Greening Westbourne

Our Christmas tree recycling event, which gets bigger every year, is on Sunday 5 January in the Square, from 11am to 1pm.

You can bring old mobile phones and Christmas cards too – and there will be mulled wine, festive nibbles and games with prizes. Even if you haven’t got something to recycle, please pop along and see us.

Look out for a new way of pledging support to the campaign and our local actions to combat climate change. We’re launching a ‘friends of Greening Westbourne’ scheme so you can feel more involved and keep up with what we’re doing.

If you can spare a donation at the tree event, we’d be very grateful, as this year has seen our resources drained considerably, and we don’t have any fixed source of income. Our Family Fun Ride cycle event (which we plan to repeat next summer) was very successful, but cost a lot more than we’d intended.

As always, we’re very grateful to tree guru Mike Reed and his crew, who volunteer their time and equipment to chip the trees and find a good use for the chippings.

Our plan to set up a community orchard on new public open space next to the Hampshire Farm development is still alive. We’ve had a positive initial response from Havant council, who will have the final say, but we won’t have a decision for some time, as the process depends on the progress of the housing development and how many homes are sold.

You can contact us any time, or sign up for our e-bulletin, on greeningwestbourne@hotmail.co.uk The next meeting is Tue 4 February at 7.30pm, at the Meeting Place (Baptist church hall).

Merry Christmas, and thanks for your support - the Greening team