Eaton Park 80th Anniversary Celebration on 15th June

Sorry for not posting for ages.

Just re-adjusting to a newborn baby in the house and every spare minute is filled, regrettably not by sleep which we all crave!!!

If you are looking for something worthwhile to do on Sunday 15th June, why not go to the 80th annivesary celebration at Eaton Park, Norwich?

The event is from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m.

There is model boating, extreme frizbee (whatever that is), line dancing (also extreme in my view!), bug hunting, tennis and football.

Don't forget the miniature railway, live music at the bandstand , a raffle and lots of childrens activities.

The event will be opened by the Lord Mayor of Norwich at 12.15p.m.

You are invited to bring a picnic but not barbecues. Refreshments are available at the Cafe Essense at the South East Pavilllion.

The event is organised by the Friends of Eaton Park and Norwich City Council.

Norwich to get Connect2 pro-cycling funding for river crossing between city and Whitlingham Park

Sustrans, the UK sustainable transport charity, have been successful in the People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway for their Connect2 project.


Sustrans will use the funding to invest in walking and cycling UK-wide as part of the 5-year Connect2 project in partnership with local authorities.


One of the Connect2 projects is up to £1 million to benefit Norwich by providing a river crossing from the City to Whitlingham Country Park.


The planned route would stretch from Whitlingham Country Park over the River Yare and River Wensum and behind Norwich City Football Club. Photos of the event to launch the Norwich bid can be found here.

The Tour Norfolk site has good information about Whitlingham Country Park and its facilities.

The former gravel quarry is now an excellent centre for water sports, and a great place for walking, cycling and wildlife. The official web site Whitlingham Outdoor Education Centre is here.

Sustrans are the charity behind the National Cycle Network, Safe Routes to Schools, Bike It and TravelSmart.

This might inspire me to pump up the tyres on my old bike and brave cycling again after more than 10 years!


I came across the excellent Norwich Cycling Campaign web site, which provides useful information to promote cycling and cyclists in Norwich.

NCC are also campaigning against the insane decision by Norwich City Council to pilot the use of our cycle lanes by HGV's, which I previously blogged about.

Are children safe in the UK or are we exaggerating and worsening the risks?

I was reading the Observer yesterday, which had an excellent Climate Change issue with Thom Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead as the guest editor.

He helped launch the Friends of the Earth "Big Ask" Campaign, to lobby the government to bring in a 3% carbon reductions year on year to reach the 60% reduction needed by 2050. Watch an interview with him here.

In amongst it was an article about what could be the greenest city in the world, namely Freiburg, Germany. I remember going there in my teens on a school trip in the late 1980s and thought it was great. There were a few mediaeval bits that allied bombing in WWII had not completely destroyed, and a brilliant tram. Trams were a novelty to me then and now, although I did use the one in Sheffield when I was studying there in the 1990s.

What struck me most about this article was not the climate change angle and public transport options. It was a picture with little toddlers, not older children, playing in a woodland on bits of plank and felled trees. It was called "an adventure site" an was largely Freiburg's answer to a children's playground.

How can this be? Where is the health and safety? What about splinters? Is this irresponsible?

The kids looked like they were having a great time but being a father to a toddler myself, I could feel my concern rising as the planks and log was in no way secured and looked like something I would have put together when I played with my friends in the 1970s.

But isn't that the point?

Don't get me wrong, I am a Dad and have baby number 2 on the way. I worry about my kids and my natural instinct is to not let any harm come to them.

What I struggle with is letting my son grow up and explore the world around him. I'm pleased to say that he has a cautious head on his shoulders and still gets cuts and bruises as evidence of him trying new things out and learning about his environment, and maybe having some fun along the way.

Should we be protecting children or should we be teaching them to spot potential risks and manage them?

The Noise To Signal blog has collected together some info on the old child safety films that many of us grew up with. It is amazing how long this tough line in parenting has been going with children made to see a little squirrel, Tufty, narrowly avoid becoming road kill by a wise owl, or the scary tales of the unfortunate Charley the cat.

Tim Gill's is an expert in this area and you can read more at his site Rethinking Childhood .

Maybe we are playing it too safe? Before I became a parent, I thought that there was a lot of scaremongering.

You hear about flashers and worse near children's playgrounds as if it is worsening problem. The fact is, bad people have always been around and there are probably no more around now than in the past. My Mum surprised me once by recounting a story of being flashed by some pathetic man in the 1940s when she was growing up in the country. She was so matter of fact about it and even managed a cheeky joke about saying how "he had nothing to boast about"! ;-)

What I want is for my children not to be scared, be in control and to be able to deal with what life throws at them and hopefully have good lives.

Wrapping them up in cotton wool, fitting GPS devices to their clothing and even locking them indoors is not going to help them.

As Tim Gill would say, adults worry about children (which is ok) but where we probably go wrong is by trying to make childhood zero risk.

Wouldn't it be even better if we taught our children how to manage risks not to always avoid them?

Maybe they would grow up better able to deal with life and have a great childhood in the process?

I did, although the thought of my son climbing and jumping out of trees is starting to give me palpitations.....

Prime Minister Brown and the Bags of Doom

Got an email to say that Number 10 has responded to the online petition to put a tax on plastic carrier bags.

You can read the Number 10 response here. The original petition "Introduce a tax on plastic carrier bags" was signed by 1,964 people when it closed on 28th February. May not seem a lot but it does at least give you hope that a few like minded people with a worthy cause are occasionally listened to by the government.

Hopefully we will soon stop seeing these bags flapping around in trees and discarded on our streets and countryside. We shouldn't wait for the government to act though, and keep on leading by example by reusing bags, refusing new ones at supermarkets if they try to pack for you, or using non-plastic ones.

Green Jelly Bean in the Times Online '50 Best Eco Blogs'!

Received an email from TheTimes Online that went as follows:

Hi there,
We thought that you might like to know that we have featured your site in our '50 Best Eco Blogs' roundup:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2008/02/the-top-50-eco.html
Please come along and check out some the entries: you're in good company!
All the best,
L**** A****

TIMESONLINE
The Times and The Sunday Times, in real time

You can follow the link here on The Times Online. Green Jelly Bean is mentioned in section 6 "The micro activists".

Wow. Didn't know many people read the blog. Better make sure I watch my language in future! ;-)

Fairtrade Fortnight 25th February - 9th March 2008

Fairtrade Fortnight started on 25th February.

More of us are concerned about where our food and goods come from and the circumstances of their production, the human rights, ethics and environmental aspects.

You can get lots of ideas about how you can get involved and raise awareness over the next few weeks on the Fairtrade Fortnight website. There are resources available to help put up displays and hold events at your school, workplace or within your community.

Go to the website to download the Fairtrade Fortnight 2008 Action Guide and get more information.

A list of events taking place in Norfolk are:

• Sheringham Quaker Meeting House: A Fairtrade sale selling merchandise and locally produced organic produce will be held at Sheringham Quaker Meeting House, Cremer Street, on March 1, 10am-noon in aid of Practical Action and Quaker Peace Projects in Northern Uganda. There will also be tea, coffee and biscuits available, all using Fairtrade ingredients.



• Dereham Baptist Church: To celebrate Dereham Baptist Church becoming a ‘Fairtrade Church’ it will be holding a ‘Fantastic Fairtrade Fare’, including a cafe serving Fairtrade tea, coffee, chocolate and homemade cakes, and stalls selling Hatti Hand-bags, Traidecraft and Stop the Traffik. March 1 from 10 am-12.30pm at Dereham Baptist Church.



• The Forum in Norwich: The Forum in Norwich is marking the end of the fortnight by holding a day of ‘Fairtrade festivities’ with local and national stalls selling fairly-traded produced, family entertainment, games and music – including the Norwich Samba Band. Saturday 9th March from 10am to 5pm.



• Wells library: 'Wells Action for Fair Trade’ is holding an exhibition throughout the fortnight at Wells’ library.



• Ethika, Timber Hill, Norwich: The shop which sells ethically sources, fair-trade and locally created clothes and homewares is holding a photo-graphic exhibition in the Timber Hill entrance of the The Mall in Norwich during Fairtrade Fortnight. The images will show how some of the shops produce is made both locally and in the developing world, including Rajasthani women creating the striking hand blocked tiger linens, wood turners and weavers in Thailand and East Anglian artists and crafts people whose work is also available at Ethika. From February 28 to March 8, 10am to 5pm daily.

Even if you don't want to go to any of these events, if you go to your local Co-op, you will get 20% off the price of all Fairtrade products.

Time to bulk buy on those goods you like to cut down on the number of journeys you make.

Chocolate for me then! ;-)

Calendar of Norfolk and UK Green and Ethical Events

I've decided to try to keep a calendar going of events in Norfolk and the UK that have an environmental or ethical living theme.

It's called NUKGEE for short, or Norfolk and UK Green and Ethical Events.

Over time it will improve and if you have any events that you think are relevant and of interest, please get in touch and I will add them to the calendar.

Although I put it together for my benefit so thay I didn't forget and miss out on things, I hope you find it useful too.

Make your town climate-friendly with the Greenpeace EfficienCity

Greenpeace has just launched a natty 3D interactive virtual city called "EfficienCity".

Its aim is to show how we in the UK can fight climate change, although it is being blogged about all over the world like at the excellent EcoGeek site.

It is a fantastic resource with a huge amount of information on the different options available to us, from saving energy to generation from renewable sources.

The way it is presented and the large amount of photographs, videos, and technical presentations make it a brilliant educational resource for individual citizens, schools, and the workplace.

You can even download the whole thing to run it offline with a PC version (51.5MB) and a Mac version (53.6MB).

You can take it further than just learning and you are invited to join Greenpeace's campaign to put pressure on you local council to find out what they are doing about climate change and securing a sustainable energy for the future. You can encourage your council to work with experts in Greenpeace to increase access to decentralised energy generation.

Whatever your views on Greenpeace, this is an excellent educational resource about the options we have to respond to climate change. Tell as many people as you can about it.

National Nest Box Week 14th-21st February 2008

On the day of love, why not do something caring for our birds who rely increasingly on our gardens for their habitat?

Now in its 10th year, the British Trust for Ornithology has its annual National Nest Box Week from 14th-21st February. Their site has loads of information.

For some excellent advice and a DIY guide to building your own, you can visit this excellent post from The greenfingered photographer.

Happy Valentine's Day! :-)

More on a UK Ban for Patio Heaters

There is a good review of the debate on patio heaters on the Mygreenweek site.

Although this opens the debate more on the potential energy inefficiency and harm caused by patio heaters, suggesting it is not so clear cut, I would urge people to consider the fact that it is not just CO2 and water vapour that is emitted, they also give out other harmful, unfiltered by byproducts and gases, as pointed out by Leo Hickman of The Guardian newspaper.

We know that B&Q will stop selling patio heaters when its current stock is sold. Wyevale were the first when they announced they would stop selling these back in April 2007.

In the UK, there is increasing support for a total ban on these heaters with various campaigns, perhaps led most prominently by Friends of the Earth. I came across this plain speaking one called Patio Heaters are Evil. Definitely worth looking at if you are considering buying one of these things.

You can read the full details of the EU's Energy Efficiency Motion in its full proposal, which includes the proposed withdrawal from sale of patio heaters.

It is obvious that this is going to be most strongly opposed by the pub and catering trade who have had to deal with the smoking ban introuduced last summer in the UK. I have seen figures that suggest it could cost the pub and the catering industry £250 million per year in lost trade.

Maybe if we ban smoking completely as well then we can have the double benefit of improving human health and reducing the gases that cause climate change? ;-)

Garden waste scheme to be extended across Norwich

Norwich City Council launched a brown bin pilot scheme last April. For £35, residents of Eaton and Crome wards could buy this service for fortnightly doorstep collection of gardening waste.

It has been a great success with 1,700 households signing up, and more than 400 tonnes of garden waste collected in its forst six months.

As a result, the scheme will now be made available to all residents within the Norwich City Council's area.

This is great news and I have even seen at the Waste Disposal area/Dump at Kettingham that you can purchase compost. I guess that this will be an output from some of this garden waste?

We'll certainly be renewing this service.

You can download a leaflet about the scheme or visit the Garden Waste Recycling section of the Norwich City Council web site for more details.

EU debates patio heater ban

The EU will debate a ban on patio heaters tomorrow. It seems a bit mad for us all to be encouraged to save energy and produce less greenhouse gases, only for these things to be allowed to heat up the night sky outside pubs. bars and restaurants. Fingers crossed that the EU can take the lead on this and vote to ban these devices of doom.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

Get ready to join in this weekend for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

Over the weekend of 26th and 27th January, you are asked to spend an hour counting the birds you see in your garden or maybe your local park.

The instructions are these:

Taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch is simple and fun.

All you need to do is watch your garden or local park on either Saturday 26 or Sunday 27 January 2008.

Simply spend an hour counting the birds, recording the highest number of each species seen in your garden (not flying over) at any one time.

It's important you don't count all the birds you see because some birds will return to your garden many times in the hour. Seeing the same blue tit come back 10 times does not make 10 blue tits.

You can do your Birdwatch in your garden or a local park. Either way it's best to decide on a place where you can see the birds well and where you can sit quietly so they are not disturbed.

Even if, like me, you know very few birds and are not a birdwatcher, you can this opportunity to try to learn some new ones and spend an hour doing something relaxing, and a bit different.

The RSPB site gives you all the info and lots of advice.

You can download and print this sheet to help you count the birds you see.

Shame those green claims - your chance to rate the greenwash in those advertisements

Came across a great web site, the EnviroMedia Greenwashing Index which encourages consumers to submit examples of advertisements by companies making dubious environmental claims about their products.

The site defines "greenwashing" as:

It’s Whitewashing, But With a Green Brush.
Everyone’s heard the expression “whitewashing” — it’s defined as “a coordinated attempt to hide unpleasant facts, especially in a political context.”

“Greenwashing” is the same premise, but in an environmental context.

It’s greenwashing when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be “green” through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact. It’s whitewashing, but with a green brush.

A classic example might be an energy company that runs an advertising campaign touting a “green” technology they’re working on — but that “green” technology represents only a sliver of the company’s otherwise not-so-green business, or may be marketed on the heels of an oil spill or plant explosion.

The Greenwashing Index is well worth a browse, and if you are out and about and see a dodgy claim on a billboard, why not take a picture, upload to the site and rate it accordingly for its degree of greenwashing?

Have a Green Start the New Year - Recycle your Christmas Cards

Happy New Year !

Why not support the Woodland Trust and Recycle Now's joint campaign and recycle all those Christmas Cards you might have received this Christmas? Apparently we sent about 100 million!

Various retail chains have tubs for you to post your cards including, Marks & Spencer, TK Max, Tesco, and WH Smith's.

The campaign runs from 2-31 January 2008 and more details can be found on the Woodland Trust's web site.

Cheap Dimmable Energy Saving Light Bulbs at B&Q

Went to a B&Q on the inner ring road in Norwich as I'm doing some decorating.

Spotted that this B&Q was selling off the switch dimmable version of the DigiLux Dimmable Energy Saving Bulb.

At £6.98, you won't get a better deal and I'm guessing that this deal will be nationwide.

The 20W bulb is equivalent to 100W.

If you don't fancy replacing light switches with low voltage dimmer switches to try out the dimmable version of these bulbs, then the switch dimmable version may be the answer for you.

You switch the light on and off in various sequences to dim the light and apparently it has a memory for the last setting and can easily be reset.

Norfolk Wildlife Trust - Don't miss the kiss this Christmas!

The Norfolk Wildlife Trust is asking people to help and look in trees in the county and try to map the location of mistletoe as part of its Citizen Science Mistletoe Survey.

NWT is interested not only in mapping where mistletoe can be found but also to find out which trees it is growing on.

NWT needs to know when and where you saw it, and what type of tree it was growing on. The survey can be completed online click here or via a survey card. To receive a free card you can send a SAE to Mistletoe Survey, NWT, 22 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1RY.

The survey runs until the end of January 2008.

For more info on mistletoe have a look at this page on NWT's site.

Happy hunting.

Pledge to Tread Lightly - join The Guardian's low carbon diet and save the world!

I got an email this week, and it read as follows:

Hi Tractorboy,

My name's N***** and I work for Outside Line, a digital PR agency.

At this moment in time we are currently working with The Guardian to promote their new Tread Lightly campaign:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/treadlightly?CMP=OTCTreadLightly

As one of the top 20 Green Bloggers, I am contacting you today as I thought your readers may be interested in reading about the Guardian’s ‘Tread Lightly’ initiative and learning more about how they themselves could making a real difference to this campaign.

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site, which aims to encourage online communities into reducing their CO2 emissions through making weekly pledges and recording their actions against their pledges.

The idea is that every pledge is simple, straightforward, and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

A large part of what we are trying to achieve is to get community and online evangelists in the subject, such as yourself, to help us help educate and motivate the online community into taking those first small steps that make the big difference.

We have campaign outlines and a blogger’s button that we can supply you with, plus the Guardian weekly blog will make mention of key bloggers helping in the campaign, and we really hope you will consider being one of them.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you require any more information on this, if you aren’t interested then thank you for taking the time to read this and we wont bother you again.

Many Thanks
N***** P******
http://www.outsideline.co.uk/

It was a bit of a surprise to be described as an "online evangelist" on matters green!

Not sure I deserve this. Just trying to listen to my conscience and do the right thing when and where I can.

There are loads of these pledge-based groups around and I may do a post collecting some of the better ones I have found and subscribed to.

The Tread Lightly community seems worthy of a mention and I will add a link to the site on my blogroll.

Whether you are green, orange, red, blue or some sort of rainbow in terms of your politics, there is some good stuff here that goes beyond the standard Guardian readership.

Do have a look and maybe get involved. The issues go beyond politics and are about trying live a good life and cause as little harm as possible.

Even better, tell your mates as well and encourage them to live a low carbon lifestyle so that we can each save our little bits of the world. These bits could add up to a lot of planet.

Another incentive is that you could win a G-Wiz car in the New Year, or at least get a free cotton bag so you can stop using all those platic bags! :-)

If you want even more info, I asked for more from the PR company and received this:

Guardian Tread Lightly

Guardian Tread lightly is a new community site developed by Guardian environment that aims to encourage people into a low carbon lifestyle so that they come together to save the planet.

The idea is that people can go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/treadlightly?CMP=OTCTreadLightly1
where they will find a different pledge every week that, if they take an act on, will help them reduce their CO2 emissions. The pledges will all be quite simple, achievable things, so the first one will be change your light bulbs for energy efficient ones, and this will be followed by things like: take showers not baths, recycle all of your newspapers this week, turn down your heating by one degree and recycle your glass this week. The idea is that every pledge is straightforward, simple and something that everyone can do, so that people who are normally put off doing environmental things because it sounds like quite a lot of effort will find Tread Lightly a good solution to easing their carbon conscience.

Once a user has registered with Tread Lightly and clicked on Take the pledge, they will be sent an email reminding them of what they have said they will do and this will be followed at the end of the week with reminder to go back to the site and say whether you fulfilled the pledge or not and what the next weeks pledge is.

The user will then get a personal profile page that will show them what pledges they have taken, how much CO2 they have personally saved and how much it equates to (5 less cars on the road for a day at rush hour etc).

The community aspect of the site will include a message board / blog where people can share tips on how to achieve that weeks target, a little bar chart showing how much CO2 the community has saved so far (in kg) and what this equates to (big things hopefully, like a coal powered power station being turned off for 2 minutes), and users will be invited to write in and give suggestions of other pledges.

With a big community, it’s hoped that when all of the individual carbon savings
are added up over time, the users will have made a real difference to the environment.

The launch will be supported by a competition to win a G-Wiz car and a free bag giveaway. Anyone who completes a pledge by the end of November will be automatically entered into a competition to win a G-Wiz electric car. Anyone who completes 12 pledges by the end of February 2008 will be sent a free Tread lightly cotton shopping bag. .

Volunteering - Friends of Eaton Park

I have been thinking about whether there is something I can do in my local area to help the community.

I don't have much time and I am lucky that my employer has a very progressive and supportive policy on paid leave for volunteering.

We got a flyer from some political party and what caught my eye was a group called the "Friends of Eaton Park".

My family visits this regularly as it is our nearest one and it is fantastic with its football pitches, skate park, basketball court band stand, model boatiung lake, miniature steam railway and children's play area.

You can visit the Friends of Eaton Park web site and find out about the history of this the largest park in Norwich, and how to get involved to keep this park special.

For example, the Annual General Meeting is at Eaton Park Community Centre on Thursday 29th November from 7 p.m. At 8 p.m. there is a guest speaker: Terry Baine from Norwich in Bloom.

I hope to be able to do some voluntary work in the Park, starting on Wednesday 5th December, 10 to 3 pm.

The volunteering opportunity is as follows:

Wednesday 5th December, 10 to 3 pm: 'work-in' with Norwich Fringe Project to help thin out and coppice a small piece of woodland in the park. All welcome - training, tools and refreshments will be provided. The Friends hope as many people as possible will come along and help with this practical work. Meet in the top car park (near Colman Road). For further information contact Judith Lubbock on 01603 504126.

Why not get involved with this or some other volunteering opportunity in your area?

If you visit the Do-It.org.uk web site and type in your postcode, there will be lots of volunteering ideas and options for you.

Free blog headers from "The green fingered photographer"

When I work out how to do it, I'll be changing my blog header with one of the free images from The green fingered photographer.

This is a great blog with some excellent photos. The wildlife ones in particular are amazing.

If this interests you, why not check out the blog owner, Mark Eccleston's Dragons and Damsels Wildlfie Photography site?