Hello all and welcome to our newsletter.
Here we find ourselves coming to the end of heatwave number 3 this year. The Met Office has just reported that we must now expect this kind of weather to be our new normal. I spend a lot of time wondering why we carry on the way we do despite this news. In fact, it feels like the human activities we know to be causing climate change are increasing. Is it just me or does that seem like madness?
Whatever the complicated reasons for the lack of willingness to change, both personal and governmental, it seems the only thing to do is keep trying – so that’s what we will do! However small Green Ilminster’s impact is in the grand scheme of things – it is something. As Robert Swan wisely said “The Greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it”
Below you can find out more about how our projects are progressing.
Share and Repair Shop
We’re thrilled to announce that Ilminster Share and Repair has received a generous grant of £11,000 from the Gooch Charitable Fund! This vital funding is already making a big impact on how we serve our local community. You can read more about this award in this BBC article – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgdmzeevjyo
Thanks to the financial support and huge amount of time invested by our volunteers, we’ve been able to:
- Secure additional storage space, helping us better organise our shop and work areas for customers and volunteers.
- Refit and refresh our shop, creating a more welcoming and accessible space, with clearer displays for items to share, repair, re-use/sell or refill.
- Purchase new items for hire, expanding the equipment available to the community for occasional use.
- Extend our refill range, supporting sustainable living by offering even more environmentally friendly household and personal care products.
We’re transforming our space week by week so do come and see the improvements for yourself!
Join Our Friends+ Programme. We’ve also launched our Friends+ programme, a simple way for supporters to stay connected with everything we offer. By signing up, you give us permission to contact you about:
- Special offers
- Items for sale
- Workshops, events, and new services
It’s the best way to stay up to date with what we do, so do ask us about signing up when you next pop in.
Help Spread the Word. To help raise awareness, we’ve created new posters and leaflets and are asking our loyal customers and volunteers to help us share them. Please consider taking a few to pass on to friends, family, neighbours, workplaces, or community groups. The more people who know about us, the more we can grow and help our community reduce, re-use and recycle!
Volunteers Needed – especially with electrical skills! Finally, as electrical items continue to make up the bulk of our repairs, we’re looking for an additional volunteer with electrical repair experience. If that’s you — or someone you know — please do get in touch!
Thank you for your continued support of Ilminster Share and Repair. [Natalie Wainwright]
GI Talks
Our monthly talks start up again in September and will run through until April 2026. All take place at the Ilminster Arts Centre at 7.30pm (doors open at 6.45pm). We are still working on the full programme but the first two confirmed will be:
- 24th September – Retired Ecologist Dr Colin Ryall on Invasive Non-Native Species.
- 22nd October – Vicky Whitworth, Co-chair of Friends of the River Axe on the great work they are doing to clean up the Axe.
More details will be released shortly. All our talks are free to enter, but donations are most welcome to help cover our event costs. There will be a bar and light refreshments and lots of eco-minded folk to talk to!
Videos of the talks we have filmed over the past year are now on our website here. [Chris Bestley]
River Isle Water Monitoring
Since May 2023 we have been working with the Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT) testing the water of the River Isle. We now have (albeit patchy) coverage from the Isle’s source in Combe St Nicholas to the confluence with the River Parrett at Muchelney.
Most of our test sites are on the section between Combe St Nicholas and Ilminster. North of Ilminster we are a bit thin on the ground and need more volunteers. This stretch is currently covered by a quarterly hit squad covering six sites in one day. Most volunteers cover just one or two sites and sample them on a monthly basis.
Our citizen scientist volunteers measure for Phosphates, Total Dissolved Solids, Turbidity and Temperature at their testing site. As well as these qualitative measurements the monthly survey also involves qualitative observations on visible signs of pollution, weather, invasive plant species, wildlife seen, etc.
The results of each survey are input by the volunteers into a database called Cartographer and used by WRT to provide organizations like the Environment Agency with granular data to help make important decisions about the health of the river and remedial actions that need to be taken.
Currently WRT rate the River Isle to be in ‘Fair’ to ‘Good’ condition (see Score Cards for sections of the River Isle here), but phosphate levels are letting it down. These can only be coming from two sources – farming run-off and sewage treatment plants. Monitoring on a monthly basis is crucial to make sure that any serious incidents are spotted before too much damage is done and with a view to collecting enough data that pressure can be brought to bear on the sources of pollution so it can be reduced. We still have kingfishers and otters on the River Isle and long may that remain the case. We must remain vigilant and if you would like to add to our numbers you would be most welcome. To join us, please email volunteer@greenilminster.org.uk
You may have seen a few monitoring devices popping up on the Isle over the last few months, put there by Wessex Water – there are two on the Shudrick Stream at the back of Ladymead. We’ve been in touch with Wessex and asked them if they will share their data results with us and await their response. [Chris Bestley]
GI Tree Group
Personnel: There is now a hardcore of about a dozen people who are coming regularly to Tree Group work parties. These people are on a WhatsApp group where we share details of preparation for meetings and other incidental (often but not always) wildlife and tree-related stories. The group is very positive and while focused on our maintenance or planting work is also having fun.
There are about 80 people on our distribution list who receive invitations to take part in the work parties, but few of these people are turning up to the events. Any suggestions about how to get more people involved is always welcome.
Strategy: During this calendar year we are planning to visit all the sites where we have planted trees since the founding of the Tree Project in 2019. The aim is twofold:
- To acquaint recent recruits with the extent of work carried out in the past
- To review the effectiveness of each planting and carry out remedial work where necessary. This work will be logged for future reference
Work Parties: Over this quarter (April, May and June) we cancelled the April session due to a bad weather forecast and held our regular sessions on May 31 (Eames Mill) and June 28 (Hinton St George). We have also had some extra sessions. On April 12 we walked from Powrmatic to Eames Mill. On Easter Sunday we went to our site at Townsend Farm before going on to recce Hinton St George. On Saturday May 10 we went to Powrmatic for maintenance work.
Lessons Learned: After our June session at Hinton St George, we visited our site at Michael Armstrong’s home in Lopen, where we planted 200 trees in 2021. This is a brilliantly successful planting and illustrates what factors need to be maximized for success:
- Total project buy-in from the landowner
- Planting strong whips with good guards
- Right trees right place
- Regular maintenance
- Minimal competition from other vegetation
Nearly all of these trees are growing well and some are 10/12 feet tall already.
Compare this with Eames Mill and Hinton St George, where almost all our trees are struggling.
Future Maintenance/Planting sessions:
- July – Chibley Farm, Chillington
- August – Hill Farm, Barrington
- September – Townsend Farm, Ilminster [Colin Hyde]
I hope you have found our newsletter interesting and more importantly hopeful; Green Ilminster thanks you for your continued support.
With all best wishes
Sarah and all the team