St Luke’s Church, Great Crosby

Résumé of First Eco-Congregation Meeting held on 6 August 2008

The meeting opened with prayer and introductions.

Gillian gave a summary of what the Eco-Congregation award is about. Paul explained about the church check up and the areas that we thought could be looked at in greater depth:

• Church Purchasing,
• Church Energy Usage,
• Worship.

The meeting was opened up for ideas. Discussions about recycling and using eco-friendly cleaning products took place:

• A great opportunity to recycle paper in the hall & paper towels from the toilets as well as tea bags to put on the compost. Perhaps we could collect used tea bags from the Parish Centre.
• Investigate pricing of eco-friendly products. Any cost implications would have to be taken before PCC. We will try out the suitability of any products before buying in bulk.
• Possible purchase of more substantial plastic cups (difficult to re-use current ones).
• Look at having a bin over by the church for compostable waste for flowers from church.
• Discussion took place about the weekly news-sheet; it was suggested a trial to establish if some members would prefer to receive it as an email. This could cut down the number of copies produced. List needed for the 3 Sunday Services possible interest.
• Steve brought along a certificate from Envirolink Northwest. This certifies that the church has signed up to the ‘Buy Recycled Code’. Possibility of someone to talk about use of recycled paper in the office.
• Suggested that we look at the possibility of becoming a ‘centre for recycling’ for the church for products that aren’t currently collected under local kerbside collection schemes.
• Discussion took place about having a table in the hall once a month – perhaps link it with FairTrade Sundays:
  • Could be a point to refill members' washing up liquid bottles with Ecover liquid from 25 litre containers.
  • Could be a collection point for used batteries.
  • Leaflets on various eco subjects are available from Christian Ecology Link web site.

Other points -

• Could we have a permanent display on the wall in the hall?
• Eco Service around Harvest?

Areas to look at for next meeting are worship and energy conservation.

Date of next meeting: Wednesday 27 August 2008 at 7.30 pm in the Parish Office

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This page was last modified on 20 October 2008.