In addition to the events run by CASaV, Maggie Rich, of Off the Rails bakery at Glaisdale Station, is running a number of sessions, using CASaV’s equipment. Maggie says: “Equipment will be available to use at the station as follows:
Saturday 7th October, 12 noon – 5pm
Sunday 8th October, 12 noon – 5pm
Monday 9th October, 10 am – 5 pm
Tuesday 10th October, by arrangement only if necessary.
Please note:
* Please let me know you’re planning to come with date & rough time of arrival, an idea of quantity – then I’ll be able to give you a steer as to whether you might need to hang around a bit to access the equipment. Ideally contact via 07419 197742.
* You need to bring your own bottles / containers to take away your juice.
* Please bring your apples ready for pressing, ie with any bad bits already cut out.
* I’m not having the pasteuriser this year; if you’re wanting to keep the juice unfermented you will need to pasteurise at home.
* Suggested donation of £5-£10 please to help cover costs. Any surplus will be divided between Glaisdale Head Chapel and Holyrood House, Thirsk. Thank you
Like last year, CASaV will start with a pressing in Great Ayton at the end of September (22nd) and finish with a pressing in Faceby at the end of October/early November (5th). Between those dates the equipment will be used at a variety of venues in north-east Yorkshire.
22nd September: Yatton House, Great Ayton 1pm – 3pm
5th November: Faceby, 10am – 3pm
To book a slot, contact Caryn Loftus tel. 0777 3048250 or contact us.
There is a suggested contribution of £5 per slot to cover costs and you will need to bring your own bottles.
Our next meeting is on Tuesday 19th September, in The Globe Community Library, North Road, Stokesley from 7:30 – 9:00pm.
Come and find out what the group are up to and join in the discussion on actions we can take to mitigate and adapt for the climate and nature emergencies. All welcome.
If you’re fortunate enough to have fruit trees on an allotment or garden, this will be a busy time gathering in all those apples, pears and plums. If not you should find local, seasonal fruit at their best and at their most economic in our local green grocers. CASaV are running some apple pressing sessions so you can turn your lovely apples into juice – see below.
What’s Going On – news and events
CASaV Monthly Meeting Tuesday September 19th 7.30-9pm
This month’s meeting will be on Tuesday September 19th at the Globe Community Library, Stokesley 7.30-8.30pm, all are welcome to join in our discussions about climate change and help plan our activities.
Apologies, we had to cancel last month’s meeting (August) at short notice but we hope you can make it along to this month’s get together at which we will have a chance to discuss the work of the various sub-groups.
Brighten Up Great Ayton group
Incredible edibles – There has been a fantastic crop of autumn raspberries in the community garden at Great Ayton Village Hall this year. Come and pick your own!
Herbs have also been doing well at the village hall and Great Ayton station.
We’re now looking forward to picking the Discovery apples in Yatton House Community Garden – more details below.
Rake a meadow – come and get some exercise, without having to pay for gym membership, on the afternoon of Sunday 17th September. The Brighten Up Great Ayton (BUG) group, with support from botanist Martin Allen, will be raking and removing part of the summer’s growth in the floodplain meadow in Great Ayton. This will reduce the fertility to enable a wider variety of plants to grow.
If you would like to join the raking party in the meadow or are interested in helping the BUG group either on a regular or occasional basis then contact Caryn
Apple pressing
Have you got loads of apples on your trees, have cooked all the crumbles you can face and now wondering how to make the most of your harvest? CASaV have an electric apple scratter to chop up the apples and hydropress to cope with large quantities of apples at a time. We have planned two public apple pressing sessions this year:
Friday 22nd September, Yatton House, Great Ayton between 1pm and 3pm.
Sunday 5th November, Faceby between 10am and 3pm.
To book a slot, email CASaV or phone 0777 3048250. There is a suggested contribution of £5 per slot to cover costs and you will need to bring your own bottles.
New energy project
CASaV will be playing a small part in a new scheme to stimulate demand for energy efficiency measures in homes across North Yorkshire which has been awarded £1.2 million. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has given £900,000 and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund £300,000.
North Yorkshire County Council’s recent press release said:
“The Local Energy Advice Demonstrators (LEAD) project will be piloted in seven neighbourhoods around the towns of Stokesley, Harrogate, Pickering, Skipton and Selby. Led by ourselves, the scheme will focus on specific streets, villages and neighbourhoods where studies have highlighted priority areas and where interest in tackling climate change through retrofitted schemes has been shown.
Households in these pilot areas will be offered a free ‘whole house plan’ – a survey of their homes with advice on what would be needed to make them more energy efficient, such as new windows and doors, or cavity wall and loft insulation.
About 325 plans will be facilitated through the project, comprising in-house assessments, whole house plan development in collaboration with the householder, and elements of design work, leaving the resident with a clear plan of action and next steps to implement their retrofit project. This scheme, which will be delivered in partnership with Align Property Partners, climate action groups across the county and the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership, is benefitting from cash from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero’s North-East and Yorkshire Net Zero Hub and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for North Yorkshire. Community groups are seen as the most vital partners, particularly those that have good awareness of the benefits of retrofitting, either for cost reduction or climate impact.”
Hopefully by the October Update we will have more to share about the part we will be playing.
By-election for the North Yorkshire County Council’s Hutton Rudby and Osmotherley division seat Thursday 28th September
Nominations for the Hutton Rudby and Osmotherley division seat have closed with voters going to the polls on Thursday, 28 September. Voting takes place on Thursday 28 September.
The candidates are:
Lee Derrick – Yorkshire Party
David Hugill – The Conservative Party Candidate
Allan Shaw Mortimer – The Green Party candidate
Duncan Ross Russell – Liberal Democrats
If you meet them out canvassing, ask them what they would do, if elected, to help address the climate and nature emergency at county level.
September’s Repair Cafe – Saturday 16th September 10-12 – Swainby Village Hall
This month’s Repair Cafe will be on Saturday, 16th September, 10-12 at Swainby Village Hall. One of our regulars Swainby Repair Volunteers is Magnificent Mike, picture above, Mender Maestro, who has performed mending miracles on all things ceramic, glass and almost anything glueable, most noteworthy being the three legged china horse, much loved by its owner, who was properly chuffed when Mike created a whole new leg to restore it to full stable condition.
As always the aims of the event are to reduce waste going to landfill or incineration and save the resources and energy of manufacturing new items which would otherwise contribute towards climate change alongside sharing repair skills and knowhow and encouraging people to think more sustainably about consumable items. Everyone is very welcome to bring along household items in need of repair – computers, mobile phones, electrical items, clothing & textiles, ceramics & glass, wooden items, all blades in need of sharpening including gardening tools – and our friendly pink T shirted repairers will aim to restore your items to working order or give advice if they can’t. All for free including refreshments, donations to cover costs welcomed.
Yatton House Community Garden open afternoon 22nd September
The garden is a great project that has been developed through the hard work and support of a number of partners including Brighten Up Great Ayton, Great Ayton Parish Council, CASaV and local Rotary Groups. Come and have a look at the progress made so far in the Yatton House Community Garden on Friday 22nd September between 1 and 4pm. Whilst there, sample some of the delicious apple juice freshly pressed from the Yatton House orchard apples. The Community Garden is being created in an old allotment for the enjoyment of residents and visitors to Great Ayton. So far, fruit bushes have been planted, herb and flower beds created and an area prepared for a sensory bed. If you are interested in bringing a group to the garden or volunteering contact admin@yattonhouse.org.uk, call in at Yatton House during working hours or go to Yatton House website .
Help our hedgerows – consultation until 20th September
Hedgerows are important ecological building blocks across our landscapes. They provide habitat, act as wildlife corridors, slow soil erosion and water run-off, support crop pollinators and sequester carbon.
DEFRA is running a consultation around the support provided to farmers for the maintenance of hedgerows. The consultation runs until 20th September. It would be great if as many of us as possible could complete the consultation.
Since 2009, the Yorkshire Peat Partnership (YPP) has been working to help restore Yorkshire’s internationally important peatlands. Sadly less than 20% of Yorkshire’s peatlands remain undamaged. Peatlands host specialist bird species such as curlews and rare plants such as cranberry and peat forming sphagnum mosses. Peatland habitats are also vital for water quality, carbon storage and to help slow down global warming. Without projects to help stop these habitats degrading we will lose a very precious resource.
The CASaV Nature group have been in contact with the YPP regarding a visit to the restored peatlands on the moors around Rosedale in December and they will confirm the date nearer the time but it would be great to have an idea who would be interested in visiting and learning more about the restored peat. Please contact Bridget Holmstrom.
Local farm visit later in September – contact to book a place
The CASaV Nature Group is also arranging a farm tour to look at environmental practices taking place there. A local farmer, based near Seamer, has very kindly offered to give this tour to a small number of people, later this month. If anyone is interested please let me know. Bridget Holmstrom
The Festival of Thrift, Billingham – 23rd & 24th September
The Waste Group is all about being thrifty, making things last and making the most from the least, so the Festival of Thrift has always been a great source of ideas for everything from food to transport, encouragement and just fun. It started in Darlington, then moved to Redcar and is now in Billingham.
In 2012 the first Festival of Thrift set out to “harness the movement of thrift by combining culture, sustainability and style” and in the process very much embracing our ethos of reduce, reuse, repair, recycle. So it was great when the Festival of Thrift got in touch with the Waste group to see if we would help with the 2023 Festival of Thrift on Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th September in Billingham.
We will be helping the Star and Shadow’s Fix It Cafe to carry out repairs during the festival in Billingham this year – please come along.
The Festival of Thrift is now moving to providing ongoing activities, not just the annual festivals and so we will be working with them to develop workshops to help others set up their own local repair cafes. The plan is for the first repair cafe to be associated with the Festival of Thrift will run out of their new hub in Stockton – watch this space for further details.
If you have never been to the Festival of Thrift before, you will find it like nothing you have visited before, difficult to describe, but a cross between a music festival, a country show and a maker’s show, without big bands or lots of animals, but with lots of peformances from poets to puppets, workshops from den building to making toilet cleaner, plus talks, food and stalls. You can find out all about what is going on at this year’s Festival on their website https://www.festivalofthrift.co.uk.
York Environment Week – 23rd September to 1st October
A bit further afield, the York Environment Week (YEW) 2023 is the fourth annual city-wide festival of over 60 events (8 online) aimed at showcasing and celebrating the work of environment groups active in York. You can find out all about what’s on at https://yorkenvironmentweek.org.uk
Oxfam’s Second Hand September
Take part in Oxfam’s Second Hand September and shop second hand to reduce waste, take a stance against climate change, and help create a fairer world.
What you wear has never been more important. The fashion industry is one of the worst offenders for greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, people who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are facing the very real consequences.
Shopping and donating second hand is one step we can take towards building a better, safer, fairer world.
Members of the CASaV Waste and Food groups donned their high vis (and later waterproof!) jackets to engage the public at the Bilsdale Agricultural Show in August and the rain showers in the afternoon didn’t diminish their enthusiasm. We had been invited for a second year running to promote local action on climate change together with encouraging the public to use recycling facilities at the show and reduce waste.
Special note to Fred who entertained and informed all with his interactive recycling display.
We received this feedback from Jo, one of the show’s organisers: “It is fab to have you guys with us at the show and I hope you keep coming. Looking forward to our show next year, with you as ongoing partners. Please thank all of your team for their efforts and commitment.”
Nature Group’s Wonderful Wildflower Walk
On Wednesday August 23rd the Nature Group organised a Wildflower Walk starting from Ingleby Bank Foot, led by local botanist Anne Press. We saw over 40 different species of wildflowers. Around 12 people joined us on the walk.
On Sunday September 3rd there was an Open Air Environment Service held at All Saints church in Great Ayton.
Book of the month:
Each month the update will include a book suggestion recommended by one of our group as a good read on climate action, environment issues and living sustainably.
This month Simon, from the Waste Group, recommends ‘No Miracles Needed’ by Mark Z Jacobson. The world needs to turn away from fossil fuels and use clean, renewable sources of energy as soon as we can to avoid catastrophic climate damage. The author advocates that we can save the planet without resorting to ‘miracle’ technologies by repurposing the existing technologies that we already have to harness, store, and transmit energy from wind, water, and solar sources to ensure reliable electricity, heat supplies, and energy security.
If you have a book you would like to recommend to the group in the monthly update please contact Kate, details at the end of this update.
Updates from the groups
Food Group (site) – monthly zoom meetings, next meeting Monday September 11th at 6pm, please contact if you would like to join
News
A leaflet on eating sustainably including recipes has been produced to give out at CASAV events. It’s already been given out to much interest at the Bilsdale Agricultural Show and further leaflets will follow.
Stokesley U3A: Food, glorious food, veggie style!
Joan Sargeant has started a veggie food group with the U3A which now meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm in Stokesley Town Hall, next meeting 20th September.
This is a new group is for collaborative folks who are interested in sharing ideas, knowledge, recipes and enthusiasm for veggie style food. Maybe you already follow a vegetarian diet or you would like more ideas or information about it or maybe you’ve never tried it and you would like to give it a go. Whatever the reason, you are most welcome to be part of the group.
CASaV’s partnership with our local Co-op stores is making sure surplus food does not go to waste but gets to those who need it most and continues under the fantastic leadership of Jenny Earle. Every evening, every week Jenny and her band of volunteers collect surplus from our local Co-op stores in Stokesley and Great Ayton and distribute it to local charities and groups for those most in need.
More volunteers to collect and distribute the surplus food are needed, even if you can only volunteer occasionally this is very useful for back up cover if one of the regular volunteers is unable to collect the food at short notice. Email us if you can spare an hour every now and then.
Waste Group (page) – monthly zoom meetings, next meeting Tuesday 12th September 7.00pm, please contact if you would like to join
Last month’s Repair Cafe took place on August 12th at Stokesley with many interesting and useful repairs taking place including a play parachute from a local toddler group! One of our new volunteer repairers, Adam, wrote about taking part in the event on his website, https://retrorepairsandrefurbs.com/2023/08/16/stokesley-villages-repair-cafe-12-08-2023/
We are always on the lookout for more volunteers so please get in touch if you are interested or want more information.
Our next Repair is on Saturday 16th September in Swainby Village Hall.
The Refill App (https://www.refill.org.uk/) allows you tap into a global network of places to reduce, reuse and refill containers for drinks, food and household cleaning substances as well as getting free tap water for your reusable bottle. Anne Mannix and other CASAV members have been out and about encouraging local businesses to sign up to the refill scheme and appear on the app and there are now almost 20 locations nearby where you can refill your own containers, saving packaging and costs.
If you know any local businesses which would like to join the scheme, please get in touch.
Nature Group (page) – regular zoom meetings, please contact if you would like to join
The Nature Group arranges regular events to provide people of all ages with an opportunity to learn more about our local natural environment and find out ways in which they can help protect our endangered habitats at risk. These include wildlife walks more of which are planned in the coming months as well as site specific events like the farm tour and peatland visit mentioned above.
Energy Group
Community Retrofit Guide
The Centre for Sustainable Energy has just launched a free community retrofit guide which covers everything community groups need to get started on retrofit projects. Something our organisation could get involved in? Come along to our next monthly meeting to to discuss or email the group.
If you have any news or any event / activity you would like promoting on next month’s (October) update including Book of the Month recommendations please email Kate Gibbon by the end of September.
Kate will also be helping promote activities via Facebook and Instagram so let her know if there is anything that you would like shared via our Facebook group or Instagram page if you are not a Facebook / Instagram user.
Hope to see you at the CASaV whole group meeting on Tuesday 19th September, 7.30 at the Globe, Stokesley
Kate Gibbon,
on behalf of the Climate Action Stokesley and Villages Steering Group Steering group:
Bridget Holmstrom, Caryn Loftus, Jack Turton, Ron Kirk and Simon Gibbon
We are so fortunate to live on or near the North York Moors and during August we have the pink and purple wonder of the heather in full bloom. This summer why not use the Moorsbus (information below) to explore some of the hidden corners of the moors and make the most of this fleeting beauty?
What’s Going On – news and events
CASaV Monthly Meeting Tuesday August 15th 7.30-9pm
This month’s meeting will be on Tuesday 15th August at the Globe Community Library, Stokesley 7.30-8.30pm, all are welcome to join in our discussions about climate change and help plan our activities.
Last month, July, our meeting was our AGM. Thank you to those who renewed your CASaV membership at the AGM or joined for the first time. Our membership year runs from 1st July until 30th June of the following year. You do not need to be a member to receive our monthly Update email but for the price of £1 you can be counted as a member and be entitled to vote at our AGM or other General Meetings. You can join by paying a £1 either at one of our meetings/events or by emailing climateactionsav@gmail.com for bank details.
At the AGM the group looked at Impact: Community Carbon Calculator https://impact-tool.org.uk/footprint/search. Impact is an estimator of a community’s carbon footprint that works for parishes wards, district councils and unitary authorities. It draws on more than 30 datasets to estimate the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly and indirectly as a result of everyday human activities in the given locality – heating homes, using electricity, transport, producing and distributing food, disposing of waste, etc.
The group divided up into our individual parish wards to analyse our own area’s carbon footprint in order to get a better idea of where to target our efforts for the greatest impact in tackling the climate emergency.
Arising from this exercise we are considering an event similar to the Green Transport event (The Route Ahead to Sustainable Transport) we held earlier but focusing on more sustainable living in the home including improving insulation, using heat pumps, retrofitting etc. which will be discussed further at subsequent meetings.
Letter of concern to the PM from over 50 of the most respected environmental organisations in the UK
At the end of July over 50 of the most respected environmental organisations including the National Trust, CPRE, RSPB, RSPCA, The Wildlife Trusts, Woodland Trust, WWF, Marine Conservation Society, the Soil Association and Friends of the Earth (to which our group, CASaV is affiliated) wrote a letter to Rishi Sunak, our MP as well as our PM. The letter expressed deep concerns about reports of the watering down of the government’s green commitments and demanded a meeting with Rishi to address this.
“Together, we represent more than 20 million supporters, who support us to speak up for the future of life on this one precious planet. We will not stand by whilst politicians use the environment as a political football. It is courage and leadership that we need now. In the past, we have mobilised many of our members collectively with extraordinary results, and our resolve to stand firm now against any and all attacks on this critical policy agenda remains absolute.”
Bilsdale Show Saturday 26th August: CASAV stall – volunteers needed!
The Bilsdale Show has been running for over a hundred years on a charitable, not-for-profit basis with the aim of promoting and advancing, for the benefit of the public, agriculture, horticulture and rural crafts and each year they make donations to local charities.
Last year the Bilsdale Show organisers invited us to help promote recycling at the show and encouraged us to have a stall promoting CASAV and our climate action message to everyone attending the show. We had a great response from everyone who came to talk to us at our stall and it was stimulating to engage in positive conversations about actions we can all take to fight climate change. The show’s organisers were delighted with our help in encouraging people to reduce litter, to recycle and to think differently about waste and have asked us back again this year to have a CASAV stall alongside the Yorkshire Rotters as before.
This is a great opportunity to engage a wide range of people with our climate action message and we need volunteers to help staff the stall and mingle around the show promoting recycling. If you can spare a few hours or all day you will get free entry to the show and a very worthwhile experience. Please email srgibbon@googlemail.com if you want more information or to volunteer. It’s a great day out!
This month’s Repair Cafe will be on Saturday, 12th August at the Globe Community Library, Stokesley 10-12. As always the aims of the event are to reduce waste going to landfill or incineration and save the resources and energy of manufacturing new items which would otherwise contribute towards climate change alongside sharing repair skills and knowhow and encouraging people to think more sustainably about consumable items. Everyone is very welcome to bring along household items in need of repair – computers, mobile phones, electrical items, clothing & textiles, ceramics & glass, wooden items, all blades in need of sharpening including gardening tools – and our friendly pink T shirted repairers will aim to restore your items to working order or give advice if they can’t. All for free including refreshments, donations to cover costs welcomed.
Although we don’t claim or aim to be BBC’s ‘The Repair Shop’ in that we repair rather than restore we have had quite a few much loved vintage items come our way over recent months including an Edwardian china doll, a Victorian wall hanging and, from the mid century, a horse racing game, a Pelham Puppet and a teddy. Now all repaired and back with their happy owners!
Upcycling Design competition – winners display!
(photo with parents permission)
There were nearly 50 brilliant entries for our Upcycling Design Poster competition, developed by Anne Mannix to celebrate July’s Upcycling Day. The CASaV Waste Group were helped by an expert judging panel including Tracy Flint, Recycling Officer for North Yorkshire Council and design staff from Labman, Seamer decided on the most creative, most practical, most easy to transform and most wacky in two age categories as well as a few highly commended.
The winners will all receive a highly sustainable insulated drinks container in a colour of their choosing from a family-run UK company with eco-friendly ethics and all entrants have already received a delicious bar of organic Fairtrade chocolate.
The entries are now on display in the Globe, Stokesley so make sure that you pop in to be inspired by our younger eco activists!
Yatton House Community Garden is growing!
The Yatton House Community Garden is ‘growing’ from strength to strength. Above is the herb bed created by a group of American teenagers who were hosted by Great Ayton Methodist Church and below is the ‘hot bed’ in full flower.
The garden is a great project that has been developed through the hard work and support of a number of partners including Brighten Up Great Ayton, Great Ayton Parish Council, CASaV and local Rotary Groups and will have an official opening in September, date yet to be announced but you can read more about it here: https://yattonhouse.org.uk/community-garden
Moorsbus summer weekend network 1st July to 28th August
Thinking of exploring more of our beautiful North York Moors countryside this summer? Moorsbus is a network of local bus services organised by a not-for-profit community organisation to provide access to and within the North York Moors. The Moorsbus services operate from 1 July to 28 August 2023 on weekends and bank holiday Monday, using low-floor accessible buses. It serves a number of railway stations including York, Malton, Thirsk, Northallerton and Danby. This year there is a £2 cap on all single fares. For more information see here: https://www.moorsbus.org/
Community Retrofit Guide
The Centre for Sustainable Energy has just launched a free community retrofit guide which covers everything community groups need to get started on retrofit projects. Something our organisation could get involved in? Come along to our next monthly meeting to to discuss or email the group.
28 million people in the UK already enjoy a default 20mph limit signed policy but not yet in North Yorkshire. 20’s Plenty for Us is the National Campaign for default 20mph limits where people live, work, shop, learn and play. 20’s Plenty for North Yorkshire is our county’s branch of the organisation and is run by volunteer residents, led by Ian Conlan who is contactable here: 20splentyfornorthyorkshire@gmail.com.
North Yorkshire Council’s transport scrutiny committee met in late July to hear from councillors who “called in” a decision by the authority’s executive to not support area-wide or default 20mph speed limits. Several councillors and residents including Barry Warrington from the CASAV Transport Group spoke strongly in favour of the council reconsidering their decision citing not only the importance of safer, slower roads particularly for children and less mobile people but also the positive impact driving less fast would have on climate change by using less fuel and people considering using alternative forms of transport such as walking and cycling where people live, work, shop, learn and play. The council voted by 8 to 6 to maintain their original decision not to support area-wide or default 20mph speed limits.
If this is something you feel strongly about consider discussing this with your NYC councillor and joining the 20s Plenty for North Yorkshire campaign.
Shoestring gardens
Keen vegetable gardeners will be harvesting their crops right now but there’s still lots of the growing season left and it needed cost a lot of money.
The CASAV Food Group highlighted a recent Guardian article on how to grow plants for very little outlay including making the most of potted herbs sold by supermarkets which may be on special offer. They advise that most of the potted herbs sold this way are not planned to last long, for example they are usually lots of small plants crammed into one pot masquerading as one large plant and will probably die quickly if you try to plant them directly into your veg plot but they can be helped to thrive with special care.
Firstly water well, remove the pot and carefully separate out the small individual plants and repot up to two plants in each new pot with fresh compost. The article advises on how to make your own compost, make your own fertiliser and even where you can find pots for free.
Each month the update will include a book suggestion recommended by one of our group as a good read on climate action, environment issues and living sustainably. Tessa Whitwell recommends ‘The Art of Frugal Hedonism: a guide to spending less while enjoying everything more’ by Annie Raser-Rowland. She found the book provided lots of inspiring ideas for changing minds and habits to live more sustainably and enjoyably, saving money and fighting climate change.
If you have a book you would like to recommend to the group in the monthly update please contact Kate, details at the end of this update.
Updates from the groups
Food Group (site) – monthly zoom meetings, next meeting Monday September 11th at 6pm, please contact if you would like to join
News
At their July meeting the group discussed how to spread the word about eating more sustainably such as promoting local restaurants which serve vegan, vegetarian and low carbon footprint food and arranging local events / displays alongside the national campaigns such as Veganuary and the National Vegetarian Week.
A leaflet on eating sustainably including recipes will be produced to give out at CASAV events such as the Repair Cafes and the CASAV stall at the upcoming Bilsdale Show.
Wendy from the group reported that the ‘Bus stop’ garden in Stokesley which the group planted is producing vegetables for all to harvest including tomatoes and peas
Stokesley U3A: Food, glorious food, veggie style!
Joan Sargeant has started a new veggie food group with the U3A which will meet on the 3rd Wednesday of each month from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm in Stokesley Town Hall.
This is a new group is for collaborative folks who are interested in sharing ideas, knowledge, recipes and enthusiasm for veggie style food. Maybe you already follow a vegetarian diet or you would like more ideas or information about it or maybe you’ve never tried it and you would like to give it a go. Whatever the reason, you are most welcome to be part of the group.
The plan is to meet once a month and each month a different member will be asked to prepare a veggie dish for the group to taste while explaining the process of making it and answering any questions about it.
CASaV’s partnership with our local Co-op stores is making sure surplus food does not go to waste but gets to those who need it most and continues under the fantastic leadership of Jenny Earle. Every evening, every week Jenny and her band of volunteers collect surplus from our local Co-op stores in Stokesley and Great Ayton and distribute it to local charities and groups for those most in need.
More volunteers to collect and distribute the surplus food are needed, even if you can only volunteer occasionally this is very useful for back up cover if one of the regular volunteers is unable to collect the food at short notice. Email us if you can spare an hour every now and then.
Waste Group (page) – monthly zoom meetings, next meeting Tuesday 12th September 7.00pm, please contact if you would like to join
This monthly event alternates between Swainby and Stokesley and continues to be well attended with 100s of household items repaired / returned to functional use which might have otherwise gone to waste in landfill or incineration, saving the owners the cost of buying replacements as well as reducing the environmental impact of using up resources and the energy in manufacturing.
For details of August’s on Saturday 12th in Stokesley see above, and September’s will be on Saturday 16th in Swainby (website).
Remember, bring your household items in need of repair e.g. electrical appliances, mechanical equipment, furniture, clothing, crockery, laptops, smartphones, etc – to the Repair Cafe and extend the life of your items, learn repair skills, prevent landfill waste and help fight climate change!
As always, a great big green thank you to all of you who continue to make our Repair Cafes such a success – repair experts, reception and refreshment volunteers and of course all of you who bring along your household items in need of repair.
The Repair Cafes gives us a great opportunity to share the climate action message with people who aren’t aware of CASAV and many have signed up to our mailing list, joined us on Facebook and volunteered for future Repair Cafes.
We are always on the lookout for more volunteers so please get in touch if you are interested or want more information.
The Refill App (https://www.refill.org.uk/) allows you tap into a global network of places to reduce, reuse and refill containers for drinks, food and household cleaning substances as well as getting free tap water for your reusable bottle. Anne Mannix and other CASAV members have been out and about encouraging local businesses to sign up to the refill scheme and appear on the app and there are now almost 20 locations nearby where you can refill your own containers, saving packaging and costs.
If you know any local businesses which would like to join the scheme, please get in touch.
Nature Group (page) – regular zoom meetings, please contact if you would like to join
The Nature Group arranges regular events to provide people of all ages with an opportunity to learn more about our local natural environment and find out ways in which they can help protect our endangered habitats at risk. These include wildlife walks more of which are planned in the coming months.
Signing off
If you have any news or any event / activity you would like promoting on next month’s (September) update including Book of the Month recommendations please email Kate at kategibbon@googlemail.com by the end of August.
Kate will also be helping promote activities via Facebook and Instagram so let her know if there is anything that you would like shared via our Facebook group or Instagram page if you are not a Facebook / Instagram user.
Hope to see you at the CASaV whole group meeting on Tuesday 15th August, 7.30 at the Globe, Stokesley
Kate Gibbon,
on behalf of the Climate Action Stokesley and Villages Steering Group Steering group:
Bridget Holmstrom, Caryn Loftus, Jack Turton, Ron Kirk and Simon Gibbon
In case you haven’t heard, we have cancelled this month’s meeting as a lot of people can’t make it. Our next meeting will be Tuesday 19th September. Hope to see you there.
Welcome to July’s Update & notification of our AGM
Every July we have the Climate Action Stokesley & Villages Annual General Meeting, an opportunity to review all that our organisation has done this past year, look at where we are at in our mission and plan actions for the year ahead. This month is designated ‘Plastic Free July’ when we can focus on ways of reducing plastic pollution and plastic waste. With holidays in mind this month, this update looks at ways we can reduce our carbon footprint whilst enjoying a well earned break.
What’s Going On – news and events
CASaV Annual General Meeting & local carbon footprint data – Tuesday July 7.30 – 9pm
This month’s whole group CASaV meeting will be our AGM on Tuesday 18th July7.30 – 9pm at The Globe Community Library, North Road, Stokesley. All are welcome to attend and you can also attend via zoom
So that our membership year matches our financial year, all those who paid their £1 membership fee from February 2022 until 30th June 2023 will be entitled to vote at the AGM. The membership year will then run from 1st July until 30th June of the following year.
The short AGM will be followed by an opportunity to explore baseline data at a parish level to help measure the impact of our activity and identify future activity.
We will explore the differences identified in the carbon footprint of several local parishes compared to the national average using the Impact Community Carbon Calculator and look at how the suggestions identified by tool compare with activity in the Stokesley and Villages area to date. There will then be a chance to explore the data for your own parish. This will help with planning how we can act locally to address the climate and nature emergencies we face.
At last month’s whole group meeting we were joined by Sally Bunce, marine veterinary nurse with the Yorkshire Seal Group (https://yorkshireseals.org/) who gave a very well received interactive talk, initially highlighting how we can identify different seal types and threats to their health and then broadening out to look at current threats to our whole local marine environment and what is being done to raise awareness of the issues.
If anyone missed the talk and wants to know more about the current campaign to protect our local marine environment see here https://www.facebook.com/groups/reclaimoursea/ or look for Reclaim our Sea on Twitter.
Plastic Free July 2023
Plastic Free July is an annual global movement, started in Australia in 2011, to encourage people to be aware of the climate impact of single use plastics and plastic pollution and to find alternatives for more sustainable living.
The theme of this 12th Plastic Free July is ‘Small steps make a big difference’ and the image above gives us 31 small steps we can easily take to reduce plastic use.
One of the most effective ways of reducing consumption of single use plastic through unnecessary packaging is to refill your own containers at zero waste local shops such as these:
Earth Unwrapped, Barkers Arcade, Northallerton – refill eco-friendly cleaning, household and bodycare products, fill your own container dried foods etc
What Planet Are You On, Westgate, Guisborough – refill eco-friendly household & bodycare products, fill your own container olive oil, dried food goods etc
Roots Farmshop & Cafe, East Rounton – refill eco-friendly household & bodycare products, fill your own container frozen foods (they also have a book exchange where you can bring any unwanted books and take away new to you one, further saving waste)
July’s Repair Cafe – Saturday 15th July Swainby Village Hall 10-12
Our monthly Repair Cafes continue with the July edition at Swainby Village Hall in the High Street, Swainby on Saturday 15th July, 10-12, aimed at reducing waste going to landfill or incineration and also saving the resources and energy of manufacturing new items. Bring along your household items in need of repair – computers, mobile phones, electrical items, clothing & textiles, ceramics & glass, wooden items, all blades in need of sharpening including gardening tools – and our friendly pink T shirted repairers will aim to restore your items to working order or give advice if they can’t. All for free including refreshments, donations to cover costs welcomed.
Upcycling Design competition
To celebrate National Upcycling Day Anne Mannix organised an Upcycling Design Poster Competition which was circulated to local schools and youth groups. At the closing date on June 24th over 40 exciting and creative entries were received, judging is now taking place and winners will be announced shortly! All the entries will be displayed initially at July’s Repair Cafe at Swainby thereafter at the Globe, Stokesley and the Discovery Centre, Great Ayton, dates to follow. At Carlton School one entrant went the extra mile and created their design for real!
Holidaying with a lower carbon footprint
Travelling to and from a holiday is often responsible for at least 70 per cent of the carbon emissions of the entire trip. Most forms of transport burn fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, which contributes to climate change, so the most effective way to be a greener traveller is to reduce those emissions caused by travelling to and from your holiday destination.
The easiest way to achieve to this is to reduce how far you travel and/or and to travel in a way that burns less fossil fuels using lower carbon modes of transport; or by not travelling in a vehicle at all, choosing instead to travel on foot, by bike or under sail.
Ideas for sustainable holidays and travel can be found here:
July is butterfly month – join the Big Butterfly Count
The Big Butterfly Count is a nationwide citizen science survey aimed at helping us assess the health of our environment. It was launched in 2010 and has rapidly become the world’s biggest survey of butterflies. Over 64,000 citizen scientists took part in 2022, submitting 96,257 counts of butterflies and day-flying moths from across the UK.
The Big Butterfly Count 2023 takes place between 14th July and 6th August. You can take part by registering on the website below after which you will be provided with a guide to UK butterflies, then you choose one day between 14th July and 6th August and observe your own chosen area for 15 minutes, recording any butterfly species to find.
Last month our different subgroups organised a number of CASAV events for Great Big Green Week.
Repair Cafe, Stokesley
On June 10th the Globe at Stokesley was host to the monthly Repair Cafe. This was well attended with many items being restored to full working order and avoiding going to landfill including a Victorian wall hanging and the construction of one ‘new’ pair of trousers from two badly worn and and unusable pairs! Phil ‘Blades’ was kept busy with dozens of gardening tools to sharpen.
Gardening for wildlife – talk, tour & refreshments
Also on June 10th Helen Herring gave two fascinating talks – afternoon and evening – and tours of her garden (including her pond with rare newts) highlighting the importance of gardening for wildlife. Greatly appreciative attendees came from far and wide and also enjoyed vegan ‘sustainable’ refreshments.
Walks on the wild side
Large numbers of environmental enthusiasts, young and not so young enjoyed a series of nature walks, learning more about the importance of our local flora and fauna and how to value and protect it.
June 11th Wildflower meadow walk at Great Ayton, led by local expert botanist, Martin Allen.
Organised jointly by Brighten Up Great Ayton and CASaV.
June 11th Wildflower walk at Cod Beck, led by local expert botanist Helen Herring.
June 14th Wildflower walk, Bankfoot, Ingelby Greenhow, led by local expert botanist Anne Press.
Updates from the groups
Transport
Let’s Talk Transport – NYC survey ends 17th July
North Yorkshire Council are asking people living, working, and travelling in North Yorkshire to share information about how they travel and the issues that they face. You can fill in an online survey here Have Your Say Today – Let’s Talk Transport Survey
This follows on from the feedback in last year’s consultations where people said public transport is a priority. The Local Transport Plan sets out the strategic transport aims for the region over the next few years. It will allow the council to continue to bid for funding to deliver the infrastructure we need to better connect residents, unlock economic growth, and promote sustainability. The survey closes on 17 July 2023.
Moorsbus weekend network 1st July to 28th August
Moorsbus is a network of local bus services organised by a not-for-profit community organisation to provide access to and within the North York Moors. The Moorsbus services operate from 1 July to 28 August 2023 but only on weekends and bank holiday Monday, using low-floor accessible buses. It serves a number of railway stations including York, Malton, Thirsk, Northallerton and Danby. This year there is a £2 cap on all single fares.
Food Group – monthly zoom meetings, next meeting Monday July 31st at 6pm, please contact if you would like to join
Allotment tour
June’s usual zoom meeting was replaced by a ‘live’ meeting with Wendy showing the group around her allotment in Stokesley. Wendy explained that she had gardened it organically for 27 years and has increasingly followed regenerative principles in more recent years. She
uses a 4 course rotation and while most of the produce is for home consumption she
grows 2 varieties each of tomatoes and climbing French beans and also Stokesley peas
for the Heritage seed library sending back seed to them each year. Much interest had
been shown during the recent Open Gardens event (which raised over £27,000 for
Teesside Hospice).
Stokesley U3A: Food, glorious food, veggie style!
Joan Sargeant has started a new veggie food group with the U3A which will meet on the 3rd Wednesday of each month from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm in Stokesley Town Hall.
This is a new group is for collaborative folks who are interested in sharing ideas, knowledge, recipes and enthusiasm for veggie style food. Maybe you already follow a vegetarian diet or you would like more ideas or information about it or maybe you’ve never tried it and you would like to give it a go. Whatever the reason, you are most welcome to be part of the group.
The plan is to meet once a month and each month a different member will be asked to prepare a veggie dish for the group to taste while explaining the process of making it and answering any questions about it.
CASaV’s partnership with our local Co-op stores is making sure surplus food does not go to waste but gets to those who need it most and continues under the fantastic leadership of Jenny Earle. Every evening, every week Jenny and her band of volunteers collect surplus from our local Co-op stores in Stokesley and Great Ayton and distribute it to local charities and groups for those most in need.
More volunteers to collect and distribute the surplus food are needed, even if you can only volunteer occasionally this is very useful for back up cover if one of the regular volunteers is unable to collect the food at short notice. Email us if you can spare an hour every now and then.
Choose your own salad leaves
Barbara Beveridge at Battersby Junction provides wonderful organic local veg boxes. She would welcome anyone who would like to volunteer to support her on her small holding at Battersby Junction.
Currently Barbara is offering ‘chose your own’ salad leaves at the Stokesley Farmers and Makers Markets. Bring your own container and get wonderful fresh salad without a plastic container.
For more information email barbara at barbarabeveridge118@gmail.com
Waste Group – monthly zoom meetings, next meeting Tuesday 11th July 7.00pm, please contact if you would like to join
Repair Cafes
Upcoming Repair Cafes will be 15th July at Swainby Village Hall and 12th August at the Globe, Stokesley, both 10-12. Remember, bring your household items in need of repair e.g. electrical appliances, mechanical equipment, furniture, clothing, crockery, laptops, smartphones, etc – to the Repair Cafe and extend the life of your items, learn repair skills, prevent landfill waste and help fight climate change!
As always, a great big green thank you to all of you who continue to make our Repair Cafes such a success – repair experts, reception and refreshment volunteers and of course all of you who bring along your household items in need of repair.
This monthly event alternates between Swainby and Stokesley and continues to be well attended with 100s of household items repaired / returned to functional use which might have otherwise gone to waste in landfill or incineration, saving the owners the cost of buying replacements as well as reducing the environmental impact of using up resources and the energy in manufacturing.
The Repair Cafes gives us a great opportunity to share the climate action message with people who aren’t aware of CASAV and many have signed up to our mailing list, joined us on Facebook and volunteered for future Repair Cafes.
We are always on the lookout for more volunteers so please get in touch if you are interested or want more information.
Recycling is the process of destroying waste and repurposing it to make something new from it, e.g. scrap metal is melted, processed, and then used to make a new item which is useful but still requires energy which contributes to climate change. Upcycling is more climate friendly in that it uses waste in its current state to create something new, such as a flower vase made from an empty bottle of wine. The benefit of upcycling is that you can give a raw material a second life without spending a lot of money on recycling, and you can also meet a current need with what you make.
Mending matters – workshop with Generation Climate
Kate Gibbon took the repair message to a Climate Action Youth Group, Generation Climate, at Saltburn last month. The young people, who are passionate about climate change and how to act to reduce it, wanted a member of the ‘older generation’ to teach them how to repair their worn out clothes to extend their life, prevent waste and save resources and energy in manufacturing new. The young people enthusiastically became skilful in darning woollen clothing and using visible mending techniques such as sashiko on woven fabric. Socks were darned, torn trousers repaired and a very imaginative ‘gauntlet’ was created!
Kate is happy to offer this mending workshop to any other group – young or otherwise! – just email if interested.
Recycling plastic bottle tops
The plastic in milk bottle tops is often difficult to recycle but is a valuable resource for making into pellets that go into the manufacture of items such as traffic bollards and traffic cones. A local funeral directors, Rea at Stokesley and Great Ayton are now asking for your milk bottle tops for recycling and to raise money for charity – each tonne of tops raises £40 for Marie Curie.
The Refill App
The Refill App (https://www.refill.org.uk/) allows you tap into a global network of places to reduce, reuse and refill containers for drinks, food and household cleaning substances as well as getting free tap water for your reusable bottle. Anne Mannix and other CASAV members have been out and about encouraging local businesses to sign up to the refill scheme and appear on the app and there are now almost 20 locations nearby where you can refill your own containers, saving packaging and costs.
If you know any local businesses which would like to join the scheme, please get in touch.
Nature Group – regular zoom meetings, please contact if you would like to join
The Nature Group were very active in Great Big Green Week producing fascinating displays in the Globe, Stokesley and the Discovery Centre, Great Ayton on how climate change is already putting our natural world at risk. The group also arranged a two very successful Wildlife Gardening sessions where we found out how to accommodate a family garden and space for nature. We also discovered that gardening for wildlife doesn’t mean not doing anything, effort is required! In addition the group organised very well attended walks at Ingelby Bank Foot, the floodplain meadow in Great Ayton and around Cod Beck.
These wildlife walks are always very popular and the Nature Group led by Brigid Holstrom plans to hold more during August, details to follow.
Energy
At this month’s AGM we will be looking at Impact: Community Carbon Calculator. Impact is an estimator of a community’s carbon footprint that works for parishes wards, district councils and unitary authorities. It draws on more than 30 datasets to estimate the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly and indirectly as a result of everyday human activities in the given locality – heating homes, using electricity, transport, producing and distributing food, disposing of waste, etc.
Impact has been designed to help you and your community to access, analyse and act on your community’s carbon footprint and to give you a better idea of where to target your efforts for the greatest impact in tackling the climate emergency.
You can find out about the carbon footprint of your parish area here:
If you have any news or any event / activity you would like promoting on next month’s (August) update please email Kate at kategibbon@googlemail.com by the end of July.
Kate will also be helping promote activities via Facebook and Instagram so let her know if there is anything that you would like shared via our Facebook group or Instagram page if you are not a Facebook / Instagram user.
Hope to see you at the CASaV whole group AGM on Tuesday 18th July.
Kate Gibbon,
on behalf of the Climate Action Stokesley and Villages Steering Group Steering group:
Bridget Holmstrom, Caryn Loftus, Jack Turton, Ron Kirk and Simn Gibbon
We are held our AGM on Tuesday 18th July, starting at 7:30pm in The Globe Community Library, North Road, Stokesley.
The short AGM (Annual Report) was followed by an opportunity to explore baseline data at a parish level to help measure the impact of our activity and identify future activity.
We explored the differences identified in the carbon footprint of several local parishes compared to the national average using the Impact Community Carbon Calculator and looked at how the suggestions identified by tool compare with activity in the Stokesley and Villages area to date. There was then a chance to explore the data for our own parish. This helped with planning how we can act locally to address the climate and nature emergencies we face.
All were welcome.
If you were unable to attend then the recording is below:
CASV AGM 18th July 2023 – The Globe Community Library, Stokesley
This month’s whole group CASaV meeting will be on Tuesday 20th June at The Globe Community Library, North Road, Stokesley. At 7pm there will be an interactive talk from Sally Bunce, marine veterinary nurse with the Yorkshire Seal Group (https://yorkshireseals.org/)
Sally will use our native seals as a ‘feature creature’ to deliver an understanding of how our lifestyle choices impact our planet and the creatures we share it with, showing us how to identify different seal species, how an unwell poorly and a healthy seal appear and how to respond if they need help. You will also learn about our local marine environment and some of its current challenges.
This will be followed by our usual whole group meeting 8 – 9pm. All are welcome – spread the word!
Hope you enjoy reading our latest update, including details of our next meeting at 8pm which is preceded by Yorkshire Seal Group at 7pm on Tuesday 20th June.
Welcome to June’s Update including the Great Big Green Week
June sees the arrival of the Great Big Green Week, the UK’s biggest ever celebration of community action to tackle climate change and protect nature organised by the Climate Coalition . Launched in 2021 with diverse partners including World Wildlife Fund, FairTrade Foundation, the National Trust and Surfers Against Sewage the week is an opportunity to engage and inform about climate action and protecting nature with wide ranging national and local events. Local events are highlighted below but there are national activities you can take part in, information here: https://greatbiggreenweek.com/
What’s Going On – news and events
Environmental talk and monthly meeting – Tuesday June 20th 7-9pm
This month’s whole group CASaV meeting will be on Tuesday 20th June at The Globe Community Library, North Road, Stokesley. At 7pm there will be an interactive talk from Sally Bunce, marine veterinary nurse with the Yorkshire Seal Group (https://yorkshireseals.org/)
Sally will use our native seals as a ‘feature creature’ to deliver an understanding of how our lifestyle choices impact our planet and the creatures we share it with, showing us how to identify different seal species, how an unwell poorly and a healthy seal appear and how to respond if they need help. You will also learn about our local marine environment and some of its current challenges.
This will be followed by our usual whole group meeting 8 – 9pm. All are welcome – spread the word!
Saturday June 10th 10-12 Repair Cafe & Upcycling Competition, Stokesley
During Great Big Green Week there will be one of our monthly Repair Cafes, this month at the Globe Community Library in Stokesley 10-12. Bring along your household items in need of repair – electrical goods, computers & mobile phones, bikes & toys, clothing & textiles, ceramics & crockery, furniture & wooden items – and learn repair skills whilst one of our pink T-shirted volunteers restores your item to working order (or gives advice if we can’t). With refreshments, all for free but donations to cover costs welcome.
At the Repair Cafe there will also be an opportunity to enter our Upcycling Poster Competition, closing date 24th June which is National Upcycling Day. All ages from 7 to 107 are invited to design an upcycling idea on A4 size paper showing how any article, which otherwise might go to waste, could be transformed into something new that could be useful or fun! Paper, pens, collage materials etc will be available on the day and you can post your entry into the special ‘Upcycling Postbox’ at the Globe, Stokesley. More information here:
Saturday 10th June – gardening for wildlife in Stokesley 2pm and 7:30pm
The event will be a guided walk around the garden highlighting the importance of the gardening for wildlife and the different elements in the garden. These include – native/non native plants, different levels, how to be insect friendly, providing winter habitats etc. Children are welcome to look under stones and in ponds etc.
There will be two sessions over the course of the day. 2pm – 4pm and 7.30pm – 9.30pm and the evening session will include using a bat detector!
There will be a limited number of places (15 max) and must be booked in advance, details below. The address of the venue will be provided to those that book.
Sunday 11th June 2pm – identifying wildflowers in Great Ayton
Organised jointly by CASaV and Brighten Up Great Ayton.
Sunday 11th June 4.30pm – wildflower walk at Cod Beck
Join Helen Herring, local expert botanist, for a wildflower walk around Cod Beck Reservoir. Meet in the main car park at 4.30pm, approximately 2 hours
Organised by CASaV.
Wednesday 14th June 10am – wildflower walk, Ingelby Greenhow
Meet at 10am Bank Foot, Ingelby Greenhow for a walk guided by local expert botanist Anne Press.
Organised by CASaV
Wednesday 14th June 11am – 1pm North Yorkshire Rotters, Great Ayton
Join the composting experts, the North Yorkshire Rotters, the Discovery Centre, Great Ayton for inspiration and advice on saving food and garden waste and fertilising your garden for free from 11am – 1pm.
Saturday June 17th 9am – 4pm Discover the Art of Scything, Faceby
If things have got a bit out of hand during No Mow May, now may be the time to learn the graceful and eco-friendly art of scything. You can acquire this ancient skill and reconnect with nature like never before on this one-day Scything Course on June 17th in the charming village of Faceby, nestled under the majestic Cleveland Hills.
The course runs on Saturday, 17th June 9-4 with exact address provided when you apply for a place. Expert Instruction is provided by John Grundy, an experienced scything instructor who will guide you through the fundamentals, teaching you the proper techniques and best practices to master this traditional method of grass cutting. Whether you’re a complete beginner or have some experience, this course is designed to suit all skill levels.
Limited scythes will be available to borrow on the day or you may want to buy a scythe before you attend the course. John sells them directly from his website www.wildernesstamed.com/store
Sunday 18th June Keep the lights shining – Whitby Esk Energy tours for families, Ruswarp various times 1 – 3.45pm
Tours at 1-1:45pm, 2-2.45pm and 3-3.45pm
Can you get the water flowing to keep the lights shining?
Energy related activities for all the family to take part in whilst you visit our community-owned 50kW Archimedes screw hydroelectric turbine on the River Esk at Ruswarp.
Saturday 10th – Sunday 18th Environment At Risk & Sustainable Food Displays, the Globe Community Library, Stokesley
All through Great Big Green Week there will be displays on our environment at risk from climate change as well as a display of vegan cookery books and sustainable eating at the Globe, Stokesley.
Read all about it!
CASaV produces a monthly Climate Column for the Darlington and Stockton Times. Since starting the column over a year ago, it has been interesting to see the increase in letters and debate about environmental issues, climate change and climate action in particular.
Community Earth Festival Esk Valley & East Cleveland 22nd April – 8th July
This grassroots festival started last month and continues until 8th July with a wide range of accessible events aiming to challenge people to look again at our relationship to the natural world. Events include practical workshops, nature recovery projects, creative performances, guided walks, talks and discussions.
As part of the festival closing event at Botton Village on 8th July, alongside a range of speakers, Simon & Kate Gibbon from CASaV will be giving a short talk on ‘Rethinking Waste’.
The most sustainable consumerism is to just buy less but…
Summer holidays with less environmental impact
Fighting climate change means changing how we do things. And one of the biggest things we can do is fly less. Or not at all. There’s so much adventure to be had right on our doorstep.
Train travel, walking, wheeling or biking your holiday gives you time to take in the true joy of travel – to stop and see the world with fresh eyes.
As summer holidays approach, Possible (https://www.wearepossible.org/) highlights share some resources to help inspire your flight-free travels:
Former Possible staff member, Sarah, is so dedicated to flight-free travel that she set up a YouTube and TikTok channel all about it. Here’s her top 10 destinations in Europe.
Any question you can think of about train travel is more than likely answered by The Man in Seat 61. This website has a vast range of information on traveling the world by train. From getting ideas of where to go to planning the minute details of your trip, this has it all.
Our friends over at flightfreetravel.co.uk have a brilliant podcast where they bring an array of guests to talk about their flight free travel experiences. From the woman who used the £2 bus scheme to get from London to Edinburgh to the sports stars challenging the idea of flying for competition, it’s a fascinating listen (perfect for long journeys).
If you’re looking for a holiday company to plan and book your trip for you, I’d recommend Byway and Ecosy. Both have tonnes of flight-free holidays to choose from, and loads of advice and support for creating your perfect holiday.
Repairable and ethical headphones
The company that developed the Fairphone, the world’s most ethical and sustainably produced mobile phone, has now developed the world’s first headphones created with 100% fairtrade gold and have been designed to minimise the impact on the climate by avoiding and reducing carbon emissions where possible, as well as contributing to climate projects. Components include parts made from 100% recycled aluminium and 80% recycled plastic.
The Co-op is sufficiently impressed with the credentials of these that they are stocking them in larger stores and online.
Updates from the groups
Transport
Let’s Talk Transport
North Yorkshire Council are asking people living, working, and travelling in North Yorkshire to share information about how they travel and the issues that they face. You can fill in an online survey here Have Your Say Today – Let’s Talk Transport Survey
This follows on from the feedback in last year’s consultations where people said public transport is a priority. The Local Transport Plan sets out the strategic transport aims for the region over the next few years. It will allow the council to continue to bid for funding to deliver the infrastructure we need to better connect residents, unlock economic growth, and promote sustainability. The survey closes on 17 July 2023.
Puffin pilgrimage – car free travel reflection from Caryn Loftus
The last time Mike and I tried to see the puffins at Bempton Cliffs we drove in brilliant sunshine until we were nearly there and then were met with thick fog. We only got a glimpse of a few puffins as they rose up out of the gloom. This year we decided to see if we could get there by public transport to make more of the journey and have a short break in Filey. Trains and buses became a moving hide from which to observe birds and other wildlife enroute. From Great Ayton we went by train to Whitby, then took advantage of the £2 bus fares to catch one of the frequent buses to Scarborough and then onwards to Filey by train. The following day, it was only a few stops on the Yorkshire Coast Line to Bempton followed by a short walk to the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/bempton-cliffs/.
The journey took us across moorland, through woodland, along riversides, past fields and to the coast. By the time we got home we had seen 47 different species of birds, which we’re we wouldn’t have seen from the car. What about the puffins you ask – well they certainly weren’t the highlight as we only saw a few clinging to the cliffs. Maybe we were too early in the season or it was a symptom of the puffin’s red listed status. The highlight was the amazing sight of the gannets and other seabirds flying around the cliffs but unfortunately due to avian flu their numbers are plummeting as well. Visit the UK’s biggest mainland breeding colony of gannets at Bempton whilst it is still a show stopper.
Food – monthly zoom meetings, please contact if you would like to join
Benefits of Slow Cookers & Beanbag Cookery
The Food Group has been discussing the wide range of benefits of using slow cookers which use less energy than conventional cooking so not only reduce the impact of energy production on the climate but also save people money. There has been a successful project demonstrating the use of slow cookers in Hull which has helped people avoid having to use food banks.
There has also been discussion on the use of slow ‘beanbag’ cookery where energy is saved by initially heating the pot by conventional means then continuing the cooking by insulating the pot either by using a specially designed ‘beanbag’ or using old duvets or even a haybox, info here: https://guides.brit.co/guides/create-and-use-the-bean-bag-haybox
FoodCycle
FoodCycle is a national organisation with a vision is to make food poverty, loneliness and food waste a thing of the past for every community. With community dining, week in, week out they feed the hungry and give company to the lonely in communities across the UK; providing delicious meals and great conversation, and using food which would otherwise go to waste.
Members of the Food Group are also considering a potential local project inspired by the Hull Slow Cookery project and FoodCycle. Our ideas so far are to offer a ‘pay what you can afford’ community lunch every two months, prepared by different community groups – churches, schools, local businesses – with each lunch around a theme such as slow cookery, ‘Ready steady Cook’ from surplus food, zero miles food, perhaps guided by local chefs with an emphasis on how eating sustainably can fight climate change. If you are interested in developing this idea please get in touch (contact details at end of this full update).
Choose your own salad leaves
Barbara Beveridge at Battersby Junction provides wonderful organic local veg boxes. She would welcome anyone who would like to volunteer to support her on her small holding at Battersby Junction.
Currently Barbara is offering ‘chose your own’ salad leaves at the Stokesley Farmers and Makers Markets. Bring your own container and get wonderful fresh salad without a plastic container.
For more information email barbara at barbarabeveridge118@gmail.com
Co-op Foodshare
Did you know that every evening every week surplus food (which would otherwise go to waste) is collected from our local Co-op stores in Stokesley and Great Ayton and distributed to local charities and groups for those most in need?
Jenny Earle from the Food Group organises this fantastic work and a rota of volunteers collect and distribute the food.
More volunteers to collect and distribute the surplus food are needed, even if you can only volunteer occasionally this is very useful for back up cover if one of the regular volunteers is unable to collect the food at short notice. Email us if you can spare an hour every now and then.
Nature / Environment – monthly zoom meetings, please contact if you would like to join
The Nature / Environment group have been busy this month preparing events and displays for the Great Big Green Week, highlighted above.
Let it bloom June
No Mow May locally appears to have been a great success with many areas in our local villages – both council managed and privately owned – being left unmown with a huge increase in diversity of plant species and invertebrate life. Surveys are ongoing locally to capture this data.
We had some outstanding, never-before repairs! These included:
The three legged horse – at a previous Repair Cafe one visitor brought along a real conundrum, a china horse with one leg missing. Our ceramics expert Mike Foster rose to the challenge and actually crafted a whole new leg from epoxy resin which was indistinguishable from the other three legs. Mike reunited the now much more ‘stable’ horse with his delighted owner at May’s cafe. No rest for magic Mike though, he tackled another ‘leggy problem for another visitor who brought along a three legged china dog!
The seatless chair – again, at a previous Repair Cafe another visitor brought cane woven seated chair where the caning had completely collapsed. Sewing supremo Katy Parkinson revealed a secret talent for expert caning and completely and beautifully restored the chair which was reunited with its delighted owner at May’s cafe.
The crotchless wedding trousers – whilst the Repair Cafe was in full swing there was a wedding about to start just across the beck. One of the groomsmen discovered that the crotch had split in his smart suit trousers but one of the wedding party had heard about the Repair Cafe and quickly sent him in our direction. Sewing goddess Lorna Kessel didn’t bat an eyelid as she restored the gentleman’s wedding finery to full working order and he got back to the church on time!
As always, a great big green thank you to all of you who continue to make our Repair Cafes such a success – repair experts, reception and refreshment volunteers and of course all of you who bring along your household items in need of repair.
Our next two Repair Cafes take place on Saturday 10th June Stokesley Globe Community Library 10-12 as part of the Great Big Green Week and then 15th July at Swainby Village Hall 10-12.
This now monthly event alternates between Swainby and Stokesley and continues to be well attended with 100s of household items repaired / returned to functional use which might have otherwise gone to waste in landfill or incineration, saving the owners the cost of buying replacements as well as reducing the environmental impact of using up resources and the energy in manufacturing.
The Repair Cafes gives us a great opportunity to share the climate action message with people who aren’t aware of CASAV and many have signed up to our mailing list, joined us on Facebook and volunteered for future Repair Cafes.
Remember, bring your household items in need of repair e.g. electrical appliances, mechanical equipment, furniture, clothing, crockery, laptops, smartphones, etc – to the Repair Cafe and extend the life of your items, learn repair skills, prevent landfill waste and help fight climate change!
We are always on the lookout for more volunteers so please get in touch if you are interested or want more information.
To mark Global Upcycling Day on June 24th Anne Mannix has organised an ‘Upcycling Challenge’ competition for individuals and groups to design the most inventive way of repurposing items and materials into something useful which would have otherwise gone to recycling or to waste. There are a number of categories, including most imaginative and most practical across different age ranges and the winners will receive prizes!
Recycling is the process of destroying waste and repurposing it to make something new from it, e.g. scrap metal is melted, processed, and then used to make a new item which is useful but still requires energy which contributes to climate change. Upcycling is more climate friendly in that it uses waste in its current state to create something new, such as a flower vase made from an empty bottle of wine. The benefit of upcycling is that you can give a raw material a second life without spending a lot of money on recycling, and you can also meet a current need with what you make.
Closing date 24th June!
Refill Day 16th June – reducing use of single use plastics
16th June is World Refill Day https://www.refill.org.uk/world-refill-day/ so a good time to remind you about how you can reduce single use plastics locally using the Refill App.
The Refill App (https://www.refill.org.uk/) allows you tap into a global network of places to reduce, reuse and refill containers for drinks, food and household cleaning substances as well as getting free tap water for your reusable bottle. Anne Mannix and other CASAV members have been out and about encouraging local businesses to sign up to the refill scheme and appear on the app and there are now almost 20 locations where you can refill your own containers, saving packaging and costs.
If you know any local businesses which would like to join the scheme, please get in touch.
Energy
Community Energy Fortnight 10-23rd June
Community Energy Fortnight (CEF) is a nationwide campaign reaching thousands of people and involving hundreds of organisations and it is a great opportunity to show what community energy is all about. It will also focus on skill-sharing within the sector.
Notice of our CASaV AGM – Tuesday 18th July, 7:30pm
We will be holding our AGM in The Globe Community Library, Stokesley on Tuesday 18th July, starting at 7:30pm. So that our membership year matches our financial year, all those who paid their £1 membership fee from February 2022 until 30th June 2023 will be entitled to vote at the AGM. The membership year will then run from 1st July until 30th June of the following year. The focus for our AGM this year will be exploring baseline data to help measure the impact of our activity and identify future activity.
Signing off
If you have any news or any event / activity you would like promoting on next month’s update please email Kate at kategibbon@googlemail.com by the end of June.
Kate will also be helping promote activities via Facebook and Instagram so let her know if there is anything that you would like shared via our Facebook group or Instagram page if you are not a Facebook / Instagram user.
Hope to see you at the CASaV whole group monthly meeting on Tuesday 20th June following the marine life talk.
Kate Gibbon,
on behalf of the Climate Action Stokesley and Villages Steering Group Steering group:
Bridget Holmstrom, Caryn Loftus, Jack Turton, Ron Kirk and Simon Gibbon
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Joan Sargeant has started a veggie food group with the U3A which now meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm in Stokesley Town Hall, next meeting 20th September.
CASaV’s partnership with our local Co-op stores is making sure surplus food does not go to waste but gets to those who need it most and continues under the fantastic leadership of Jenny Earle. Every evening, every week Jenny and her band of volunteers collect surplus from our local Co-op stores in Stokesley and Great Ayton and distribute it to local charities and groups for those most in need.
Last month’s Repair Cafe took place on August 12th at Stokesley with many interesting and useful repairs taking place including a play parachute from a local toddler group! One of our new volunteer repairers, Adam, wrote about taking part in the event on his website, 
The Refill App (
The Nature Group arranges regular events to provide people of all ages with an opportunity to learn more about our local natural environment and find out ways in which they can help protect our endangered habitats at risk. These include wildlife walks more of which are planned in the coming months as well as site specific events like the farm tour and peatland visit mentioned above.
(photo with parents permission)
Thinking of exploring more of our beautiful North York Moors countryside this summer? Moorsbus is a network of local bus services organised by a not-for-profit community organisation to provide access to and within the North York Moors. The Moorsbus services operate from 1 July to 28 August 2023 on weekends and bank holiday Monday, using low-floor accessible buses. It serves a number of railway stations including York, Malton, Thirsk, Northallerton and Danby. This year there is a £2 cap on all single fares. For more information see here: 
28 million people in the UK already enjoy a default 20mph limit signed policy but not yet in North Yorkshire. 20’s Plenty for Us is the National Campaign for default 20mph limits where people live, work, shop, learn and play. 20’s Plenty for North Yorkshire is our county’s branch of the organisation and is run by volunteer residents, led by Ian Conlan who is contactable here: 
Wendy from the group reported that the ‘Bus stop’ garden in Stokesley which the group planted is producing vegetables for all to harvest including tomatoes and peas
This monthly event alternates between Swainby and Stokesley and continues to be well attended with 100s of household items repaired / returned to functional use which might have otherwise gone to waste in landfill or incineration, saving the owners the cost of buying replacements as well as reducing the environmental impact of using up resources and the energy in manufacturing.
The Nature Group arranges regular events to provide people of all ages with an opportunity to learn more about our local natural environment and find out ways in which they can help protect our endangered habitats at risk. These include wildlife walks more of which are planned in the coming months.
On June 10th the Globe at Stokesley was host to the monthly Repair Cafe. This was well attended with many items being restored to full working order and avoiding going to landfill including a Victorian wall hanging and the construction of one ‘new’ pair of trousers from two badly worn and and unusable pairs! Phil ‘Blades’ was kept busy with dozens of gardening tools to sharpen.
Also on June 10th Helen Herring gave two fascinating talks – afternoon and evening – and tours of her garden (including her pond with rare newts) highlighting the importance of gardening for wildlife. Greatly appreciative attendees came from far and wide and also enjoyed vegan ‘sustainable’ refreshments.
North Yorkshire Council are asking people living, working, and travelling in North Yorkshire to share information about how they travel and the issues that they face. You can fill in an online survey here Have Your Say Today – Let’s Talk Transport Survey
Moorsbus is a network of local bus services organised by a not-for-profit community organisation to provide access to and within the North York Moors. The Moorsbus services operate from 1 July to 28 August 2023 but only on weekends and bank holiday Monday, using low-floor accessible buses. It serves a number of railway stations including York, Malton, Thirsk, Northallerton and Danby. This year there is a £2 cap on all single fares.
The plastic in milk bottle tops is often difficult to recycle but is a valuable resource for making into pellets that go into the manufacture of items such as traffic bollards and traffic cones. A local funeral directors, Rea at Stokesley and Great Ayton are now asking for your milk bottle tops for recycling and to raise money for charity – each tonne of tops raises £40 for Marie Curie.
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Join the composting experts, the North Yorkshire Rotters, the Discovery Centre, Great Ayton for inspiration and advice on saving food and garden waste and fertilising your garden for free from 11am – 1pm.
CASaV produces a monthly Climate Column for the Darlington and Stockton Times. Since starting the column over a year ago, it has been interesting to see the increase in letters and debate about environmental issues, climate change and climate action in particular.
The company that developed the Fairphone, the world’s most ethical and sustainably produced mobile phone, has now developed the world’s first headphones created with 100% fairtrade gold and have been designed to minimise the impact on the climate by avoiding and reducing carbon emissions where possible, as well as contributing to climate projects. Components include parts made from 100% recycled aluminium and 80% recycled plastic.
The last time Mike and I tried to see the puffins at Bempton Cliffs we drove in brilliant sunshine until we were nearly there and then were met with thick fog. We only got a glimpse of a few puffins as they rose up out of the gloom. This year we decided to see if we could get there by public transport to make more of the journey and have a short break in Filey. Trains and buses became a moving hide from which to observe birds and other wildlife enroute. From Great Ayton we went by train to Whitby, then took advantage of the £2 bus fares to catch one of the frequent buses to Scarborough and then onwards to Filey by train. The following day, it was only a few stops on the Yorkshire Coast Line to Bempton followed by a short walk to the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs 
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 