Greening Chinnor Repair Café

We are pleased to announce that our Repair Cafés are resuming in July at a new venue. The café will be held on Saturday 20th July at St Andrew’s Church from 10am until 1 pm with the last item accepted at 12pm. The plan is to host three cafés at St Andrew’s between July and early November.

Our Repair Café is a welcoming space for people to bring various items for mending; an opportunity to come together as a community, learn new skills, save money, and help our local environment. Donations are welcomed, which will be split between Greening Chinnor and St Andrew’s but there is no pressure or expectation.

You can bring:

• any small household electrical item (e.g., kettle, radio, hifi, lamp, etc.). Please don't bring white goods or anything you can't carry.
• toys and mechanical item
• clothes or textiles - we can help with buttons, simple patches, minor sewing repairs
• small leather items that need repairing
• broken items that needs gluing - e.g. china, plastic toys etc. We will have various kinds of glue such as araldite, super glue etc for you to use.

New for 2024 we can offer advice on book repair and restoration and possibly minor repairs!

We can’t guarantee we can fix everything, but we will have a go.

We are currently on the lookout for a few more volunteers, either to share their mending skills at the cafés or to help behind the scenes and/or welcome people on the day. You don’t need to be a professional to volunteer - just someone with some basic skills who is happy to share what they know. There is no pressure to undertake any repairs that you are not confident with.

Please get in touch with Linda at greeningchinnor@gmail.com if you would like to get involved.

Fungi in the Orchard

 The latest from our Donkey Lane Community Orchard Stories

Fungi are neither plants nor animals, but they are a very important part of any ecosystem. They are the organisms which cause decay and decomposition, if they did not exist all the dead material would simply pile up in places like the Orchard. They also play a vital role in the nutrient cycle in nature.

We used to think fungi were more like plants because they don’t move around much, but now after studying their genetics it seems they are closer to animals. In any case, they are a large group of organisms that we aren’t usually aware of until they form their fruiting bodies which we call toadstools, mushrooms or moulds. Just seeing these is as if we only saw the apples in the Orchard, without noticing the trees which are there throughout the year.

They cannot make their own carbohydrates to eat so they need to get these from plants, either living or dead ones. Many grow closely entwined with plant roots, especially those of trees or grasses, and others live in the decaying leaf litter of forests. Recently it has been realised that fungi are a precious ally in the fight against climate change. Fungal/root networks (mycorrhiza) in the soil form a global carbon sink, that is, they absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release. And they keep it there. We are still discovering new things about fungi and apparently, so far we have only described about 5% of the species on earth. *

Fungi grow in a variety of habitats and they are always present in soil and dead wood. However, it is mostly in late summer and autumn that they fruit, sending up their stalked toadstools out of the earth, or bursting out of a dead or decaying tree. After a dry summer, if we get a wet spell that is when a ‘flush’ will appear and so early autumn is a good time to look for them. There are other species which appear in spring, but on the whole they cannot withstand frosts so there is an in-between period when you won’t see many. Some fungi are associated with one particular host whereas other can grow on a range of plants.  Read more...

AGM Wednesday 15th May 2024

NOTICE OF
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2024

The Greening Chinnor AGM will be held on Wednesday 15th May 2024 at 7.30pm

The meeting will take place in the Chiltern Room at the Village Centre, High St, Chinnor OX39 4DH

 

There will be the formal presentation of the Chair's and Treasurer’s report, as well as the appointment of the committee roles of Chair, Treasurer and Secretary.

This will be followed by an illustrated talk on 

‘Donkey Lane Community Orchard – Then and Now’.

Agenda will be sent out by Wednesday 8th May 2024

As our current Secretary is standing down, we are looking for a new Secretary.

If you would like to make a nomination or would like to volunteer for any of the posts either email greeningchinnor@gmail.com or complete and email the Officer Nomination Form.

Refreshments available