Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Greening Chinnor

A few things that you may be interested in:

Our next free thermal imaging sessions will take place between 2-13 February. This service is open to all residents of Chinnor and will involve taking a series of infrared thermal images of the outside of the house to see areas of heat loss. This will enable you to take steps to help conserve energy and hopefully save money.

If you are interested in this service please supply your contact information to Maureen Dyroff at mdyroff@tiscali.co.uk or telephone 01844 352816. There is a limit of 30 households and the list will close once this number has been reached. All successful households will be contacted once the list is completed.

Thank you to all who completed the survey on our 2014 thermal imaging project. We appreciate your feedback and comments which have been incorporated into the process for 2015.

Thanks to all who completed the 2014 thermal imaging survey. It was very useful in helping us plan the 2015 session. A copy of the completed survey can be found here.


Remember that waste collection days change over the Christmas period and Biffa waste collection is Wednesday this week - grey bin and food bin will be collected.





Recycle your old Christmas tree at Whites Field car park up by Monday 19th January. Please put your trees in the coned off area (no artificial trees).

The minutes of our December meeting have now be published and can be found by clicking on the link or by going to our Governance page on the right hand side of our website.

WWI Memorial Tree Planting

An excellent afternoon was had on Sunday 26 October with the WW1 Memorial Tree Planting working party.

The working party was formed as part of the Chinnor and Henton WW1 Memorial project organised by Geoffrey Bamford and Lynn Lloyd to commemorate those who are listed on the Chinnor and Henton War Memorials who gave their lives 1914-1918.

 

The 14 volunteers split into 3 groups and headed off to plant:

• 3 Limes at the Hill Road Recreation Ground
• 1 Oak at White’s Field
• 2 Whitebeams in Keens Lane
• 2 Beech at Old Kiln Lakes
• 1 Oak in Henton

As part of this project, trees were also planted at Mill Lane School and St Andrews School and in Estover Way Nature Reserve by Tiddlypeeps.

Next year a Lime tree will be planted in St Andrew's playing field.
 

A plaque with the location of all the trees is situated on the wall at the War Memorial.

 

WW1 Memorial Tree Planting Work Group

On Sunday 26 October we will be holding a working party to plant 9 trees in 5 different sites around Chinnor and Henton to commemorate those who are listed on the Chinnor and Henton War Memorials who gave their lives 1914-1918. This project has been organised by Geoffrey Bamford and Lynn Lloyd. Greening Chinnor are pleased to be able to give assistance to this project.

We will be meeting at Whites Field Car Park at 1:30 pm and planting the following:

• at Whites Field - an Oak tree
• in Keens Lane - 2 Whitebeam trees
• at Old Kiln Lakes - 2 Beach trees
• at the top Recreation Ground - 3 Lime trees
• at Henton, nr The Peacock - an Oak tree

Further trees will be planted at a later time at St Andrew's and Mill Lane schools, Estover Way Wildlife area and St Andrew's playing field.

Please come along, if you would like to be involved.

Open Meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Monday 20 October at The Chinnor Village Centre.  19:30-21:30, all welcome.

Autumn Litter Pick

Litter Pick this Sunday

Sunday 19 October at 10:00 - Meet at White’s Field Car Park

The Greening Chinnor autumn community litter pick will take place on Sunday 19 October.

 

We meet at Whites Field car park at 10:00 and split into groups where a walk leader will guide you on some of Chinnor’s most popular footpaths and bridleways. There are varying lengths of footpaths to be cleared so if you can only spare an hour, there will be a walk for you. We plan to finish by 12:30 latest.

Make sure you bring suitable clothing including gardening gloves (or similar) and suitable footwear.

For further information call Alan or Linda Brawn on 01844 352753

WW1 Memorial Tree Planting

If you are interested in helping out on the 26th please either email me at linda@hunters7.demon.co.uk or call on 01844 352753 for more details.

As you will have read in the Parish Pump the Chinnor Branch of the Royal British Legion's  (RBL) have a WW1 Memorial Tree Planting Project. The aim is to plant trees for the villagers who are listed on the Chinnor and Henton war memorials who lost their lives 1914-1918.

Greening Chinnor are pleased to be involved with this project and together with RBL and the Parish Council are organising a tree planting working party on the 26 October. There will be 9 trees planted at several different locations in Chinnor and one in Henton. We are looking for volunteers to help with the digging and planting.  If you would like to get involved please email me and I will add you to the working party and send you details of the locations.

Swap Shop & Bike Exchange

Note the date of the Swap Shop has been moved to Saturday 8th November

Greening Chinnor will again be supporting the Friends of the Earth Swap Shop on the 8th November at Chinnor Village Hall 10:00 - 12:00. Trained members of our group will be PAT testing for safety, all small electrical items (as long as they have a CE mark) brought in to be swapped.

This is a great way to recycle unwanted items. You can swap things for free.  Any surplus items will be passed on to charity shops or recycled wherever possible. Entry is free; everybody is welcome.

There will also be a BIKE EXCHANGE at the Swap Shop. Bikes you want to sell should be taken to the Village Hall from 9.30am, clearly marked with your name and telephone number and the asking price. FoE take £5 for every bike sold. Bikes must be in good working order.

Litter Pick 11 May 2014

Meet at White's Field car park at 10:00. There will be a range of footpaths to walk of different lengths and times so there will be one to suit you. Just turn up with some gardening gloves. We aim to finish the litter pick by 12:30 latest.

AGM & Chinnor's Great Outdoors

A well attended AGM was held at the Village Centre on the 28th April. This was our second AGM and we were very pleased with the turnout. A short AGM started the evening when the Chair, Alan Brawn, Treasurer, Mike Ashdown and Secretary Linda Brawn were all unanimously voted as officers of Greening Chinnor. Following the official business of the AGM there followed presentations based on 'Chinnor's Great Outdoors'.

It's true to say that there was quite a 'buzz' created during and after our excellent speakers who generated some great interactive discussions.

As we know, Chinnor is extremely fortunate to be situated in an area of beautiful countryside that is open to all. Now, thanks to our guest speakers more is known of this area.  First to speak was Fiona Mantle, Chair of Environmental Group, Chinnor Parish Council who told us about Estover Way Nature Area and the Ribbon of Flowers project. More information can be found in the minutes of the AGM.

Next to speak was Alan Brawn who not only is the Chair of Greening Chinnor but is the local Parish Path Warden along with a team of 3 others. Alan described some of the less well known paths and views within 300 yards of local roads as well as some of the more extensively walked.

The third speaker of the evening was Mike Turton who talked about the 70 acre Chinnor Hill BBOWT nature reserve. He explained that the reserve was a site of special scientific interest with several rare orchids. The soil is poor as it is a chalk grassland with Juniper scrub.  Mike finished his talk by taking us on a photographic tour of the reserve and answering the many questions.

To read the minutes from the AGM go to the Governance page and copies of all the presentations can be found on our new Presentation page.

Linda Brawn
Greening Chinnor

2014 Annual Report

Our 2014 Annual Report can be now be found on our Governance page. The minutes from our very successful AGM will be published shortly.

AGM Reminder

Reminder that our AGM takes place on Monday 28th April at 7:30pm in the Chiltern Room at the Village Centre.

The agenda for the evening can be found here and a copy of last year's AGM minutes can be found under our governance page.

Please come along. It looks to be an interesting evening.

Greening Chinnor AGM

Well it's that time of year again. Hard to believe that we are now in our third year.

Our AGM will take place on Monday 28 April at 7:30 pm in the Chiltern Room at the Village Centre.

We are a small local community action group who meet about every two months in the Chinnor Village Centre. Meetings are friendly and informal and we discuss forthcoming events and other issues that members would like to bring up.

If you are interested in local environmental issues and would like to be involved in the group why not come along to our AGM and see what we are about.

The evening will consist of a short AGM where we will elect our Chair, Secretary and Treasurer for the next year. If you would like to make a nomination or would like to volunteer for any of the posts the nomination form can be found here. 

After the AGM we have a series of short presentations by guest speakers on 'Chinnor's Great Outdoors' where you will find out about 'Ribbon of Flowers', Estover Way Wildlife Area, some of the many local footpaths and BBOWT Nature Reserve.

Visit to Cassington Anaerobic Digestor Plant

Have you ever wondered what happens to all your food waste that is collected each week? Greening Chinnor went on a guided tour of an anaerobic digestive (AD) facility near Cassington to find out.

In a fascinating tour we found out that weekly food waste collection is taken to the Cassington plant where it is recycled into a liquid fertiliser called digestate which is then used on local farmland. 

To read more about our visit and AD, click on our Waste page.

Thermal Imaging

The Greening Chinnor group are pleased to announce that the 2014 Thermal Imaging task was brought to a successful conclusion with the extremely well attended open evening on Wednesday 12^th March. It is fair to say that it has been a steep learning curve for everybody involved. From learning how to use the camera and software to putting together reports for all of the buildings imaged. To make thermal imaging a complete success you really need cold dry weather. Unfortunately this was severely lacking towards the end of January. However the rain gods did give us some brief periods of respite   

How did we do?
We carried out Thermal Imaging over 7 nights from Monday 20^th January on 25 households and 5 public buildings including the Village Centre and Parish Office. We took 481 thermal images using a camera kindly loaned to us by Haddenham in Transition. All of the collected data was put together in a bespoke report for each residence which was discussed with the householder and then subsequently emailed to them. Our feedback from the householders has been extremely positive with lots of “ I thought that we were losing heat there” type comments and even more importantly people starting to plan actions  of how to save wasting energy.  

Moving forward to next winter, we already are starting to collect details of our next tranche of people who would like to avail themselves of this free service. We will be asking for names in the October issue of the pump so watch this space.

Finally our thanks to everybody who help make this a success.

Alan Brawn
Greening Chinnor

Open Meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday 9th April at 7:30 at Chinnor Village Centre. All welcome.

Minutes of March Meeting

You can find the minutes from our 24th March meeting posted under Governance or you can view them by clicking here.

Thermal Imaging Open Meeting

Householders and public building thermal imaged as part of our 2014 Thermal Imaging Project are meeting tonight at 7:30 pm at the Village Centre, Chinnor.

If you are interested in thermal imaging or want to find out more about Greening Chinnor, why not come along. Entry free and there will be tea and cake!

Thermal Imaging Project

Following the successful completion of our first Thermal Imaging project around Chinnor, Greening Chinnor are delighted to tell you that the results will be ready in time for our planned open meeting between 7.30pm and 9.30pm on 12^th March at the Village Centre.

All householders who took part in the project are invited to attend.  At the meeting, you will be able to sit with a member of Greening Chinnor and view your own data report and see where unnecessary heat (and money) is being lost.

As well as private residences, Greening Chinnor carried out Thermal Imaging on several of our public buildings and we invite representatives from the public buildings concerned to join us at the open meeting.

So if you had your house imaged or are interested in the idea of saving money on energy bills, come and join us at the Village Centre on Wednesday 12^th March between 7.30 and 9.30 pm.

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all our volunteers and supporters 

Greening Chinnor have been actively working to support Chinnor and the local environment since 2011. During this time we have organised and carried out bi-annual village litter picks concentrating on the network of footpaths and bridleways surrounding Chinnor. We have also, with the support of many volunteers from the village cleared the White’s Field hedge and replanted it with many wildlife friendly indigenous species. In addition we have carried out PAT (Portable Appliance Testing) tests on electrical equipment at the local swap shops ensuring electrical equipment can continue to be donated and thus be given a new lease of life.

At the end of January 2014 we will be carrying out a Thermal Imaging Survey on up to 30 local household and public buildings which will assist the householders to see where heat is leaking from their home and take the necessary action. This is a project we intent to repeat in the future.

You can see from the above list that our aim is to support the local environment. We are not a political campaigning group but try to give active help and support wherever possible.

We really would welcome new members who want to give something back to our local community by either joining our group and help to shape our future activities or by adding your name to our ever growing list of volunteers.

For further information email greeningchinnor@gmail.com or look at our Events page for upcoming meetings and events.  

December 2013 Minutes

The minutes from our December meeting are now posted under Governance.