RIBI ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY GROUP

NEWSLETTER FOR CLUBS & DISTRICTS NOVEMBER 2014

THE WOODLAND TRUST

The Woodland Trust is asking people to donate a tree in remembrance of those who fought in World War One. £20 will secure a tree which will be planted in the wood of your choice – England at Langley Vale Wood, Surrey; Scotland at Dreghorn Woods, Pontland Hills, Edinburgh; Northern Ireland at Brackfield Wood, Faughan Valley; Wales – the Trust is in the course of buying the land for a wood there. It might be a project you can either do with your own Rotary Club, especially for those who may have a relative who fought in the War and would like some means of commemorating that fact. Schools might also be interested as well.

For those wanting the free tree packs 30, 60, 105 or 420 trees, there are 3000 packs available for community groups for planting in March 2015. The closing date for applications is the 7 January 2015, but if there is a high demand this may be brought forward to an earlier date, so if you want some, please apply sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment. CHRISTMAS TREE COLLECTION If you are going to do this easy money raising effort, now is the time to start planning it. I am therefore repeating part of what I put in last month’s newsletter. All you need do is to select an area in a town (or a whole small town or village) where you think there will be lots of children living, and therefore some likelihood that there will be lots of Christmas Trees. Just after New Year, you do a leaflet drop in the area saying that you will be coming around to collect their old Christmas Trees in a few days. Epiphany falls on a Tuesday next year, so you might get away with collecting them the Sunday before, as most people will take down their trees over the weekend. In the leaflet, you can state a particular charity for whom you are collecting or just ‘Rotary Charities’ and ask for a minimum donation of £3. Most will give you £5 anyway! You then need a team of 3 or 4 people with a lorry to collect the trees. To make more space on the lorry, you may wish to cut them down, or take some of the branches off, or even hire a wood chipper. One hint is that bungalows rarely have trees, so much better to go for houses when doing your leaflet drop!!! Another way is to do it through your local supplier, but the only problem there is that you might be covering quite a large area collecting the trees, whereas doing a leaflet drop confines the area more specifically. Have a look at the leaflet on the RIBI web site for more details. RODNEY HUGGINS AWARD The closing date for entries for the Annual Rodney Huggins Award is the 31 January 2015. It would be nice to feel that we got AT LEAST ONE ENTRY PER DISTRICT, especially if a District Environmental Competition has been held. Why not send in the winning entry and perhaps even a couple of Runners-up as well? Of course Clubs or Districts can enter individually as well, so if you feel they has done something which is unique and/or would be of interest to other Clubs, please do not hesitate to enter. Entry Forms are available on the RIBI Web Site.

There are three entry categories:- ROTARY Any Rotary Club which is, itself, carrying out or supporting projects connected with the environment SCHOOL & YOUTH GROUPS Any project connected with the environment, run by schools or youth groups. There MUST be some Rotary involvement INTERNATIONAL Any Rotary Club or District involved in an environmentally sustainable project outside RIBI There are cash prizes for the winner of each category and then an additional amount for the overall winner thanks to the generosity of the Rodney Huggins Family Trust. RECYCLING There are many ways in which we can recycle and give everyday materials a new lease of life. One of my favourites is BICYCLE RECYCLING. Think of all those places where a bicycle could make so much difference to people’s lives. In Easter Europe and the old communist countries where people are too poor to have a car, and even if they had one, could not afford the maintenance and petrol. In one instance bicycles have been provided for ‘meals on wheels’, not to take out meals to different people as we do here, but to give a bicycle to a family to enable them to ride to a food centre (e.g. those run by Caritas). Think also of the many places in Africa where the roads are impassable and the only means of travel between one village and another is on foot. Think about the children as well - those in orphanages with nothing to play with and how a few bicycles would make all the difference, or perhaps even allowing a child to get to a school much more easily when it may be many miles from their home. See the leaflet on the web site to see where bicycles can be sent or collected. HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT is in great demand abroad and we have several Rotary led convoys taking this out to places where it is urgently needed. So much equipment gets thrown out by hospitals which is still perfectly useable, but because of health & safety requirements is too expensive to renovate to the standards required in this country. Again our web site shows several organisations willing to collect from you. COMPUTERS soon get out of date as new technology makes the old ones slow or lacking the latest technology, often making them redundant as they are no longer compatible with others. Think of all the schools in Africa and elsewhere which would so benefit from what we are throwing out. Again there are organisations which have Rotary connections and can deal with such issues as wiping the discs for security purposes. HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING should now be an essential part of our everyday lives. I despair at my children and grandchildren who still do not always get to grips with recycling as a natural part of their lives. Most Councils now provide boxes or bins in which to put garden waste, cardboard, plastic and paper, and the amenity tips are there for other materials such as metal, wood, used batteries (which are not good for landfill), and other waste material. However some are now starting to charge for rubble and plasterboard which, while aimed at builders, also affects the general public and even encourages fly tipping. A sheet of plasterboard cost me £6 recently! RIBI WEB PAGE LINK For leaflets on all the subjects above as well as many others which I am sure you will find useful, go to the RIBI web site and then go to Members where you will need to log on. Click ‘Service & Our Programmes’ and then ‘Community’. After that you will see under Community ‘Environmental projects/leaflets. Click on that and you will get to your leaflet. For copies of this newsletter go to http://www.ribi.org/members/humanitarian-service-programmes/community/environment-sustainability-group/environment-projects/ If you are still having trouble getting through to the new RIBI web site, please feel free to contact me if you want any leaflets or information.

Where you are able to access the leaflet, if you need any more information, please contact the person, Club or Organisation named on the leaflet or me, Terry Knowles, Secretary of the RIBI Environmental Sustainability Group, 13a Old Barber, Harrogate, North Yorkshire HG1 3DF E-mail :- TERUNA2@aol.com Tel 01423 525014