On Saturday 3 July North Leatherhead Community Group is undertaking `The Big Tidy Up' and is looking for volunteers to help out with litter picking from 10am until 4.00pm. If you would like to get involved, meet at the Tesco's entrance to the woods at 10.00am.
This promises to be a fun day out for all the family ending in a free BBQ at 4.30pm at the Fire & Iron Gallery. There will also be prizes, stickers, food and drinks through out the day. The Group is looking for the local community to come with their family and help whilst having fun. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about the area, hidden to many, that is full of history! Prizes will be awarded for the most unusual item found and maybe, just maybe, there will be gold in the woods! Everyone is welcome, even if you can only spare 10 minutes.
The area behind Tesco's in North Leatherhead holds many historical remains, from the Romans to an old brick works that used to be on the site many years ago. There have been lots of remarkable finds, including Roman coins. Since then litter, fly tipping and years of mess and grime have blanketed the area, making the land look unsightly and deterring visitors. However, underneath lies a wonderful woodland with many rare plants and invertebrates, waiting to be uncovered.
`The Big Tidy Up' is organised by North Leatherhead Community Group and supported by Tesco's, The Fire and Iron Gallery, Mole Valley District Council, Mole Valley Housing Association, Crime Disorder Reduction Partnership and further supporters.
For more information and to get involved with The Big Tidy Up Please Contact Simon Woodhams, North Leatherhead Community Group Project Worker on 01372 361082 or email swoodhams.lcg@live.com
On Saturday 5th June 2010 - World Environment Day - the Lightbox in Woking will host a fun-packed ‘Keen to be Green Now Fair’.
The specially organized event will be packed full of information and advice, children’s activities, games, lectures and goodies to buy that raise awareness about what each and every one of us can do to become greener and reduce our carbon footprint.
From informative talks to face-painting, slow bike races, cool, eco-chic gadgets and accessories and free drop-in workshops, there will be something for everyone who cares for their local environment
AGM on Thursday 25th March at 7.30pm in the Friends Meeting House.
Capel Goes Green warmly invites you to join them for their Annual General Meeting and viewing of In Transition.
They shall conduct the usual business (review of the past year, election of officers) briskly and then enjoy the screening of a film In Transition which tells the story of the rapidly growing movement across the world, in both towns and villages, to develop resilience in local communities and to cut back on energy use. The film is particularly dramatic is showing our profligate use of oil.
The film will be followed by refreshments and discussion of the film.
They shall then develop a programme of events for the coming year. So far there have been ideas for a vegetarian lunch, a visit to the Mole Valley recyling depot, a Green Gazebo at the Horticultural Show in August (instead of a separate Green Fair in September). You may have some splendid suggestions to add to these.
Meanwhile the Temple Lane Allotments Society is meeting regularly as a separate body, putting in applications for grants, completing planning permission documents and getting estimates for fencing, car parking hard-standing, and a multi-purpose shed with lockable storage, social area and even a composting or camping toilet!
Zap your leaks
We have been lending out energy monitors for some time, and now the Green Mole Forum can lend you a thermal leak detector.
This nifty gadget makes it easy to check your home's energy efficiency by finding places that let heat out or cold air in.
As you scan it around it shines a light on the surface your are measuring - green, blue, or red.
Simply set the detector's temperature tolerances to one, five, or 10 degrees farenheit (or 0.5, 3, or 5.5 celsius) and scan the light across the area you want to inspect. As well as displaying the temperature of the surface you aim it at, the light will change to red for warmer spots and blue for cooler spots to detect air leaks in both warm and cool weather.
Cut Energy Bills and Improve Your Home's Efficiency
Sealing the leaks and improving insulation in your home can help you save as much as 20 percent on your heating and cooling bills. An efficient, greener home will stay cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Use the Thermal Leak Detector to check your refrigerator and freezer temperatures and efficiency.
If you would like to borrow it for a week or two contact us or send an email to ask to be added to the waiting list. Happy hunting!
Once again, the Woodland Trust are offering recycling facilities for your Christmas cards throughout January. There is a poster on the Epsom Tower noticeboard giving more details - cards can either be taken to WH Smith, Marks & Spencer or TKMaxx - or you can just leave them in the box in the Tower. The scheme ends on 31 January.
This is a great way of recycling your cards. Over the 12 years that the scheme has been running, 600m cards have been recycled. This has had two readily measurable benefits: firstly, 141,000 new trees have been planted, and secondly, 12,000 tonnes of paper and card have not been landfilled, thus saving 16,000 tonnes of harmful carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
The Woodland Trust's website (www.woodlandtrust.org.uk) also has an important reminder about reducing and reusing things before we worry about recycling - these early steps in the waste process are even more effective ways of cutting down on landfill and reducing our carbon footprints. For reducing they suggest simply refusing plastic carrier bags wherever possible - something I'm sure that many of us do automatically now. For reusing we can support organisations such as Green Metropolis (an online second hand bookshop - www.greenmetropolis.com), but charity shops and high street second hand bookshops are non-online ways of doing the same thing. An "inhouse" way to reuse birthday cards is to either make "eco-cards" yourself, or pass them on to the Tots Alive! children who like cutting them up and sticking them - just leave any cards in the box in the Tower.
Another way to reduce, reuse and recycle is to learn how to knit or crochet, remodel your own clothes, or even just mend them by stitching on buttons and making repairs. If this appeals, Dorking Stitch Up could be the new group for you. They meet on the second Saturday morning each month in the Christian Centre in Dorking, see www.transitiondorking.org for more details.
On the morning of 
Saturday 16th the Green Mole Forum was present at Bookham Vision's Volunteers fair.
It was an event to enable the many people who ticked the box in the village plan survey indicating they were interested in volunteering to meet groups they might be able to help.
More than 100 people who filled in the survey also indicated they would be interested in joining a Transition Towns initiative for Bookham - Transition Bookham - an initiative which the Green Mole Forum is helping to support. Not sure what the Transition Town initiative is about? Then click here. The Green Mole Forum has already helped Transition Dorking and Transition Ashtead get going. With your help we can start Transition Bookham and make it a success.
What you can do if you are interested in taking part:
And we will let you know. For more articles on Transition initiatives click here.
We also had a great response to our Energy Monitor scheme. What's this? Simply: we can lend you whole-house energy monitors to help you easily identify where you can save money by not accidentally leaving energy-sapping appliances turned on.
Headley Village Shop
If you want to buy Ecover products in bulk (ie you bring your own containers) the Headley Village Shop sells the following products:-
- Laundry Liquid
- Hand soap
- Multi-surface cleaner
- Fabric Softener
- Washing up liquid
- And something else but I’ve lost my crib sheet!!
The shop also sells a range of organic and local produce.
We recently posted an article on traditional skills, including beekeeping, in Gloucestershire.
However it was pointed out to us that you can learn all about bees much closer to home - in Ewell.
They run courses every year, starting in January.
Check out the Epsom division of the Surrey Beekeepers Association here.
A community garden project has been launched in Leatherhead. The Garden is a community development and grow your own initiative managed and developed by local people and supported by a range of partners from across the public, private and voluntary sectors.
The project supports residents and organisations from within the local community who wish to learn or take part in organic growing collectively. The project is also an opportunity for people to mingle and get to know one another.
Find more about it at their website. They would be delighted to welcome you.
This year's British Science Festival is focused around Guildford.
There are events from the 5th to 10th September including a large number of interest to visitors to this blog. For the full list click here.
Here are some excerpts: