Saturday 15 May 2010

Saturday 15th May 10

Quite a busy day, starting with getting to St Nicks for 10am to welcome Pete Redwood, who had come all the way from Hunmanby near Scarborough to present an introduction to EcoCell.

The Christian Ecology Link originally started out as a group within the Ecology Party, (which became the Green Party) but it soon became independent of any political party and is also non-denominational, not aligned to any particular church. EcoCell has been developed as a CD, a series of files which cover the basics of greening one's life (energy, resources, waste, water, etc) and has a section for a facilitator and a section for the 'congregation member', as it is aimed at churches. There is a section in the CD which has a religious element, but this can be skipped if not wanted, and I found the sample workshop very accessible.

The event had about 10 people there, some Quakers, a gentleman new to York whom i liked very much, several people I knew already, and a woman from Hong Kong who arrived late. The intro lasted about an hour, after which John Brierley took most of the visitors out onto the reserve for a tour.

At about 1pm, I was able to get off, and I paid a quick visit to the St Nicks compost heap with a donation, and home for a very quick lunch, as at 2pm there was a rally in Kings Square about voting reform... Take Back Parliament. This was organised by the student group 'People and Planet' so there were loads of students there, but some of us oldies too!

Hugh Bayley spoke, as did Christian Vassie, Green Councillor Dave Taylor, a politics lecturer and the chap from People and Planet.

Then we marched through the streets, arriving back at Kings Square within the hour.

I came home and got busy in the garden... more of the usual but also preparing for putting in some raised beds next to the relatively new fence in the orchard.

In the evening I made a facebook page for my friend Dawn's fundraising run in aid of the Dr Hadwen Trust on 22nd May.

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