To mark Great Big Green Week in June, St Bees Green Future organised a hobby item swap. Suggestions to run a swap related to craft items, outdoor and sports equipment had been made, so this swap tied these themes together. The event was popular and lots of swapping of craft items took place, including fabrics, wool, kits, patterns and books. The remaining craft items were shared between St Bees Village Primary, Little Learners Nursery and the local Beavers group. Given that it was so popular, there will be another craft swap in the future.
St Bees Green Future was successful in applying for one of Zero Carbon Cumbria’s Community Climate Grants. The grant will fund St Bees Swap Together, a series of free swap events in 2025.
As well as continuing with quarterly clothes swaps, there will be a swap event in May for plants, seeds and garden tools, and the committee is liasing with Cumbria Master Composters for a volunteer to attend this event. During Great Big Green Week in June, there will be a swap for hobby items, including sports and outdoor wear and equipment, as well as craft items. For Second Hand September, there will be a swap (theme to be confirmed) alongside a community meal to use up surplus produce. If you have any suggestions for future swap events, please let St Bees Green Future know: stbeesgreenfuture@gmail.com
St Bees Swap Together is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and is part of the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership’s ambitious emission reduction programme to make Cumbria carbon neutral by 2037.
This year’s theme for Great Big Green Week was “Let’s swap together for good”. By swapping items, we reuse what is already in circulation, which helps reduce the production of new items, saving raw materials and energy, and reducing waste.
St Bees Green Future already runs a quarterly clothes swap, but took part in Great Big Green Week with a Book, Game, Jigsaw and Plant Swap at Adams Recreation Ground.
Although it was a wet day, various swaps took place over the afternoon, with jigsaws proving particularly popular! Free refreshments were served, with time to catch up with friends over a cuppa.
Some of the leftover board games were donated to St Bees Village Primary School and some of the jigsaws to Cumberland Libraries. The remaining items were distributed between Barnardo’s and Far Place charity shops in Whitehaven.
Look out for details of the next swap event in St Bees.
During Great Big Green Week, St Bees Green Future shared energy and money saving tips via social media and St Bees News.
Energy saving tips from turning off lights and not using standby to line drying clothes, using a slow cooker and only boiling as much water as you need were also depicted in scenes along Main Street and Sea Mill Lane.
You wouldn’t have thought so many people had pens to recycle, but they did. The same was true for dental items, snack wrappers and medicine blister packs.
The idea for a sustainability group in St Bees came from the interest in using the recycling points for these harder to recycle plastics around the village. If people were keen to recycle items that would otherwise be binned, what else could we do as a community towards reducing waste and our carbon footprint?
St Bees Green Future began in July 2021 as a Facebook group; a place to share ideas for how we can live sustainably and encourage other people to do the same. Although we have held several online meetings via Zoom since then, the St Bees Green Future Facebook group is still active and that’s where most agenda items start as ideas.
Sustainable Choices – Reduce Reuse Recycle
The group decided to focus its initial efforts on reducing consumption of new goods by organising swap events, where people can bring their preloved items along to swap for something else. There was most interest in organising clothes swaps, so that is where we started. We held our first clothes swap in May 2022 at Adams Recreation Ground and since then we have run quarterly clothes swaps there.
There was also interest among members of St Bees Green Future to set up a repair café, where broken items, from clothing and furniture to bikes and tools, could be brought along to be fixed by volunteers. Although a small number of volunteers with repair skills from the parish were interested in getting involved, we started to make enquiries about running a repair café in Egremont. However, as the Revive programme at Mirehouse will include a repair café, we are waiting to hear further information before taking this project any further.
We have since held a preloved toy and book stall at the 2022 Bees Bash and a further two preloved events for children’s items at St Bees Village School. Our most recent preloved children’s event was run jointly with St Bees Village School Association and the two groups plan to organise further preloved events to raise money for St Bees Village School.
Planting for Pollinators
Cumbria Wildlife Trust and Cumbria County Council have worked to reverse pollinator decline across north and west Cumbria by creating, improving and connecting pollinator-friendly habitats. This provides food, shelter and nesting spots for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.
As part of this Planting for Pollinators project, St Bees Green Future received 100 packets of local wildflower seeds and information booklets about pollinator-friendly gardening to distribute. The wildflower seeds were given to residents that expressed an interest, and the remainder will go to families via St Bees Village School and the local Beaver group.
Great Big Green Week
In 2022 St Bees Green Future ran a community craft event during Great Big Green Week – a UK-wide celebration of community action to tackle climate change. We used fabric scraps and leftover craft items to create bunting and a welcome sign for use at events. There was also a craft station to decorate a green heart – the symbol for caring about climate change. The highlight for children was using a sewing machine to stitch the bunting fabric!
We are currently organising events for this year’s Great Big Green Week, which runs 10th to 18th June. Look out for details!
Working Together
St Bees Green Future also has representation on St Bees Parish Council’s Climate Change Working Group. As part of this group, we are working with parish councillors and other community members to explore how as a community we can take further steps to act on climate change.
Keep up to date with the activities of St Bees Green Future via our email newsletter – contact stbeesgreenfuture@gmail.com to subscribe.
Sustainable St Bees 