Since we started in 2019 we seem to have excelled our expectations of what was possible for such a small group.
We set up various teams: litter picking, balsam bashing, gardening.
We applied for grants and received donations which enabled us to:
Buy a Thermal Imaging Camera to help people reduce their carbon footprint and save money by conducting home surveys and set up a Home Energy Kit to be lent out.
Buy litter pickers and some child size ones for the schools, hoops and high viz vests.
Buy bee boxes, hedgehog houses, bat boxes, swift and house martin boxes and sited them.
Start and continue the Pollinator Project with both primary schools and around the villages.
Create, print and deliver our own newsletter to every home in the villages.
Buy and set up a display board to give people information on a variety of environmental concerns.
We set up a River Warden to patrol the riverbank and alert us to litter spills.
Worthalls Rd next to the Cricket club has been weeded and planted up with more soil, bulbs, plants and shrubs. Other areas in the village have been seeded with wildflowers, making areas much more attractive. Other areas include Friendship Mill, Turner Fold and the wildflower beds on Simonstone Lane.
We set up a soft plastic recycling bin and medicine blister pack collection in the Village Hall.
Developed links with the schools and given talks and prizes for a recycling competition.
We have achieved plastic free status for Read and Simonstone which included a Mass Unwrap.
Litter picked grot spots and did a Big Clean for the Queen.
Set up a Facebook page.
Had community events and free lunches at the Village Hall linked to litter picking along the Calder and gardening at the Village Hall.
Visited other groups eg. Friends of Ightenhill and Whalley Hydro.
We have regular open meetings in the village hall with interesting speakers.
We are mapping the whereabouts of hedgehogs in the villages and encouraging people to put hedgehog doorways in their fences. By doing this we hope to create a hedgehog highway to increase the hedgehog population locally.
Gave a presentation at Pendleside Community Climate Change Day, May 2024.
We had a stall on Ribble Valley Climate Action Network (RVCAN ) summit day – 2024 and some members helped in the planning and delivery of this. We also had a stall on the RVCAN Schools Conference at Stoneyhurst.
We have links to other groups including Addingham and Longridge Environment groups and RVCAN. With members of Preston Climate Action Group we visited homes in Preston to carry out thermal imaging surveys.
Set up a 2 Minute Litter pick board in the children’s playground in Read depicting our mascot Reggie the Hedgehog.
Attended East Lancashire Mapping Nature and Communities Road Show
We are a member of Lancashire Climate Action Network and attend their annual conferences.
We are presently collaborating along with Read Parish Council helping to set up a Green Back Streets initiative plus creating vegetable plots in the allotments for those without garden spaces.
We are in the process of setting up our own website.
