coffee you drink on a Thursday or on a Sunday morning in church is Fairtrade? We also use Fairtrade wine for communion.
Of course, many of us would like to buy Fairtrade items all the time but you might be put off because you think the cost is more than the supermarket’s own brand, which is the case on most items, but this is so the farmers receive a proper price for growing the crops. Many of the supermarkets own brands are Fairtrade and not just what people think as top of the market supermarkets such as Waitrose and Booths, both of which have a good range of Fairtrade products, both Lidl and Aldi sell their own Fairtrade products.
Counting Nature
The Helm Mission Community Environmental prayer & action group has taken part in the annual birdwatch for the last three years in Natland churchyard.
This year we again took part in the annual survey The survey asked us to record what wildlife, wild flowers, trees that are found in the churchyard. Last year several people kindly did a survey in our churchyard and recorded what the saw.
We have encourage people to participate in the Big Butterfly Count. This year the group at the meeting in Crosscrake managed to count 7 different species of Butterflies. All you need to do is to spend 15 minutes counting all the butterflies and moths that you saw in that time. Resources and other information could be found at the Big butterfly count including a colourful reference sheet there is also a QR code below you can download to record and identify the butterflies.
Unfortunately like the rest of the country 2024 was not a very good year for butterflies. 2025 there appears to be more butterflies around but we need people to count just to make sure.
Our Lent Challenge
As part of our Eco church awards we invited people to take part in the Carbon Fast for Lent. Several people took part as well as taking part in the Big Plastic Count.
So what next? Have you considered calculating your Carbon Footprint to see how you could reduce it more. Please click on the link to do a simple carbon footprint calculation.
The Big Green Hike
15 members of the Helm Mission Environment group meet on the Helm near the Station Inn and walked along the road over the Helm, then to the Punch Bowl pub in Barrows Green before returning to our start point by going along the road at the back of the Helm. For pictures of our walk please see the news page of the website please click the button.
We raised £350 for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.
If you feel you want to get involved or want more information about St Mark’s Eco church journey please get in contact