Our Nature team has been busy getting out the news on our Staffordshire Wildlife Trust-led Nature in Your Neighbourhood project. MCA is a partner, alongside Keele University, OUTSIDE Arts, SCVYS youth service and Staffs Moorlands Council. Among the many events we have attended recently was a local branch meeting of the Wildlife Trust’s where the subject was 'Life in The Ravines’ a replanting project to recover from the effects of ash dieback in the valleys of the Peak District National Park. Here is Val Riley (recently awarded an MBE for her voluntary service for nature) pointing to a potential site she has identified for Nature in Your Neighbourhood.
The first ever Leek Textile Week was a stunning success, with its range of talks, walks, installations, exhibitions and interactive workshops attracting artists and performers from all over the country. The brainchild of long-time MCA member and supporter Carry Somers, the week had a strong theme of sustainability running throughout it. Australian writer Clare Press read from ‘Wear Next’, her latest book on the future of sustainable fashion, at an evening of poetry and prose organised by Mark. A number of MCA members had taken part in the associated woad and indigo growing project, including Debbie Potts, pictured here with her own-grown indigo.
Mike and Mark both attended the annual Staffordshire Climate Expo at Uttoxeter Racecourse in September. Ably organised by the Globe Foundation, keynote speakers at the event included Michaela Strachan and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, to whom Mike gave a sustainably-foraged recipe for blackberry whiskey. There was a great range of stalls and attendees and both Mike and Mark made new contacts for MCA and swapped progress and ideas with old friends.
A great day was had by one and all: talking about the Nature in Your Neighbourhood project, playing our Land Use Game, exploring greenhouse gases (in the pink buckets) and of course making wonderful wildlife masks. Huge thanks to Belinda Hargreaves for organising such a tremendous event and also inviting us to have a stall.
MCA has always worked hard to engage the local farming community, to understand their concerns and, where possible, work with them on understanding what's needed in the transition to different forms of agricultural practice.
We are regular stallholders at the Leek and District Agricultural Show and many of our members attend the smaller, more locally focussed events, such as Ipstones and Manifold Shows. But none of us go as far as Phil Barks, himself of farming stock, who is a long-time member of the organising committee of Ipstones Agricultural Show. Here is Phil taking a well-earned break from hammering in stakes and chasing runaway cattle.
And it was full steam ahead at September’s packed Foxlowe Repair Cafe as customers brought clothes, bikes and household items (including this kettle) for repair. Next month’s October 19th Repair Cafe at Haregate Community Centre co-incides with International Repair Day and there will be be tea and cakes on offer!
- Our AGM - and Ecobrick Progress
- Leek and District Show 2024
- Website Upgrade
- Spotlight Summer 2024 - Renewable Energy on our Turf?
- HuG 2024
- Spotlight Spring 2024 - Hope Springs Eternal…
- Spotlight Winter 2024 - Conversation with Karen
- Our Beautiful Wild: Young Voices For Nature
- Spotlight Autumn 2023 - Making Moorlands Houses Warmer
- The Stoke-on-Trent Sustainability Summit
- Staffordshire Climate Expo and Sustainability Conference
- Well, We Only Went and Won It!