Zoom meeting with Gedling Climate Officer

Meeting 

Date: 31-1-22

Burton Joyce Climate Action Group 

Sim and Sam from Gedling Borough Council  

Minutes

Present:

 Sim D. Gedling Borough Council Climate Officer

 Sam P. Food, Health and housing manager at Gedling Borough Council (GBC)

Group members: 

Helen M

Alison C 

Gill N

Bobbie P

Julia D

Justin U 

Phil C

Apologies: 

Paul S

1.     Introductions:

Sam is involved in food hygiene, private sector housing. He is Sim’s line manager.

Sim previously worked for Sustrans, greening the national cycle network, seconded to an active travel project for a large new estate in Newark, a Waste in Schools education programme for Notts City Council, a community energy project for Derby City Council, Southwark council to promote a schools environment award, Nottingham City Council as a recycling officer and the Environment Agency.
 

2.     Gedling Carbon Strategy report

     The report was written by Melvyn C (Head of Environmental Services at GBC). Sam reported there was broadly strong support for the Carbon management plan from the head and deputy council leaders.
It is an 8-year strategy.

They are lobbying for more funding. So far Sam has funding for retrofitting external wall insulation and solar panels for housing in Netherfield.

Only 10% of Council tax goes to the borough so funding sources are important.
It’s been estimated that 26,000 homes in Gedling need improving to get a C rating for energy efficiency.

Gedling comes under the Midlands Net-zero Hub. This is a source of funding distribution.

 

3.     Follow up on Carbon Strategy

     The consultation period was Nov 5^th 2021 to Jan 4^th 2022. 

Sim is planning on doing a SWAT analysis on the information from the consultation and then will put together an action plan which will be a live document.
There were 38 respondents online, about 6 from Community organisations and the rest from individuals.

60% agreed that the strategy would be positive, 5% disagreed.
Sim has written a communication and marketing plan aimed at reaching hard to reach people in the community.

She has planned a calendar of events including:
Earth Day, Against Food waste day, Bike week, Plastic Free July, Allotment week, Recycle week, COP 27 in November, national tree week, National fuel poverty day.
 

Further information following the next cabinet meeting on 17/3/22.

 

4.     Marches Energy agency.

GBC subscribes to a Climate Change Communication package and as part of it there is a web page “Everyone’s talking about climate change”, access for GBC to 3 days of consultancy work, use of an Energy Trailer to go out in the community to educate the public.

 

5.     Green Rewards. 

      An app that the Notts councils have been asking the community to sign up to, designed to encourage environmental awareness using small tasks to win points and possibly £20 prize. So far 1690 across the whole of Notts has signed up, 154 in Gedling.

 

6.     Recycling. 

      Brief discussion about the frustrations around recycling in Gedling as many items are not recycled in the house hold collections due to the Veolia contract. Sim suggested that the group could apply for a grant to produce their own leaflet to help the community understand the rules. Sim offered to come to a future meeting to talk about recycling further

 

7.     Grants

UK cycling offer up to £3000 for groups starting community cycling initiatives, e.g. Dr Bike surgeries.

GBC councillors offer grants to community sustainability projects-deadline March 14^th.

 

Ideas examples:

- Tetrapak recycling bin for community

- improving biodiversity along the river

 

8.     Climate emergency UK. 

     Council climate score card has recently ranked all the councils. GBC had a score of 46%.

Sim also mentioned that there is a Carbon Officers group and the officers from Notts and Derbys recently met up to share practice.

 

9. Carbon literacy training     

      There was a discussion about carbon literacy training. Sam is involved in training council leaders. There was a discussion about making it available to community groups.

 

10.  AOB.

Sam and Sim offered to raise awareness of our group on the Council web page.

Sim recommended a podcast by Caroline Norbury called “The owl hoots”

 

Sim will email details of the Marches energy agency website and grants we may be interested in.

 

Sam and Sim left the meeting.

 

Plan:

Group members decided on a face-to-face meeting: 
Bobbie’s house 
Monday 21-2-22 at 7pm in order to:
- map out the direction for the group
 - look at a potential project to apply for funding for (improving biodiversity at the river was discussed)
- arrange community meetings.
  

Julia 

 

 

 

 

November Meeting(s)

Meeting Monday 22nd November 2021, 7pm

via Google Meet

Five participants

We had a wide ranging discussion on Gedling Borough climate proposals:

the Gedling Climate Change Strategy (here) 

the Gedling Carbon Management Strategy (here)

@GedlingBC

#ClimateActionNow

Next, to formulate a group response, we'll reconvene next Monday evening.

Good to see two new faces

Full Minutes to follow

October meeting minutes

Burton Joyce Climate Action Group Meeting 

18-10-2021

via Zoom

Present: Julia Devonport, Phil Colbourn, Bobbie Prime, Justin Udie, Gill Newman

Apologies: Paul Smith.

1.     Welcomed Gill Newman.

2.     Constitution-adjusted wording. All present agreed it was acceptable.

Plan: Phil to put on our website and Facebook page and to align our aims on the website with the constitution.

We discussed that roles in the group would be useful e.g. a treasurer, but no decisions made.

3.     Bank Account. Discussed asking for donations at live meetings versus a member ship fee. Gill mentioned that the local history society had less people coming to events when membership was required versus donations.

Julia to contact our regional FOE member of staff to get a letter of permission to open a bank account. 2 group members are needed to act as signatories

4.     Market Stall feedback. We felt it was a success and it was felt that a stall every quarter would be useful. Gill volunteered to take on the role as the stall coordinator with Karen who runs the market and will contact her to book a slot for January.

5.     Group email address. Justin has set up a gmail account for us so we can have a single source of email contact.  burtonjoyceclimateaction@gmail.com Ask Julia for the password.

6.     Gedling draft climate action plan. Bobbie has not yet heard from Melvyn Cryer at Gedling Borough council about when he can come and talk to our group about the draft climate action plan. Note: Let parish Council know so they can send a long a representative.

7.     Future meetings. We can continue monthly meetings for the group on zoom or hybrid meetings (zoom and live) and decided to aim for the 3^rd Monday of the month approximately.

A live meeting inviting the community to hear a speaker or participate in an activity could be every 2 to 3 months at a venue. We decided on Thursday January 20^th as a possible date for a first live meeting, we’ll need  a venue and a theme/speaker.

Plan: Julia to contact Howard, regional FOE staff about grant for initial meeting.

8.     Notts County Council Pension Divestment from Fossil Fuels. Group agreed that this was a worthwhile subject to campaign about. There is a meeting on 26^th October at Nottingham Climate Action group to discuss further and we’ve been invited, I will clarify if its in person or via Zoom.

9.     Parish Council. Julia went to the communities meeting today:

-Notts Bat Group were invited and put a detector up in the Grove and between 6 and 8 species were detected (there are 12 species in total found in Notts, so quite a good number). They made some recommendations which I’ve asked them to consider carrying out, including purchase of bat boxes.

-Environment Plan. They agreed to review it in the new year as a small working group.

-They agreed to have their carbon footprint calculated and Julia will email the parish clerk regarding setting up a small meeting to find out what will be involved, use of their data etc. for Justin to meet them.

10.  Carbon footprint consultation. Paul currently contacting local organisations regarding participation in this. Parish Council could be one of them.

 

11.  Severn Trent tour. Bobbie reported that about 12 had signed up for tour and she was planning to contact John Jackson about the final details this week.

 

Next meeting - Monday 22 November at 7pm Justin will send out the link.

 

 

Julia Devonport