Tuesday 24th March 09

Up early as Gill wanted me to light the stove as the children were cold and she had to get their breakfasts and do three packed lunches. She left with our youngest as he's on a school trip on and around the River Ouse, and she's going with the group.

I really wanted to go back to bed but didn't, as had to go into town to give in a cheque, visit the bank re the LETS account, to see if I've filled in the paperwork correctly, and various other places. It was a bit of a frustrating morning, as the bank doesn't 'do' anything connected with business banking or voluntary groups, yet I waited about 30 minutes to be told this, and I was unable to speak to anyone at the council re expenses connected with the Hull Road Ward Planning Panel. But whilst I was waiting to hear this, I filled in a request for permits to use my trailer at the Hazel Court James Street recycling site, where, apparently, bicycles are not allowed for 'Health and Safety reasons'. I look forward to the response; if it is 'you cannot go there as we don't allow pedestrians up at the top', I'm going to ask why, therefore, car drivers are allowed to get out of their vehicles and take materials from one skip to another, as pedestrians? I want to be allowed to use the site 'at my own risk', the same as I use roads 'at my own risk' and pedestrian crossings 'at my own risk' etc etc. I want to be treated like anybody else depositing drinks cartons or scrap iron for recycling, ie, basically ignored and left to get on with it. I would, however, accept them walking in front of my bike with a red flag to warn other people of the dangers I pose, or to protect me from being endangered. We'll see. I expect a campaign coming on!

I got home at midday and did more washing up and had lunch.

A quiet and productive afternoon, went all too quickly, but got quite a lot done, including a phone call with the Co-op Bank, revealing that I need to get signatures from the new signatories in another part of the form. SO complicated just to get some new people able to sign the cheque book!

Gill and our youngest came back; he was completely knackered as they'd walked miles, literally. Our eldest came back bearing his school report which was very good, with above average effort in most subjects. We really rubbed it in how pleased we were with his effort.

I went to the York Rotters Social at 7pm... the 'end of year celebration and thank you' party. Initially there were just 7 of us but as the evening went on, a few more came. Catherine our paid co-ordinator had provided some food and drinks, and organised a quiz, based on World Records... things like 'what was the height of the tallest costumed character to run in a marathon?' We were given a multiple choice, and the answer was apparently 4.2metres, a nurse character in 2007 I think! Some of the questions generated some comments, chat and laughter, and our team came second with 6 correct out of 20. Catherine had organised prizes for all participants, and two lucky people got a Compost Mate turning tool. I chose a Bubblehouse stacking Desk-Top Wormery which I'm pleased with, despite it being a bit twee! It will probably be a good teaching aid for me, as taking my Can O Worms (with extra tray) anywhere would be really difficult with a bike trailer! This, however, is small and compact, but demonstrates the concept of stacking wormeries which allow the worms to work up through the composting material.

So, a good event, met several new people and had some fun, and came away with new kit, which will undoubtedly come in useful. I think our Master Composter scheme is excellent... well funded and managed, a team of trained and supported volunteers who attend lots of different events, helping people start composting, helping existing composters compost more. I have found friendship and a deep satisfaction in promoting one part of a low carbon lifestyle. I am proud to be a York Rotter, the original York Rotter!

Tuesday 16th October 07, Master Composter Seminar

An early start, went for a walk before breakfast and found a lovely orchard with rows of unpicked apple trees. Nearby found loads of mistletoe in, I think, willow or poplar. My first close-up viewing of Mistletoe.

A good breakfast and was picked up at 9am by Catherine, and we drove towards Stourport to take part in the Master Composter Seminar organised by Garden Organic. It was held at the Bishops Wood Environment Centre, a lovely building demonstrating sustainable construction methods and materials, sited within an extensive patch of land which we had a short tour of at lunchtime.

The Master Composter model started in America, I recently found out, and was first demonstrated by Cambridgeshire County Council working with the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA), now rebranded as 'Garden Organic'. The basic idea is to train up a load of volunteers in the art of home composting and let them loose in their community, to promote home composting as a great way to reduce waste and create fertility in the garden.

I read about this project in the HDRA magazine and immediately thought, what a brilliant idea, and took the concept to St Nicholas Fields Environment Centre, and York Rotters was born. Our project got DEFRA funding for a year of employing a part-time worker, and then we got funding from City of York Council, and we're on the second year of that, and our second worker, Catherine.

So today's 10am til 4.30pm 'do' was to review the current situation of UK Master Composter Schemes, to provide new schemes with information and encouragement, to explore 'tools' to widen their impact and to find ways to measure that impact. There were over 30 people present, representing X Master Composter schemes.

The first presentation was a short one from WRAP chap Carl Nichols. WRAP is in it's 4th year of supporting Master Composter schemes, which are nearly all run by local councils, or are in partnership with them.

Monday 15th October 07 'Blog Action Day'

I only discovered it was 'blog action day' today several days later....

But I did do some practical sustainability action, I went to town and got my compostables from Out Of This World and piled them onto one of my heaps before being picked up by Catherine from York Rotters in her car, and we set off for Worcester, to attend a 'Garden Organic' event the following day, the Master Composter Seminar, which was being held at Bishops Wood Environment Centre near Stourport on Severn.

Catherine stayed with her Aunt and I stayed at Chirkenhill Farm at Leigh Sinton. What a lovely place, near Malvern. Had a pleasent evening, visited the Royal Oak in the village and had a Chinese take away... my second take away this year!

Wednesday 7th March 07

Another very full day. Got up at 8.30 as I heard the kids getting ready to go, and said goodbye to them and Gill, and thanked her for taking them as she'll be picking them up too. Got a phone call from Keely at York Rotters advising me that at 10ish this morning she was expecting a delegation from Hull (a visit I'd organised, because of my attending a Recycling Action Yorkshire event in Leeds in Jan where Id asked around if any local authorities might be interested in setting up a Rotters type scheme). She apologised for this being short notice, but she's been unwell and busy on some funding courses. Fortunately I was able to attend, and I'm very glad I could.

The Hullites were the Council's Waste Minimisation Officer, the head of Parks, the organiser of the Environment Forum and a new volunteer from Friends of the Earth, all keen to hear about York Rotters. I was able to give them a mini-tour of St Nicks, explaining about the site history, the passive solar design of the building and its photovolteic panels, hot water panels, sedum roof with drinking water harvesting, compost toilets, waterless urinal for both sexes, kerbside recycling collections, employment of various groups to help sort recyclables and the composting demonstration site, as well as the straw-bale urinal and hibernaculum for overwintering beasties. The mating frogs in the pond were also pretty spectacular!

Keely and I provided lots of useful info about how York Rotters was set up, funded and what it does and has achieved. I have been invited to give a presentation in Hull at the end of this month by Hull Organic Gardeners, and this may be a perfect opportunity to start the process of launching a Hull Master Composter project. I hope so.

That meeting was nearly 2 hours, so I shot home (via the St Nicks communal logpile, always a good place to find a few kilos of free fuel!) and had lunch before my scheduled meeting with Liz Topi at the City of York Council. This went well, she's happy to say yes to the Green Gala on July 29th, and she gave me some very helpful pointers and ideas. Then a quick visit to Out Of This World, to pick up a small volume of compostables.

Then I went to the Merchant Taylor's Hall to give blood as it's been over a year since I did so. This always entails a lot of waiting, but they always have some good magazines, I read Men's Health and Psychologies Magazine, the latter being very good. Actually giving blood only took 5 and a half minutes, the waiting and tests, nearly 2 hours. Worth it, though.

Zoom home via Richard and the veg shop, where I disobeyed instructions to not lift anything and loaded up my trailer and bike rack with about 6 sacks of biodegradables, including loads of grapes destined for raisinhood. Gill had cooked some potatoes and I made a yellow pepper and cheese omlette to go with them, and a simple coleslaw salad and some dead baked beans left over from the boys tea.

Believe it or not, I then went out again, to the Cafe Scientifique meeting at City Screen, which was an interesting talk about English Partnerships work on their (allegedly) zero carbon housing projects. Should be low carbon housing, as they are not counting the embodied energy in the building materials, just the energy used in the use of the house. Good work, though.

A long day, but finished the game of superscrabble I started yesterday with Gill, and then did my blog, finishing at 1.30am....