All Saints’ Church is delighted to have achieved an Eco Church Silver Award! It was presented to Helen Edmonds and Anthea Fisher during the annual Harvest Festival at All Saints, amidst beautiful arrangements of garden produce and gifts bound for the Lymington Foodbank. Pippa Stephenson, who formed the Eco team alongside Helen and Anthea until she moved away last year, was also able to join the celebration; here they are with the award!
One of the things that contributed to All Saints’ being awarded the Eco Church Silver Award is the way they involve the community in looking after their two beautiful churchyards. Late summer is a busy time strimming and raking the meadows, and is a great opportunity to involve the church congregations, although frequent rain this autumn made this more challenging!
Other ways of getting the community involved include hosting the village for the RSPB bird count, to enjoy glorious displays of primroses and bluebells in the spring, and for a Nature Discovery Day in July with bug pots, craft activities and butterflies to count.
All Saints’ Church are also keen to develop space for reflection, to encourage visitors to linger, to enjoy the birdsong and consider what nature expresses about the God of creation who knows and loves us.
All Saints’ also share the news of creation care more widely through Hordle and Tiptoe churches’ parish magazine, LINK. This regularly features articles on global and lifestyle issues arising from the climate crisis. They are keen to develop greater dialogue about the issues that are raised. The churches also have work to do to promote signing online petitions, campaigning for nature, to reduce plastic pollution and to call out global injustice.
In terms of reducing their carbon emissions, All Saints’ is an old Victorian church, used only on Sundays, so the heating costs (and carbon emissions) are high. However, in March the PCC agreed to adopt a plan to reduce their carbon emissions, with ambition to save £1000 from the energy bill, to switch to a green supplier, and to begin to monitor usage against previous years to see where savings might be made. The newly formed Buildings Committee have assumed responsibility, committing to report regularly to the PCC on progress towards Net Zero.
This award represents a significant milestone for All Saints’ Church and it’s a testament to what can be achieved when a small group of committed individuals prayerfully step out in faith to honour their Creator and Saviour!
