What a year... so far!

I think the first part of 2018 must be one of the busiest we've ever had. So just in case you missed it, here's what we have been up to.

First was a tree and hedge planting session in January where together with some of your local Parish Councillors, we put in some glorious young trees to replace those that needed felling in Conigre. In addition a row of native hedging was planted in order to help prevent youngsters having easy access to the traffic dangers of Station Road

Chinnor Repair Cafe We are pleased to say that Greening Chinnor are part of the innovative Repair Cafe Oxfordshire Programme supported by The CAG Network and Oxfordshire County Council. This initiative is happening across Oxfordshire to tackle the growing issue of waste and change the way we view normal household items like toasters and radios. Repair Cafes are a social event where people with broken items are matched with skilled people who like fixing things. The focus being on skill-sharing where rather than throwing items in the bin, attendees will be invited to learn how to fix their item alongside the volunteer fixers. April saw the launch of Chinnor's first Repair cafe. We all had a great afternoon and huge thanks go to our team of “experts” and fixers who worked wonders on the stream of varied items placed in front of them. Also to our team of facilitators who made sure everyone was looked after as well as serving a steady stream of tea and homemade cakes. In addition one of our fixers gave a couple of excellent sessions where he demonstrated how householders can make simple inexpensive fixes to some common plumbing problems.

Our expert team of volunteer fixers were able to mend or offer progressive advice to everything that was brought in with the exception of a single broken iron.

24 items examined
61.6 kilos weighed

Fixed 20 (40 kilos)
Advice given 3 (20 kilos)
Unfixable 1 (1.5 kilos)

The cornucopia of items received were:

a bike, 2 cd players, a ceramic bowl and tray, a waxed jacket, an iron, an extension lead, a printer, a lamp, a padlock, taps, a small watering can, a spider catcher, tent poles, a tyre gauge, a drill charger, chicken bone cutters, secateurs, a hobby horse, small action toys, a small wooden dolls chair, a small Victorian chair and a small leather mystery. If the owner ever finds out what it is, please let us know.

Look out for details of our next Repair Cafe coming up in the autumn. In the meantime, if you would like to get involved either as a fixer or facilitator please email Linda at greeningchinnor@gmail.com.

Spring Community Litter Pick

We had our belated Community Litter Pick on Sunday 29th April. Despite winter not wanting to finally depart we had an excellent turnout. We were particularly pleased to see some children from the Beavers group turning up to lend a hand. For the first time we made sure that Old Kiln Lakes was included on our clean up. As always, unfortunately, there is still much too much rubbish discarded by the thoughtless.

Incredible Edibles

As part of Chinnor’s contribution to the Incredible Edible Network started in Todmordon, we have planted up our first Community Herb Planter in half an oak barrel outside the Pavilion. There is a good selection of some common and not so common culinary herbs and are there for community use. So go along an take a pinch or have a snip of chives and use them in cooking or in salads. Please just take a what you need and leave some for your fellow residents.




We will be inviting you to join us in placing our next community planters soon so watch this space!

Seed & Plant Swap

Nearly there (phew). We had an excellent turnout of plant donations and garden 'stuff' (as well as customers) at our Seed and Plant swap at the Green Living Event/Giant Swap Shop Event on Saturday 12 May. We even had some garden tools donated which soon found a good home. Last year we swapped or gave, for a small donation, almost 1000 plants - well this year we did even better and totally lost count of what came in or went out. Thanks to your generosity we made enough in donations to help fund next years event. Any plants that were leftover after the event were split and given to Open Gardens and Christian Aid Week.