Here's an interesting volunteering opportunity

Volunteers wanted for pioneer Chilterns headwater Study - 'Water in a Dry Landscape'

If you are interested in the springs and streams of the Chilterns and can commit to helping with quarterly water-quality surveys, the Chilterns Conservation Board (CCB) would like to hear from you.

The CCB has been awarded Heritage Lottery Funding for a major series of projects, including ‘Water in a Dry Landscape’ (WDL). In recent years, a lot of attention has been given to the chalk streams of the dip slope – rivers such as the Chess and the Misbourne – but the springs, headwaters and streams draining the scarp slope have been largely overlooked and under-appreciated. WDL, with your help, will change that.

Volunteers, are needed to work in small teams carrying out water quality surveys at up to 8 sites four times over the course of a year. Equipment and training will be provided. The data arising will be used to identify the best aquatic sites on the scarp. These will then be surveyed by specialists for their flora and fauna. Your survey results will also help to identify locations for practical works to improve biodiversity and water quality.

So, if you would like to be part of this ground-breaking study discovering the hidden value of the Chilterns’ springs and streams, please get in touch with Mike Furness, who is co-ordinating the project on behalf of CCB (mfurness@chilternsaonb.org, 07422 501619).

The survey period is expected to run from August 2019 to June 2020. Training is planned for 20th July (morning) at Wendover and 25th July (evening) in Princes Risborough. In total, more than forty sites will be studied by five teams of volunteer surveyors, who will be using the equipment provided to assess a range of parameters on site, reporting the data back to Mike for collation and analysis.

No special skills are needed as full training will be given, but you will need to be able to get to some remote locations, sometimes involving a bit of a walk, and CCB would like you to commit, as far as is possible, to all four survey rounds.

If this sounds like you, please contact Mike on mfurness@chilternsaonb.org or call him on 07422 501619.

Donkey Lane Community Orchard Working Party

Our next orchard working party will be on Saturday 13th July 1:00 - 4:00 pm at the orchard with another arranged for Tuesday 6th August 10:00 am - 1:00 pm.

The main focus for the next few working parties is to keep nettles and brambles from areas already cleared.

How to find us: head up Keens Lane, cross at the railway crossing into Donkey Lane. The orchard is on the right hand side. Tools and safety equipment supplied. Bring a cup for refreshments.

If you'd like to find out more about how you can join or support this project, contact me via the listed options below or come along to the meeting or working parties and have a chat with us.

Repair Cafe

What an excellent event our Repair Café on the 29th June turned out to be. We had 9 fixers and a host of facilitators all ready to help with whatever came in to surprise us. We had radios, amp, TV, chainsaw, toys, lamps, slow cooker, food mixer, trousers, a coffee machine and a brooch to name just some of the items. Of the 28 items that came through the door, we were able to fix 17, give advice on 5 and unfortunately could not fix 6. Some of the items even went home with the fixers to fix in their own time, that’s dedication for you!

We have now run 3 Repair Cafés and are delighted with the level of support and interest from our fellow villagers. This means that we are confident that regular Repair Cafés will continue. 

For those who aren't aware, Greening Chinnor are part of the Community Action Group Project Oxfordshire (CAG Oxfordshire) who are funded and supported by Oxfordshire County Council (OCC). There are over 65 community action groups like us in the network and as part of this network, last year we signed up for the Oxfordshire Repair Cafe Project.

We are pleased to say that OCC and the "CAG project" won two national recycling awards for the Repair Café Oxfordshire project which was recognised by the judges for bringing together communities and positive action to reduce waste. More on this award can be found on the OCC website.

If you wondered if anything was done with the information on items coming through our Repair Cafés, then you will be interested to know that information on all the items brought in and the outcome (fixed, not fixed, advice given) is logged and then fed into two databases, CAG Oxfordshire (which in turn is fed into Oxfordshire County Council) and the "Restart Project’s" national database. This is of particular interest as the data collected at Repair Cafes and Restart Parties is very valuable, as it allows community repair groups to quantify their environmental impact and it helps "The Restart Project" document, over time, key barriers to repairables. 

Our thanks to everone who has been involved in the Chinnor Repair Cafes and enabled this project to be so successful.

Our next Repair Café will be held on Saturday 23rd November at Chinnor Village Hall.