Welcome to Halesworth ASH September Climate Action weekend September 25/26
All workshops are free – but please book tickets.
Halesworth ASH is exploring community energy and biodiversity in a series of workshops to be held over the weekend of 25th September.
“This marks the 4th year of our Autumn event, and each year we explore a different theme aiming to engage the people of Halesworth and our surrounding villages with positive ways to discuss the explore the changes to our climate and what action we can take locally.” says Rachel Kellett, Director and founder member of Halesworth ASH.
After the weather we’ve seen this year, and the geo political hike in energy prices, we’re delighted to have a community energy workshop (part of East Suffolk Council’s Future Energy Landscapes project) as part of our weekend.
Setting the scene for the weekend’s events, Professor Peter Hobson will open on Friday evening, in Halesworth’s St Mary’s Church, with a wide-ranging and engaging talk “Energy, life and indispensable bio-diversity”, waking us up, shaking us up, providing both framework and inspiration.
Saturday morning starts with a local community energy workshop facilitated by the Future Energy Landscapes team which will take place in the nearby village of Westhall. When communities lead energy projects, they create solutions that work for everyone – helping to tackle rising energy costs and reduce our climate impact.
Back in Halesworth St Mary’s Church on Saturday afternoon, we’ll take a deep-dive into scoping out a Biodiversity Action Plan for Halesworth and the surrounding villages. Supported by Halesworth Town Council the aim is to explore what natural assets we benefit from locally, including water, trees and hedgerows, fauna, our towns open spaces, land use and community energy, biodiversity and food. With some blue-sky thinking, we will be considering what can we collectively do to maximise the benefits these offer – both for sequestering carbon but, equally important, to help improve our own quality of life and offer hope for the generations that follow; who doesn’t love to see a hedgehog snuffling about in the garden – after all, hedgehog highways, bug hotels and wildflower meadows are just some of the wonderful biodiversity initiatives across our local schools. With food for thought from this weekend, our Education Officer, Caroline Chapman, will take the findings – Energy and Biodiversity – into our local schools. All education resources are shared by the nationwide network, Our Schools Our World, and with the Suffolk Sustainable Schools Network.
All events are free, but please buy tickets so we can know numbers for refreshments etc. For more information and tickets – which should be booked in advance – visit the Halesworth ASH website www.halesworthash.com. Please note that the Future Energy Landscapes Workshop in Westhall is open to those those in the surrounding areas including Halesworth with numbers limited to 30; tickets must be booked in advance via the EventBrite link on the Halesworth ASH website.