We are a group of volunteers in Ringwood, Hampshire, England, who have come together under the banner of The Greening Campaign, to join in a number of voluntary activities to help improve our environment.
Where did the Greening Campaign start?
In 2008, Terena Plowright, (the founder of the Greening Campaign) realised that only ‘green’ people visited ‘green’ centres or read ‘green’ magazines and she felt that this meant most of the time people with climate change expertise were preaching to the converted. She also realised that the whole Climate issue was overwhelming people, and more than this, no-one could tell whether anyone else was taking action, resulting in the attitude ‘why should I change my lifestyle when everyone else is carrying on the same’.
Engaging the Community
Terena wanted to engage everyone and so started the Greening campaign in her own community. To her surprise she found that if people were given clear advice and ideas on how to save money and CO2, in a fun and visible way, they take action! People all over her community started to change their behaviour and the Greening Campaign was born.
Soon afterwards other communities asked to copy the format and Greening Ringwood, supported by both Hampshire County Council and Ringwood Town Council, joined the Phase 1 Challenge in July 2022, focussing on 8 Challenges to save people money on their energy bills, as well as reducing their carbon footprint.
Our very successful Phase 1 Launch event was captured by the brilliant Jay Cox of Fizzeek Media (Ringwood TV):
6,000 postcards with these 8 challenges were delivered to Ringwood households and if people were able to do 5 of them, they put the postcard in their windows to show their support.
Phase 2
Following the success of Phase 1, in July 2023, Greening Ringwood was selected to be one of 20 Hampshire Communities to move forward to Phase 2 – this time funded by the Lottery Community Fund and again supported by Hampshire County Council and Ringwood Town Council (HCC press release here
https://www.hants.gov.uk/News/20230510GreeningLot )
Photos from the Launch event on 3 July 2023 Trinity Church Centre Ringwood
Phase 2 will focus on 5 new projects all supported by Expert organisations, with progress properly monitored and evaluated by the University of Southampton
- Space for Nature – supported by Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust https://www.hiwwt.org.uk/
- Energy Efficient Warmer Homes – supported by The Environment Centre Southampton https://environmentcentre.com/ and the Sustainability Centre, Petersfield https://www.sustainability-centre.org/
- Health Impacts of Climate Change – supported by Anthea Cooke – Health & Wellbeing professional http://www.antheacooke.com/
- Cycle of the Seed – supported by Garden Organic https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/
- Waste Prevention – Supported by HCC Smart Living, Waste Prevention Team https://www.hants.gov.uk/wasteandrecycling/smartliving
We will be delivering these postcards to every Ringwood household from mid March 2024 onwards.
Find out how you can tackle these 5 challenges, and discover our amazing 12 month programme of activities and events at our:
Launch Event
Saturday 20 April 2024
10 – 2 pm
Ringwood Gateway
Ringwood BH24 1AT