Thermal Imaging

Over the last 3 years, Greening Chinnor have Thermal Imaged 80 properties in Chinnor and will once again be offering free thermal imaging for approximately 30 Chinnor households or community buildings during 16-27 January 2017. This involves taking a series of infrared thermal images of your property enabling you to see areas of heat loss. This normally takes about 20 minutes to complete. In March, once all the images have been processed and a household report compiled for each property, an open meeting will be held to enable you to come along and discuss your report on a one to one basis with one of our imagers. As part of the evening we will provide information to assist you in reducing unnecessary heat loss.

Energy bills continue to be a worrying part of our outgoings. We can keep these costs down by making sure our houses are well insulated and not losing heat to the outside. This will also help us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and work to slow down Climate Change.

This is a free service we offer to the community. Our thanks to Chinnor Parish Council for sponsoring the open evening.

If you are interested please supply your contact details to Maureen Dyroff at mdyroff@tiscali.co.uk or telephone 01844 352816. Householders will be contacted with more details once we have compiled our list.

Thermal Imaging 2017

Interested in learning how to make your home more comfortable and to cut your heating costs this winter? Trained volunteers from Greening Chinnor are about to start their fourth thermal imaging campaign, making free thermal (heat) images of houses in Chinnor in January 2017 (cold weather permitting). Greening Chinnor has so far provided this free service for 80 Chinnor homeowners and community buildings.

One-to-one advice on the images, energy efficiency and government grants for insulation, etc. will be available at an event in March 2017.  If you are interested please supply your contact details to Maureen Dyroff at mdyroff@tiscali.co.uk or telephone 01844 352816. Places are limited and will be offered on a first come basis. Householders will be contacted with more details once we have compiled our list.

Swap Shop & Bike Exchange

The Chinnor & Thame Friends of the Earth are holding a Swap Shop and Bike Exchange at the Village Hall, Chinnor on Saturday 12th November. Greening Chinnor will again be attending to do portable appliance testing (PAT) on electrical items brought to the swap to ensure they are safe to use.

The Bike Sale will be held between 10:00-11:00. If you have a bike you would like to sell, take it along and they will try to sell it for you. Friends of the Earth will keep £5 of the selling price and give you the rest. If you are looking for a bike or need a bigger bike, this will be a great place to start looking. You will also be helping the environment by recycling unwanted or outgrown bikes. Here’s what to do:

1. Only bring good quality bikes, which are in working order. Sparkly clean ones sell better!
2. Label each bike with your surname, phone number, and the price you would like to sell it for.
3. Put the saddle down as low as it will go and put the stabilisers back on if it had some.
4. Take bikes to the Village Hall between 9.30-10:00 and go back to collect your money or unsold bikes at 11:00.

The Swap Shop will be going on in the Village Hall, from 10:00-12:00. You can bring unwanted items or take items, or do both. No money is exchanged.

These are some of the things you can bring and/or take for free:

• books, clothes, bric-a-brac, baby equipment, toys and games, household items, CDs/DVDs/videos, electrical (only CE marked goods accepted)
• no large items please.

Recycle stations will be available for the following items:

• printer cartridges, mobile phones, light bulbs, spectacles, household batteries, CDs, used postage stamps, foreign coins

Cakes and refreshments available. If you need more information, please email Maureen on mdyroff@tiscali.co.uk or tel. 01844 352816.

Autumn Community Litter Pick

Our Autumn Community Pick will take place on Sunday 9^th October.  As usual, we will meet at White's Field Car Park, Mill Lane at 10:00, where we will split up into groups to litter pick footpaths and green spaces in Chinnor.

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.

For further information call Alan or Linda Brawn on 01844 352753 or check out our news & events page.

Children's Barlotti Bean Growing Competition Winner

Congratulations to Sophie Westby who is the winner of our bean growing competition. Sophie, aged 21 months, managed to grow her plant to a staggering 2.5 metres and her bean to 6 cm. Well done Sophie. A prize will be on its way to you shortly. Thank you to everyone who took part.

Did you swap a plant or pick up some seeds? How did they do? We would be very interested to find out. Email your story to greeningchinnor@gmail.com. Also look out for our next Seed & Plant Swap which will be held in May 2017.

Children’s Barlotto Bean Growing Competition

How do I enter the competition?

30 Barlotto bean plants were  handed out to children at the Friends of the Earth's Green Fayre on Saturday 14th May held at Chinnor Village Hall.

There are 2 categories in the competition: Category 1: the tallest bean plant and Category 2 the longest bean. To enter the competition, a photograph of the longest bean (photographed measured against a rule) and/or the tallest plant (photographed measured against a rule or by some other measure) should be sent, together with the child's name, contact details and age to greeningchinnor@gmail.com by 27th August 2016. 

Important – to Mums and Dads

The results will be announced in our September newsletter. If your child is included in the photograph(s) that are sent in, please state when you send the photos to Greening Chinnor that you are happy for the picture to be included in our newsletter. You can sign up to our newsletter at www.greeningchinnor.blogspot.co.uk

Growing your Barlotto Climbing Bean

What is a Barlotto Bean? A barlotto bean is very much like a runner bean and can be grown (and eaten) in exactly the same way. They are even better than runner beans as if not picked, and left on the plant, they will turn a very pretty spotted red and black and can be left to dry.

How do you grow them? They can be planted in a large pot, grow bag or in the ground. They grow up to about 2 metres tall and if the growing tip (bud at the end) is picked off they will give lots more side shoots and more beans.

Make sure they are watered well particularly, to start with. Protect from frost (do not plant out in the garden for another couple of weeks without protection) and protect from slugs and snails.

They will need something to climb up – a couple of 6 foot bamboo canes are perfect. Make sure they are securely fixed. The plant will wind around the pole all by itself.

What if you want to grow some more? You can buy them in the shops (or get them from the Chinnor allotment shop on Sunday morning a lot cheaper).

Guided Walk

Yes we can walk and talk!
On Sunday 8^th May we led a well-attended walk organised by the Chiltern Society on a circular route from Emmington and going via Henton. It was a delightful outing and extremely interesting to talk to people who joined us from other parts of the Chilterns and were able to give a visitor’s perspective on our home ground.

The weather was kind and everybody agreed that this was one of the least hilly Chiltern walks that they had enjoyed.

This was our first foray in opening up our parish to organised walks and we were encouraged enough to offer organising a similar ramble next spring.

Extra Garden Waste Collections

Good news for green fingers

If you’re an Oxfordshire County Council garden waste customer, you can leave double out for collection in the week beginning 16 May in Vale and 23 May for South on your usual collection day.

You can put your extra garden bits and pieces in an open box or bag by your brown bin. No industrial bags, please – the crews won’t collect these.

Waste tours
More dates have been confirmed for a food tour at Agrivert and a visit to the Ardley Energy Recovery Facility where all the black bin waste goes.

Dates are:

Food – Thursday 23 June 10:30 am – 11:30 am Agrivert AD Plant, Crowmarsh, OX10 6SQ

ERF – Monday 4 July 10:00 am – 12:00 pm Ardley energy Recovery Facility, Middleton Stoney Road, Ardley, OX27 7PH

If you would like to attend one or both of these tours please contact Alexandra Pyle, Waste Recycling Officer on 01235 540566 or email Alexandra.Pyle@southandvale.gov.uk and she will book you a place. If anyone you know would also be interested in these tours please feel free to pass on the details.

Seed & Plant Swap - This Saturday

Following on from last year's successful Seed & Plant Swap, we are pleased to let you know we will be having a stall at the FoE Green Fayre on Saturday 14th May at the Village Hall, Church Lane, Chinnor, Oxon, OX39 4PQ (view map) from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Do you have packets of seeds you don’t want, half a packet left over or sown too much? This is where you can exchange seeds and plants, Bring your excess seeds and seedlings to our swap stall and swap with someone else. Herbs, vegetables, flowers, anything goes. Please label any plants and seeds clearly. It doesn't matter if you don't have anything to swap, everyone is welcome to take a plant (maximum of 3, whilst stocks last). Alan has been busy growing some of the seeds that were left over from last year as part of this year’s Swap.

We are pleased to say that we have received 30 packets of wild flower seeds from The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew as part of the 'Grow Wild' campaign they are running to inspire people across the UK to come together to transform local spaces by sowing, growing and enjoying native wild flowers.

As last year, there will be a children's competition and giving away free plants to the first 30 children. This year we're giving away beans and come the end of August we will want to see who has grown the tallest and who has grown the longest bean. We will also be having a children's draw for DIY Bee houses.

This is a chance for newbies to have a go at growing some vegetables or flowers, or for 'older' hands to exchange seeds and plants that you have too many of, or just to pick up a plant for free to have a go at “GROW YOUR OWN”.

This year we will also have a plant pot swap as well and will accept all pots that are in good order. Please ensure that all plant brought for swapping are clearly labeled. So bring along seeds, plants or pots to swap or just take a plant to try.

Public Meeting - Growth at all Costs?

You are invited to a Public Meeting in the Upper Chamber at Thame Town Hall on Wednesday 11^th May, 6.30 pm – 7.30 pm.

The growth strategy for Oxfordshire proposes 100,000 new houses by 2031, equivalent to two new cities the size of Oxford; plus 85,000 new jobs, and at least 200,000 more people, roughly a 30% increase in our population.

Many local groups are fighting hard against inappropriate development in their particular community. Yet the current economic strategy for the county, produced without any public consultation, sets out such aggressive growth figures that more and more battles are likely to be coming our way.

Need Not Greed Oxon is a campaign dedicated to protecting Oxfordshire’s rural environment run by a coalition of local organisations and individuals. CPRE Oxfordshire is providing the Secretariat for the coalition. 

Need not Greed Oxon has been invited by Thame Town Parish to give a presentation on the campaign, its origins and objectives, and their work around the OxLEP public consultation on the Strategic Economic Plan.

Speakers include Helen Marshall, Director, CPRE Oxfordshire, John Gordon, South Oxfordshire Sustainability (SOS) and Professor Richard Harding, Chairman, CPRE Wallingford District.

The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

The group is campaigning against a “growth at all costs” policy that they believe has led to a county plan that envisages building at virtually double any previous rate, and threatens to overwhelm the county's infrastructure, services, landscape and communities. 

Need not Greed wants local people to have a voice in the debate on the future of Oxfordshire and to comment on the Strategic Economic Plan produced by Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

The group invites everyone to attend the presentation to find out more. You can also find out further information about the campaign by visiting the Need not Greed website.

If you cannot make this meeting, there is an opportunity to see it at Wallingford Town Hall on Tuesday 17th May at 7:30 pm. 

Spring Community Litter Pick & Clean for the Queen

We had an excellent turnout for our spring community clean up and it was good to see our regulars together with some new faces.

We split into groups and covered; White's Field, the Driftway from Chinnor to the Kingston Stert Road, Keens Lane, part of the Ridgeway to Wainhill, Springfield Gardens, Top Recreation ground, Conigre Playing Fields, Emmington Churchyard and part of the Thame Road. 

Once again, the weather was with us albeit a bit chilly. This didn't stop our volunteers and 12 bags of rubbish was collected.

Litter pick volunteers

Some of the rubbish collected

Thank you once again to our lovely volunteers who do a brilliant job to help keep Chinnor and its environs a beautiful place to live.

Spring Litter Pick & 'Clean for the Queen'

This year we are teaming up our ever popular Spring Community Litter Pick with the nationwide ‘Clean for the Queen’ event to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday.

Come along and enjoy a companionable walk whilst collecting any litter on our most well walked footpaths and bridleways.

Join us at Whites Field car park on Sunday 17th April at 10:00. There are varying lengths of footpaths 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.

Thermal Imaging Feedback Evening

We had an excellent turnout at our recent Thermal Imaging Feedback evening, our best ever yet. The majority of people who had their property imaged were able to attend and have one-to-one feedback with one of our interpreters. Also on hand was Dale Hoyland from The National Energy Foundation to offer some excellent advice on energy efficiency and grants. Many thanks Dale, as always, your input was invaluable.

If you missed Dale at the event, there is another opportunity to speak to him at the FoE's AGM on Thursday 14^th April in the Village Centre, 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm where Dale will be talking about 'Warm homes for less money'.

As in previous years all participants were emailed a copy of their report to digest at their leisure.
Many thanks to Will, Mike and Alan for interpreting the results and to Maureen and Jane for the lovely cakes.

All who participated in this years project have been emailed a questionnaire for feedback on their experience and are pleased the comments we are receiving are very useful and positive. If you have not yet completed the questionnaire, we would be grateful if you could do as soon as possible. This will enable us to continue to improve this valuable free service for next years participants. The feedback and comments are anonymous and an overall report, with responses to comments will be duly published.

Thermal Imaging Feedback Evening

All welcome to come along to our Thermal Imaging Feedback Evening on Wednesday 2nd March.

This is the culmination of our 2016 Thermal Imaging Project where Greening Chinnor imaged 25 properties.

The evening is an opportunity for householders to have a one-to-one feedback session with one of our interpreters to find out how heat efficient their property is.

Once again Dale Hoyland, Strategic Development & Affordable Warmth Manager from The National Energy Foundation (an independent national charity) will be joining us to give out information and advice.

It is also an opportunity to find out about this free service offered by Greening Chinnor volunteers and to see how you could benefit. The list for next year is now open and if you would like to put you property down for this free service, this is a good time to do so as places are limited.