Past Events

Creation-Creativity Day, June 2006

Creation-Creativity Day
A glorious day made the celebration of God’s Creation an easy matter when thirty adults and ten children gathered at Fowlmere’s RSPB reserve on 10 June. The Diocesan Environment Group had convened the day to encourage people across the diocese to attend more closely to the wonders of creation, as Gilbert White, the eighteenth century parson naturalist of Selborne, put it. In the morning the adults walked around the reserve led by welcoming experts in the form of Doug Radford the warden and Ray his volunteer assistant. They were rewarded by the dramatic sight of hobbies hunting for dragonflies. Meanwhile the children, led by Dave Chandler, explored minibeasts and came across a lesser stag beetle among other animals. Both groups were struck by the beauty of the dragonflies and damselflies. In the afternoon there were three workshops to respond to what we had seen with our own God-given creativity. Sue Gilmurray led the music group, who improvised a bird-song piece; Sarah Thwaites led the writing group, who compiled a poetic medley; while the third group with Nigel Cooper constructed an artwork of cut reed, depicting the reserve echoing the New Jerusalem. All these were gathered up in praise and prayer with a service to conclude a truly good day. Definitely worth repeating next year!

Grass Art

For other pictures look at:http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ray.galvin/FowlmereRSPB/fowlmere.html

Climate Change in the Fens, March 2007

A joint conference with the Environment Agency

Nigel Cooper addressing the conference (Photo: Dr J Wright)

On Wednesday 14th March 2007 the Environment Agency and the Diocese of Ely (Church of England) hosted a joint ‘Conversation’ on the future of the Fens. This was billed as an antidote to climate change conferences. Over eighty people attended.

Nearly eighty people gathered together at The Maltings in Ely to hear the predictions from experts on the impact of climate change in the Fens. These predictions covered the basics of the physics of climate change and the changes likely in the Fens including increased chance of winter storms and floods, summer droughts, and rising sea levels. How these might affect water supply and flood control was considered. Then attention turned to some sectors in the area, farming, house-building, nature conservation and tourism.

Although the main focus was on how to adapt to climate change, the Energy Savings Trust also spoke on how we can reduce our carbon emissions to help reduce the risk of dangerous climate change including dramatic sea level rise.

The main focus of the day was to gather the experience and opinions of local people, whether they were new to the Fens or had lived and worked there all their life. The delegates were invited to take part in several exercises such as ‘what have the experts missed?’ and ‘what are your priorities?’ The delegates also got round tables and debated various scenarios of climate stress on water supply or flooding. Each table had to make political decisions of which groups or areas would bear the brunt of the problem. All the work of the delegates will be collated into a report on the conference, which should both guide decision making and set an example for other public consultations in future.

As part of the antidote, the conference was not all doom and gloom. It aimed to empower local people to make a difference in how we respond to climate change. A theological reflection concluded the day, emphasising hope and the way hope energises us to make the differences each generation in history is called to make.

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