Welcome to heather season and August’s Update
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
.jpeg)
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.
If you were unable to attend the AGM you can access a recording of it here: https://climateactionstokesleyandvillages.org/2023/07/04/casav-agm/
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.
See Letter-to-PM.pdf (green-alliance.org.uk).
An extract from the letter:
“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.”
News reports about the letter at Nature groups prepared to ‘mobilise’ 20m members over UK climate policy | Environmental activism | The Guardian and Leading environmental groups accuse Rishi Sunak of playing ‘political football’ with the climate crisis (inews.co.uk).
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!
August’s Repair Cafe – Saturday 12th August – Stokesley Globe 10-12
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.
Spotlight on 20’s Plenty for North Yorkshire
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.
More information here:
Book of the month: The Art of Frugal Hedonism
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.
More information here:https://u3asites.org.uk/stokesley/page/129414
Co-op Foodshare
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.
Further details here on our website.
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 (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
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.
.jpg)
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 
The Great Big Green Week is a yearly event across the country to celebrate community action to tackle climate change and protect nature. More information here: 
Heartening global news! The UN-Energy partnership brings together some 30 organizations working on all aspects of energy and sustainable development. The
Sadly, clean electricity plans in the UK may be stuck for years because of ‘negligence’ by governments over modernising network, say renewable energy developers.
We appreciate that not everyone has a garden or access to an allotment but windowsills can still provide a harvest of fresh food. Ideas here: 
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 