This page includes news and background information about Sustainable Thornbury.
Click on the images below to go to our special pages.
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This year's AGM will be held on Wednesday 20 June at The Chantry.
We had a very successful first Blossom Open Day in the Community Orchard.
We had £35.80 in donations and 68 visitors, of whom 8 signed up for the email list.
We had a stall at the Food Day event in Turnberries on 7th October, with a display of stored and preserved produce, home-grown by members.
The Grow Your Own Food and Orchard Groups were recruiting new members.
On 11 October, Sustainable Thornbury member Danny Bonnet gave a talk at the Cossham Hall, as part of a public meeting on ethical investment. Is your pension fund safe from a bursting of the carbon bubble? See our report of the meeting.
Several of us are working with other Thornbury residents and the Town Council to produce a Neighbourhood Plan. This is an exciting opportunity to get some of our ideas into official policy.
We held an Electric Car Day on Saturday 1 April 2017 to promote electric cars. We feel electric cars have come of age, and are a real, practical option for lots of people. Electric cars are more sustainable than petrol or diesel, are cheaper to run and maintain and produce no pollution and hardly any noise in the street. They look like petrol cars, but have no exhaust pipe, gears or clutch and for shorter journeys they are much more fun. If you have solar panels then you can use them to charge your car, and make your driving even cleaner.
On the morning of Electric Car Day there was a selection of electric cars and their local owners in Thornbury shopping precinct, so members of the public could talk to owners about how easy and fun they are to use, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages.
See also the press release.
We responded to consultations by the four Councils of the old Avon area on their joint plans at a very strategic level for development and transport. The plan is called the Joint Spatial Plan (JSP) and sets out broadly where development will happen up to 2036. A consultation will shortly be under way on the first draft of the JSP.
Bath and North East Somerset Council seems to have taken up our Give-it-away-Take-it-Away idea. They are running Give and Take days on a regular basis around their area.
The Thornbury Community Orchard is now on a more formal footing, as we now have a contract with South Gloucestershire Council. There are regular pruning and tree-care sessions, as described on the Orchard page.
Giving and Taking in Thornbury
Thanks to our generosity of spirit and reluctance to throw out perfectly good "stuff", here in Thornbury we have taken steps to saving nearly one item every day from our rubbish bins over the last year. Thornbury Give-n-Take was launched on http://www.mythornbury.co.uk/ at Sustainable Thornbury's 2012 Eco-fair, and has been steadily building in popularity. It was set up by My Thornbury as part of their website, and we are extremely grateful to them for this.
It's a simple idea – if you have something taking up space that feels too good to bin, post it up on Give-n-Take, and see if someone else would like it. You won't make any money, but it'll save you the bother of getting rid of it, and you gain both the space and the satisfaction of making someone else's day!
You can even use Give-n-take to request an item that could be gathering dust in another Thornbury loft or garage. Items don't even have to be working - if you think your broken whatnot might be useful to someone, list it and find out. Give n Take can be used for items not acceptable to charity shops, such as electrical and electronic goods, furniture, plants, food, building materials and car parts. The taker takes 'as seen' and entirely at their own risk. Items must be offered free, and usually the person taking the item collects. All items must be legal.
Since Give-n-take began, over 350 items have been posted as offers or wants, from chest freezers to Star Trek fact files, and even a kitchen sink!
To join in the fun, visit http://www.mythornbury.co.uk/ and click on Give-n-take.
You can see and download the Give n take poster.
ST now has a Facebook group. and a Facebook page. If you are on Facebook, you can get news from our Facebook group by joining it. Anyone can see our Facebook page.
ST also has a Yahoo group called SustThornbury, which is an opportunity to exchange ideas and chat with other ST members. To join click on the graphic below. You need to be signed up to Yahoo groups, which you will be if you are on Freecycle.
Click to join the Sustainable Thornbury Facebook group
Sustainable Thornbury is a community group focussed on the market town of Thornbury and the surrounding area in South Gloucestershire, England. We are concerned about global warming and peak oil, so we are trying to make our town more sustainable. We are a Transition Initiative. More ...
The group is currently working on energy. We also have a Grow-your-own-Food self-help group. More ...
If you want to receive regular news, you can get our Bulletin by email. To do this, please become a member or give us your contact details. You can also see what is happening on the What We Are Doing page, and our Facebook page.
We have run projects and campaigns on waste, local food, energy efficiency, reducing plastic bags, developing skills and reusing goods. More ...
We sometimes have public talks, film shows and discussions for anyone who wants to know more about climate change, energy, food, waste, transport and related topics.
Most of our projects and campaigns are run by working groups. We get together as necessary, usually in the evenings, for the whole group and for each of the working groups. If you would like to come to meetings and help out, please contact us. A list of planned meetings and events is on our Diary dates page.
We need more members so that we can show we have the support of local people. Membership entitles you to get our email bulletin, so please join us.
