This page gives information about some of the ongoing activities of Alnwick Area Friends of the Earth. More recent activities are at the top. For information about current and past campaigns, please go to our campaigns page. If you would like more information about any of these activities, please get in touch.
For some simple tips on going green, download our Live for the Planet guide!
Children and Young People's Project
This ambitious, dynamic and developing project is led by Alnwick Area Friends of the Earth currently in partnership with the Duchess Community High School, Ellingham C of E Aided Primary School, and Eliot Smith Dance. Working creatively with the schools, it aims to encourage children and young people to explore and value the natural world and to understand the need to protect this.
The project draws on Forest School activities, dance, and movement and it incorporates a variety of inputs about the natural world and the threats of climate breakdown. The project includes activities such as planting trees, litter picks, and beach cleans.
Working with children and young people, the project encourages the building of relationships. In particular, older children befriend and help younger children in environmental activities.
The project emphasises enjoyable, creative activities with learning about the natural world. It also raises with participants serious questions about climate breakdown, helping them to become citizens that will value and protect the natural world.
Festivals
Once or twice a year we share our environmental concerns at one of the many festivals held in Alnwick Market Place. Recently, we have focused on food and the environment and particularly on food waste. We have also looked at plastics, plastic pollution, and recycling. Our meetings with members of the public have been mutually interesting and informative.
While it is clear that most people who stopped by our stall were concerned about the environmental crisis, they were often unclear about how to meet this challenge. There was a good deal of concerned frustration about such matters as overpackaging and, in particular, plastic packaging, food waste, and the origins of our food. Members of the public indicated that they were confused about recycling practices and how these were quite different in different areas.
Meeting with the public helps us to better understand local concerns and where people would welcome clearer information. While our festival conversations are not a scientific sample, we repeatedly hear that people are troubled about the state of the world but want much better guidance and leadership on environmental issues from those who make policy. Sometimes people ask us things we can't fully answer. Some of these questions led to the group arranging a visit to the SUEZ Recycling and Waste Management Centre, near Ashington, where we learnt a great deal. Keep those questions coming!
The Bullfield Community Orchard
The Bullfield Community Orchard in Alnwick was set up 2011 by a group that included several FoE members. The aim was to make Alnwick more sustainable and wildlife friendly by planting fruit trees in a publicly accessible green space for the benefit of wildlife and people.
The orchard occupies a previously unmanaged plot of land to the South of Alnwick between Weavers Way and Blakelaw Road. This site was given to the new group by Northumberland County Council on a 99-year lease. The original 35 trees included apples, pears, plums, gages, quinces, and walnuts. Since then, many more trees have been planted, including cider apples and cherries. There are fruit bushes, a herb border, and areas of wildflowers, and the group is actively developing the area on regular work days.
Anyone is welcome to join the group, or indeed just to visit or pass through, and there are benches for picnics. In 2019, a new children's natural play area was added. Events are held each year, including an apple pressing day, while a fruit tree grafting day is planned for the future.
Beach Cleaning
Once a year (or thereabouts) we gather to collect litter from one of our local beaches, sometimes joining up with other local and national groups including the National Trust. In the past, we have focused our attentions on our local beaches around Alnmouth, but we may look further afield in future.
It's a shocking truth that many ten of thousands of tonnes of waste end up on our beaches each year. Some of this is litter left by thoughtless visitors to the beach, but there are also huge quantities of plastic items brought down rivers, on the wind, or from shipping. There are also some larger items: one year we recovered a makeshift wood and polystyrene raft that must have been drifting for some time before washing up in the Aln Estuary. In addition to the raft, we took away more than twenty bags of rubbish that day.
Many of our members are freelance litter pickers. If you see some litter while you're out walking, whether on the beach or anywhere else, why not pick it up and bin it rather than leaving it where it lies - or if you see someone dropping litter, remind them to pick it up!
