Seasons greetings to you all!
Welcome to the final Green Ilminster newsletter of the year. It’s difficult to believe that another year is drawing to a close and winter is upon us once again.
I am going to resist the temptation of talking about how glum the world might feel and how it’s easy to lose faith and difficult to know what we can believe any more, especially when it comes action on the Climate and Biodiversity crisis.
Instead, I am going to talk a little about what is positive and what is real.
However small, what’s happening at Green Ilminster is real. The trees we are planting are real and here on our patch, and they really are being looked after by our volunteers. The repairs being done by our shop volunteers really are reducing what’s going to landfill and impacting consumerism. Our local river is being monitored, and its water is being tested, and data is being collected. People are turning up to pick up rubbish from our lovely little town and to our Green Ilminster Talks to learn and share knowledge. We are just one small group, a community of people doing it for the love, not the money – one of many that are making a difference – which we believe is important when the world feels full of smoke and mirrors.
Please read on to find out a little more about what we have achieved this year and what we hope to achieve in the future,
Ilminster Share & Repair
Ilminster Share & Repair has continued to go from strength to strength and the team is looking forward to celebrating the project’s third birthday in February of next year.
We have now handled over 1500 items for repair, with completed repairs averaging around 40 per month. Over 76 irreparable items have been recycled and, through a partnership arrangement with the Ilminster Churches Together Food Bank, a number of donated items, which could not be sold, have been redistributed to local people on a budget.
Further afield, hand tools and sewing machines have been donated to workers in Africa, via local contacts for the Tools with a Mission project and, in recent months, one Share and Repair Volunteer was able to deliver two refurbished laptops to projects in Kenya. Pictured are Ruth Nabie, CEO of Dreamland Hospital, Kimilili alongside hospital administrator Sister Margaret (www.dreamlandmission.org) receiving the first of the two laptops.
The second was delivered to Bishop Reuben Lubanga of the Evangelical Episcopal Church of Kenya who runs Epico Jahns Academy (Primary School) and a clinic, run by overseas volunteers (www.volunteerkenya.org).
With 615 customers having accessed the repair service, we have begun to seek feedback regarding the user experience and recently launched a short customer survey, which can be found here https://forms.office.com/e/bSYL2aUkpj If you are reading this as a customer, do please take the time to tell us how we did!
We were delighted to be selected as one of the Co-op’s Local Causes in 2024, benefiting from over £1000 towards the launch of our Share service. If you are hosting during the festive period and would like to borrow, rather than buy, don’t forget to check out our ever-expanding library of things to hire https://ilminster-share-and-repair.org.uk/share .
Funds from the Somerset Community Foundation, as well as more regular table-top sales, have given the project a financial boost. The introduction of a limited range of liquid soap refills has also been well received, with plans to expand this offer in 2025.
As we reflect on another busy and successful year, it goes without saying, that we are hugely indebted to each and every volunteer who gives of their time and talents to make the project what it is. A big thank you to all who have supported us on the journey so far.
Finally, a reminder that our last day of opening before Christmas is Monday 23rd December, reopening again on Thursday 2nd January.
Green Ilminster Talks
These were a new venture for 2024 and we are looking to build on a successful start with a programme of green related speakers and films in 2025, all at the Ilminster Arts Centre:
The first talk of the year is on 22nd January. We look forward to welcoming James Chapman from Somerset Council with a presentation entitled “Woodland creation: guilt mitigation or carbon sequestration?” James will be talking about the Council’s Tree Strategy and its relevance to Somerset and nationally; trees and flood mitigation; his MSc research; urban trees; and his work in the West Bank. As ever, entry is free but donations are welcomed. Doors at 6.45pm and the talk starts at 7.30pm.
Our February Talk is on 26th February – this will be Alicia Hallett from Somerset Wildlife Trust. Alicia is their Human Wildlife Coexistence Office and will be talking to us, amongst other things, about reintroduction of Beavers and Pine Martens.
On 26th March, we are looking forward to the return of Ben Thorne from Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG), who gave us that great talk on flooding back in October (you can watch it on video here), this time running a panel session on Farming in Somerset. Ben will be joined by a number of local farmers to discuss topical farming issues and take questions from the floor.
Water Testing of the River Isle
We have been testing River Isle water since summer 2023 and currently have six testers at twelve sites from the source at Combe St Nicholas up to Cocks Bridge, just north of Ilminster, sampling on a monthly basis. Our tests for WRT are fairly basic (just visual observations, phosphate levels, temperature, dissolved solids and turbidity) but they add to a vast quantity of information from hundreds of other citizen scientists across the west country producing data that helps the Environment Agency make important decisions.
Our plans for 2025 are to expand our regular testing in the area between Cocks Bridge and the confluence with the River Parrett and to start adding invertebrate monitoring to with an organisation called Riverfly. So, if you would like to join our happy band of testers doing your bit for the health of the Isle, please drop us a line at info@greenilminster.org.uk.
Tree Group
The Green Ilminster Tree Group (ITG) has met on the last Saturday of every month in 2024. During this year we have organised eight sessions where we have either planted new trees or maintained those already planted. These sessions have been very successful and we have now established a ritual of ending up at the Gamesmaster Café for a review of the day’s activities and an all-day breakfast roll… We are averaging about 8 volunteers per session, but could always do with more…
For the other four sessions, we have been celebrating the existence of all the significant trees within the Parish.
We have been doing this by organising walks to discover and measure all of the important trees we can find. If appropriate, these records are added to the Woodland Trust Ancient Tree Inventory.
Some of this information is being fed into a new ITG project which is the production of a Tree Walk leaflet. This will guide walkers around Ilminster pointing out all of the noteworthy trees in the Parish and putting them in their context. This will include a bit of history about various local landmarks like the Canal, the long-defunct Railway, the Stop Line and the Monmouth Rebellion, etc.
We also contributed to a planting at the Heard Therapy site in Isle Abbots. Two ITG members helped to plant 100+ trees. This was an excellent opportunity to work with a charity that assists children and young adults with learning difficulties.
Jake John-Taylor was very much involved for the first half of the year, particularly with the work needed to organise the planting planned for February 2025 on Dillington Farmland. In the second half of the year he has stepped back from regular involvement to prioritise his work-life balance. Many thanks to him for his encouragement and hard work. We hope to see him resume his involvement again next year.
We already have two plantings planned for 2025. In January we will be working at the Powrmatic site and in February we will be planting 200 trees at Dillington’s Towns End Farm. There will be another planting in March, followed by a series of maintenance sessions throughout the Spring and Summer.
We will also be publishing our Tree Walk leaflet during the first quarter.
If you are not on our ITG email distribution list and would like to be, please contact us on trees@greenilminster.org.uk.
With all best wishes for a lovely festive time and a peaceful New Year.
From all the team at Green Ilminster