Welcome to September’s Update from Climate Action Stokesley & Villages
Supporting local action for a sustainable, greener and more resilient Stokesley & surrounding villages
Thank you for reading this free monthly Update on all things climate, nature and more – both local and further afield which we send out to our mailing list of over 500 (August 2026) and also share on our Facebook page (883 members). We appreciate all the support people give us whether it is through undertaking actions highlighted in the Update or helping with one or more of our many activities.
September is the time of mists and mellow fruitfulness with the changing seasons. It’s harvest time and we have two fruitful events this month: a community fruit and nut gathering as well as the first of two autumn apple pressing sessions. Also for back to school / college / home office needs we have free to take away stationery on the Reuse Table at the September Repair Cafe and how to make your own notebook / journal in the Recreate Corner. The Mending Circle is back so you can learn how to mend or alter school uniforms or workwear (or any clothing!). Plus lots of other activities and ideas for more sustainable living locally.
Diary 1: CASaV & local (details below)
Tuesday 22/9 19.30-21.00 Whole group meeting, Stokesley Community Library
Saturday 5/9 14.00-16.00 Fruit & nut forage event, Osmotherley
Tuesday 8/9 13.30 – 15.30 Yatton House Community Garden Working Party with Brighten Up Great Ayton
Tuesday 8/9 19.00 Rethinking Resources group meeting by zoom
Wednesday 9/9 19.30-21.30 People’s Emergency Briefing film, Great Ayton Discovery Centre
Thursday 10/9 19.00 Food Group meeting by zoom
Thursday 17/9 15.00 Nature group meeting, Stokesley Community Library
Saturday 19/9 10-12 September Repair (& Reuse & Recreate) Cafe – theme ‘Return to Study / the Office’, Stokesley Community Library
Monday 21/9 17.00 Relaunch of Stokesley Mending Circle – Repair & Rewear, Stokesley Town Hall Sunday
Sunday 27/9 Apple Pressing, Faceby (booked time slots)
Diary 2: Regional, National & Global (follow links)
1-30/9 Second hand September – encouraging individuals, businesses, and communities to choose secondhand items, reduce waste, and promote a circular economy; see our monthly Reuse Table at the Repair Cafe and get a wardrobe refresh at October’s Clothes Swap event. More info here: secondhandseptember
7-11/9 Zero Waste Week – ideas to reduce waste at our stall at Bilsdale Show, 29/8, more info on how to reduce landfill waste so you can save money, preserve resources and protect the environment ZeroWasteWeek
Wednesday 9/9 9.30-10.30 Keeping energy local: Understanding the opportunity of P441 – Tickets on Eventbrite. In October, Ofgem will take a decision on whether to implement, ‘Elexon Modification Proposal P441’. This proposal will allow small generators to supply electricity to local consumers using the distribution network so this webinar may be of particular interest to community energy groups and projects.
Friday 11/9 Forest of Collaboration: A day for climate action groups (two places per group) in North Yorkshire. Hosted by Community First Yorkshire’s Village Green project and facilitated by Where the Mind Grows. Free, registration open until Monday 31st August 2026. A facilitated day in nature, bringing together climate action groups from across North Yorkshire to reflect, connect, and share what’s working. Little Seed Field, near Ripon, Nidderdale. Register here climate-group-day
22/9 World car free day – encouraging all to use active and sustainable ways of travelling to make streets safer and traffic free world-car-free-day
Looking ahead to October – info & dates for your diary
3/10 14.00 – 16.00 Stokesley Clothes Swap, Stokesley School
9/10 19.30 – 21.30 People’s Emergency Briefing film at Osmotherley Village Hall book tickets https://casav.uk/tickets
10/10 10-12 Repair Cafe & Reuse Table & Recreate Corner (keeping warm theme) & collection of electronic goods to repurpose ahead of international e waste day
12/10 17.00 Mending Circle by the Repair & Rewear team, Stokesley
14/10 International e-waste day (see above)
18/10 Apple pressing at Faceby
20/10 21.30 Whole group meeting, Stokesley
Newsletter – events & activities
Tuesday 22/9 19.30 Whole group meeting, Stokesley Community Library
All welcome to catch up on events and activities by all the sub group and help plan our activities over the coming autumn and winter months.
CASaV AGM – Thank you to all those who attended our AGM in July. Here is our annual report summarising all our activity over the past year, our accounts and the draft minutes from the meeting.
CASaV membership 2026-7 – Following our AGM, we are now in a new membership year of 2026-27. If you would like to be a formal member of CASaV, the annual membership is £10, with a £1 membership for the unwaged. As a member you now won’t need to remember to bring a contribution to cover the costs of room hire for meetings and can vote at general meetings. To renew or join for the first time please complete our membership form and make a bank transfer using the details given in the form.
Saturday 5/9 14.00-16.00 Fruit & nut forage event, Osmotherley
Robert and Jane Thorniley-Walker kindly invite all to their gardens to gather a range of seasonal produce including plums, apples, berries, walnuts and hazelnuts. All for free including refreshments and recipe leaflets for cooking and preserving your harvest!
To secure a place please email harvest@casav.uk and you will receive important information for getting to the location, parking, what to bring and safety information. You can then also be updated if there are any changes to the event e.g. in the case of bad weather.
More information at harvest
Tuesday 8/9 13.30 – 15.30 Yatton House Community Garden Working Party
The garden is being much appreciated by visitors, both young and old, this summer. They particularly like being able to taste some fruit or even take some away to eat later. At this month’s working party the main task will be picking fruit. Just turn up and join in on the day and enjoy time in a beautiful garden.
The working party is organised by Brighten Up Great Ayton who also tend other areas around Great Ayton including the floodplain meadow, see news below.
Wednesday 9/9 19.30 – 21.30 People’s Emergency Briefing film screening, Discovery Centre Great Ayton
Missed seeing our screening in Stokesley of the People’s Emergency Briefing film presented by Chris Packham in June? Catch up with this screening with free tickets available from the Discovery Centre. In case you haven’t heard about it, this is a UK-wide public information campaign and 50-minute documentary film designed to broadcast the stark realities of the climate and nature crisis directly to local communities followed by a community focussed response discussion. Managed by the National Emergency Briefing (NEB), the initiative packages critical scientific data originally presented to 1,200 political and business leaders at Westminster in November 2025. This screening is organised by the Discovery Centre jointly with CASaV.
Other local screenings include Friday 9th October – Osmotherley Village Hall, 7:30 – 9:30pm, free tickets are available from Osmotherley Environment Group and separate screenings at Labman for employees and Stokesley Rotary for members.
19/9 10.00-12.00 Repair (Reuse & Recreate) Cafe – return to study & the office theme, Swainby Village Hall
As always, our friendly pink T-shirted volunteers will be here to fix your beloved household items – electrical appliances, toys & bikes, wooden furniture, clothing & textiles, glass & ceramics, electronic items including laptops and phones as well as sharpening household & garden blades. NB no specialist clock repairs this month. It’s return to study time – school / college / university – (or back to your home office) after the holidays) so on our Reuse Table we have lots of FREE stationery (pens, pencils, paper, folders, plastic wallets) for you to take away to use.
By keeping useful items in circulation and out of landfill you are helping conserve our planet’s limited resources.
The Recreate Corner is back to show you how to make your own bespoke notebook / journal from paper, card, fabric and buttons saved from going to waste. Choose your favourite colours and textures, learn how to ‘bookbind’ then add your own unique embellishments to personalise your notebook / journal. All materials and guidance provided FREE.
Bring the whole family to get your household items fixed plus pick up items you need and create something useful and unique. Relax with delicious home baked cakes and drinks. Everything is free although donations to cover costs are welcome. This is a great opportunity to meet with friendly, like minded people and learn new repair skills. New volunteers are always welcome – come along, have a cuppa and a chat or email Repair Cafe . If you are not sure come and / or bring an item to be repaired to get a feel for the Repair Cafe.
21/9 17.00 – 19.00 Stokesley Mending Circle, Stokesley Town Hall
The Mending Circle returns after a short break last month to bring you more ways of using your stitching sewing powers to alter, revive, repair and rewear your clothes and textiles. Full tuition and support are provided for free although donations are welcome to cover costs.
Just turn up with the item you want to transform or fix or come along and get tips and ideas to extend the life of your fabric items.
Sunday 27/9 10.00 – 14.30 Apple pressing, Faceby
Great news – this year CASaV can once again run apple pressing events. In the autumn lots of apples can go to waste as people don’t have the time to use them. Why not turn them into delicious apple juice or cider? This year, CASaV will be running a couple of public apple pressing sessions in Faceby.
• 27th September: 30 minute slots available to book from 10am, with last slot starting at 2:30pm
•18th October: 30 minute slots available to book from 10am, with last slot starting at 2:30pm
To book a slot, contact Caryn by email or tel. 0777 3048250 for location and parking etc..
There is a suggested contribution of £5 per slot to cover costs and you will need to bring your own bottles. Details of the option to pasteurise your apple juice on request.
News, campaigns & subgroup updates
Ideas and news from the groups: Brighten Up Great Ayton (BUG)
Caryn Loftus writes: “Thank you to those that helped pull the Himalayan Balsam round the back of the floodplain meadow. After 6 hours of pulling by individuals/small groups the area is clear of flowering balsam plants apart from a few that couldn’t be reached due to nettles etc under some trees. In its place the knapweed and other wildflowers have been enjoyed by butterflies and bees.”
Ideas & news from the groups: Rethinking Resources (Not the Time to Waste) including Repair (Reuse & Recreate) Cafe
This subgroup focuses on Rethinking Resources: rethinking & reducing consumption; repairing, repurposing and recycling materials that might otherwise go to landfill or incineration. Please join us at this month’s zoom meeting on Tuesday 9/9 19.00 – 20.30: contact email simongibbon for a zoom link
Choose to Reuse!
With the Earth Overshoot date for 2026 now passed (when the combined global demand for ecological resources this year exceeds what Earth can regenerate i.e. we are now ‘borrowing’ from next year’s resources) it’s important to reuse what we (or our community) already have before we purchase new, reducing the demand to manufacture new. The average household possesses a staggering amount of unused items, with studies estimating that between 20 and 80% of items in homes are never or rarely used, whilst due to the cost of living crisis more and more families are struggling to afford basic household necessities. Since January this year our successful monthly Repair Cafes have included opportunities to reuse unwanted household items and recreate with resources which might otherwise go to waste, giving them a second life. Items are given freely and all go to good homes where they put back into use. In January surplus craft supplies were recirculated, in March & April dozens of items of gardening equipment & books were brought in and snapped up by keen gardeners. May’s theme was cookery & the kitchen with free tomato plants given away (thanks Pete!) and dozens of kitchen items including recipe books finding new homes. In June and July we did the same for toys, bikes, outside games & travel books. In August we had the first of our ‘Back to School / College / Office’ special to reuse unwanted folders, plastic wallets, stationery, office supplies and text books and this continues this month (September). In October our reuse / recreate theme will be broadly ‘fighting off the chills‘ with crafting materials to give and take, free draft excluders made from scrap fabric to personally embellish and Halloween outfit ‘Switch’ as well as a warm coats donate box to give to vulnerable local people this winter; in November the give and take Reuse theme will be Christmas decorations and you can make your own Christmas decorations from scrap materials in the Recreate Corner. We would love to hear from you about other categories of household items and resources we can give a second life to, please email Kate
Ideas & news from the groups: Nature Group
This subgroup focuses on discovering more about and supporting biodiversity and our living environment. Face to face meeting Thursday 17/9 15.00 at Stokesley Community Library, Stokesley. Contact Bridget Holmstrom for more information.
Bat detecting at Osmotherley
The Nature group and Environment Climate Osmotherley organised a fascinating Bat Walk evening in August. Led by Becky, a group of twenty six bat enthusiasts (including children) met at Cod Beck Reservoir and were firstly introduced to the ecology of bats then shown how to use the bat detectors and how to identify the sounds of different bat species – distinguishing between common and soprano pipistrelles for example. Next we all set off to ‘hunt’ for bats through the waterside woodlands and very quickly we identified several species with our detectors as well as catching glimpses of them as they flew briskly overhead, catching their evening meal. As well as being a fascinating and educational experience, guided walks in nature, becoming more aware of local flora and fauna builds personal affinity for the natural world. Walkers who notice wildlife and ecosystems are also more likely to support local conservation efforts.
Cod Beck Project 2026 The walk was linked to an ongoing project at the Cod Beck Reservoir and future events held throughout 2026 may include butterfly and moth walks, and fungus forays. We will be giving a training session on using the iNaturalist app with the help of representatives from the wider Cod Beck Discovery Project. More details will be given on Facebook. If you want to find out more please contact codbeck@casav.uk
Ideas & news from the groups: Food Group
This subgroup focuses on food & its impact on climate change – from growing your own and eating seasonally to reducing food going to waste. Meetings held bimonthly on zoom, next meeting online will 10th September 7pm contact Wendy Smith for more information and a link to join.
Foodshare – nightly food redistribution
Foodshare is a joint initiative by the Food and Waste groups and is organised by Jenny. EVERY evening at 9pm a volunteer collects surplus food from the Ayton Coop and Premier supermarket and both Stokesley Coops and takes it to various distribution centres (often in Middlesbrough) such as Nitelight (for homeless) for use/distribution to those in need. This is fresh food such as fruit, veg and bread, NOT tins and dried food that are needed by Food Banks.
Our group collects 40-60 kilos of food every day with a value of approx £250, worth £78,000 every year.
What can I do now? Jenny is always keen to recruit more volunteers to support the foodshare so if you feel this is something with which you could help, please contact Jenny here Jenny Earle.
Growing your own – good for you and the planet
Growing your own not only benefits you physically, it’s also good for your mental health too, read more here why-gardening-is-good-for-your-mental-health
Wendy continues to stock the Seed Share at Stokesley Community Library – pop in to pick up free flower and vegetable seeds. There is also a Seed Share / Swap at the Discovery Centre, Great Ayton.
What to grow now – Whilst the earth is still warm it is a good time to plant overwintering crops. These include spring cabbages, winter lettuce (like Arctic King), perpetual spinach, and winter-hardy brassicas. There is still time for fast greens to grow to eat over the next few months such as salad rocket, mizuna, mustard greens, and lamb’s lettuce for quick autumn and winter harvests. Get autumn-planting onion sets (like Shakespeare) and garlic cloves into the ground for an early summer crop next year.
Ideas & news from the groups: Energy
This subgroup focuses on using sustainable energy sources & energy saving in the home
Plug-In Solar Panels for your home now available!
Plug-in solar panels have now become legally available for UK households to buy and use starting from 27/8 this year, following a major government law change . High-street retailers and major chains are preparing to stock the systems, which allow flat owners and renters to generate electricity via a standard three-pin wall socket. Systems are legally limited to a maximum peak output of 800 watts per home to prevent household wiring from overheating. Government and industry estimates show a typical 800W kit could save households roughly £70 to £110 a year on electricity bills. Major high-street names and suppliers—such as Lidl, Iceland, and EcoFlow—have been in active discussions or planning to bring compliant kits to the market. Users must still submit a quick notification to their local District Network Operator (DNO) under the G98 code before plugging them in. Safety information here: plug-in-solar-panels-for-uk-homes/
Ideas & news from the groups: Environment & Climate Osmotherley (ECO) Group
Environment Climate Osmotherley (ECO) meets regularly and holds events which raise awareness and address local environmental issues such as becoming a Dark Skies Village and increasing local biodiversity.
Contact Becci Wright for more information
Signing off
If you have any content, news or any event / activity you would like promoting on next month’s (October’s) update please email Kate Gibbon no later than Wednesday 23/9
Hope to see you at all our September events
NB next Whole Group meeting Tuesday 22/9 19.30 at Stokesley Community Library
Kate Gibbon, on behalf of the Climate Action Stokesley and Villages Steering Group Steering group:
Bridget Holmstrom, Caryn Loftus, Ron Kirk, Barry Warrington, Helen Almond, Simon Gibbon