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- Module 05 - Young People and Environmental issues
- Module 06 - Resources for small groups
- Module 07 - Greening the church building
- Module 08 - Greening church spending
- Module 09 - Churchyard conservation
- Module 10 - Lifestyle Issues
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- Module 12 - Global neighbours
- Module 13 - Manage your carbon footprint
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Gildersome Baptist, Leeds 2nd Award
'Spiritual':
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Used the Eco-Congregation Worship/Bible study material in a series of services
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Uses the garden for worship including a moving use of the willow arch as a tomb for an Easter Day service
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Through special services e.g. at harvest
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Through use of the garden/grounds for activities with the various house groups/fellowships
Practical:
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The wildlife area & chapel garden project was the feature of our first Eco congregation award.
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We continue to develop our wildlife and chapel garden areas. We have recently applied for a £10,000 grant from ‘greenprints’ SITA to carry out an environmental project with local youth. The project will be monitored by BTCV based in Leeds. We are at stage two of a two stage process.
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Most recent events have been a community ‘working party’ where we set aside three days to carry out work in the wildlife area & chapel garden. We were able to plant 20 trees. This was a great time with members of the local community joining in.
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We hosted a strawberry tea for the other churches in the village; about 80 cream teas were consumed.
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We continue to use the outside garden area for worship. The Sunday school go out into the wildlife area as often as they can and it was lovely to have the Easter morning service in the church garden.
Reaching out:
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We continue to develop our partnerships with the local community college, Joseph Priestley College. We hope to start new courses in September 2007 one of which we hope will be an environmental course. We are also developing our relationship with local business, particularly at a local retail park, locally known as Junction 27 (junction 27 M62 motorways).
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At J27 we are working in partnership with Ikea, exploring ideas about Ikea in the community, and providing Ikea with ‘chaplaincy support’. At Borders the church has been involved in a number of ‘in store activities’, e.g., Christmas present wrapping, setting up of a reading club, sponsoring Fair Trade activities, putting on presentations, Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) action teams, etc. At Starbuck we have also entertained customers to carol singing and handing out hot cross buns with an Easter message.
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In 2006/7 the church decided to take an active role in promoting fair trade. This has been done by, selling the goods at local fairs and in church, going into the local schools to tell them about Fair Trade. The church also attended a Fair Trade business fair at Leeds Civic Hall, where we were able to make a number of useful contacts. We have also over the year produced a number of educational notes on fair trade. With staff from Borders Bookshop the church put on a fair trade fashion show which raised several hundred pounds.
- Sunday school children have done a number of projects on Fair trade and global issues (by means of BMS materials). Towards overseas aid they have helped raise £800 with activities such as coffee mornings and domino nights.
