July 5, 2023
June's SusSH Group Leaders' Meeting saw a great turnout of leaders from across the South Hams discussing how we can move forward with projects around sharing, repairing, reducing and reusing.
The meeting began with an introduction on what it means to scale up Earth Resource management: managing material and human resources in acircular, rather than linear, context.
After introductions, the group looked at the many possible projects, ranking on scales of Impact and Ease in order to focus in on the highest priorities.
The three top concepts chosen to pursue were:
1) A home and community composting pilot, following an existing bid to South Hams District Council for a number of options including: brown bin conversion to wormeries and water butts; community composting fact sheets; and street and home composting demonstrations covering Bokashi, wormeries and more. An additional suggestion was made to consider adding schools and businesses to the pilot.
2) Rainwater management possibilities, looking at working with parish and town councils to ensure rainwater collection on all public buildings, promoting various methods of rainwater collection, collaborating with South West Water, and working with parish lengthsmen.
3) Share/Repair focus with lots of options, including increasing existing efforts for a garden tool amnesty, keeping the top 10 Share Shed items in every village, offering a Repair Cafe support package, pushing on The Big Fix 2024, Repair Cafe apprentices, upcycling clothing, and skill sharing around repairs.
We will be carrying these focus areas forward, with the chosen contacts for each, in our upcoming work.
Our next Group Leaders' Gathering will be replaced by a special workshop on Starting & Developing Your Community Group - we'd love to see lots of you there, but booking is essential so please do find out more and reserve your spot here.