Kingsbridge Climate Action: A Community Story
Join Kingsbridge Climate Action for a journey into sustainability and nature, where exciting events and projects inspire you to make a positive impact on the planet. With activities like composting roadshows, renewable energy fairs, and the lively Repair Café and find out about their Kingsbridge Nature Festival. Look out for them in the next edition of Reconnect Magazine!
Kingsbridge Climate Action is a grassroots action group that runs a variety of projects and events to engage the local community with climate and nature. We aim to ensure our events are fun and hopeful, with a focus on highlighting achievable actions we can all take to reduce our carbon footprint and help nature thrive.
Some of our recent activities include a home composting roadshow, a climate science workshop, a renewable energy fair, a wildlife photography session, seed shares, clothes swaps and upcycling craft days.
One of our main projects is our monthly Repair Café which helps breathe new life into broken items and save them from landfill. Our brilliant group of volunteer repairers offer their time and skills on the last Sunday of the month at our regular session and at various outreach opportunities with other local projects such as the Sea Scouts and Share Shed. We are delighted that Kingsbridge is now part of the repair movement and are inspired by how many people in our community want to reduce waste by repairing what they already have.
We joined CAG Devon last year after receiving lots of advice on how to set up our Repair Café from Project Manager Helen Vines. There are so many benefits to being part of the CAG network including access to guidance and resources, training for our volunteers and opportunities to network with and learn from other projects like ours.
One of the biggest events in our calendar is the Kingsbridge Nature Festival – a 3-day celebration of the local environment running from Thursday 20th to Saturday 22nd June 2024.
The festival offers a diverse programme of activities in and around Kingsbridge including nature walks, foraging, visits to local wild places, inspiring talks, wellbeing events, music, storytelling, citizen science and lots of art and creativity. The intention behind the festival is to offer a whole variety of ways to connect people to nature right here on our doorstep – encouraging both a sense of wonder and of stewardship for the local environment, as well as creating opportunities for community wellbeing by bringing people together around a meaningful purpose.
Supported by our Town Council, Ward Councillors and the Halleria Trust, it is a joyful and participatory celebration that we hope will amplify action for climate and nature in Kingsbridge, and act as a launchpad for new ideas, initiatives and projects. The festival is a very collaborative event, pulling in skills, knowledge and energy from all sorts of organisations and individuals locally. One of our collaborators this year is James Carr from Drum Devon, who is creating a samba band for our nature parade on the Saturday of the festival:
“I’m happy to be supporting the Kingsbridge Nature Festival this year. I grew up near Kingsbridge so it’s great to be back working with the local community to put together our own, unique Samba-Junk band. Brazilian Samba has a long history of bringing communities together to raise spirits and draw attention towards a common cause. I am also excited to be working alongside ‘Till the Coast is Clear’ – using plastic junk collected from the sea, we can draw attention to the devastating impact this pollution has on the coastline and marine ecosystem. This, to me, is what it is all about, raising awareness, encouraging positive action and nurturing hope for a better future.”
You can find details of our festival programme here.
Check out our website and Facebook page.
If you would like to get involved with our group or any of our events, including our festival, contact Rosa Hannaford (Project Coordinator) on kbclimateaction@gmail.com
You can find this article in the next edition of Reconnect Magazine in the CAG Devon Corner!
