CK Futures

We can't change the world in Charlton Kings, but like everyone on the planet, we need to make our contribution to achieving the IPCC's target to limit global temperature rise to well under 2⁰ C.

We share Cheltenham Borough Council's commitment to a carbon-neutral Cheltenham by 2030, as a contribution toward helping the UK meet its 2050 carbon neutrality target.

Unless, like thousands of small communities across the world, our community takes action that sets an example, we have no moral authority to suggest to others that they should take action to protect the environment that our children must inherit from our generation.

Check out our story so far on YouTube.

Charlton Kings Parish Council has declared a climate emergency and is part of the Cheltenham Zero partnership. CK Futures seeks to engage the community in using it's collective imagination to work towards a sustainable future. There are many things which can be done on a local scale to have a positive influence and CK Futures works with partner organisations and the community to make change happen.

The CK Futures strategy acts on the current level of awareness and acknowledges everyone lives a different life. Its aim is to inform, guide, and enable people to take an active role in carbon reduction and support the changes needed to achieve Cheltenham Zero by 2030.

CK Futures Aims

1. CK Futures will engage the community in the benefits of carbon reduction. We will make it real and continue to build momentum. It will help to facilitate and provide the community with information/knowledge and practical ideas, and work with the community to make carbon reduction, and its management, permanent today and in the future.
2. CK Parish Council will be a role model and will aim to be carbon neutral in its operations, buildings and areas it owns/leases.
3. CK Futures will continue to build on existing foundations to ensure a sustainable framework to facilitate the delivery of the change needed. It will be done where possible in partnership with other groups and organisations.

We have spent the last week (26th Nov – 4th Dec) immersing ourselves in the world of trees. And what a world it is! These beautiful plants offer so much to our community, improving our mental health, filtering pollutants, protecting us from heat and floods, as well as providing food and shelter for the wildlife that makes its home in Charlton Kings. In addition to talking about all the ways in which trees benefit us, we have been discussing how trees fight climate change in a talk with Patricia Thornley, learning how to write poems about trees in a workshop with poet Tom Hirons, and taking a guided tree walk through St. Mary's Churchyard with Cheltenham Borough Council's Tree Officer, Chris Chavasse. We know that so many members of the Charlton Kings community care deeply about our trees, and as part of this special week we are introducing our 'Tree Guardians' initiative – a way for us all to look after the street trees in our area. If you would like to read about the 'Celebration of Trees', or find out more about becoming a Tree Guardian, visit the webpages using the green hyperlinks.

After an extremely busy September (with the Autumn Fayre preparations and on the day action!), October has been a slightly quieter month for CK Futures. We were very pleased to welcome back the successful monthly Sustainable Living Workshops at the beginning of the month - the first session giving those attending an opportunity to discuss ways of reducing home heating costs, learn about heat loss and insulation, as well as ways to increase the efficiency of their heating systems. Visit the Parish Council's What's on Calendar for all upcoming events.

We also enjoyed a talk by Birmingham's Green City Manager Nick Grayson, which was fascinating, motivating, and hopeful in equal measure! He discussed what Local Authorities and groups can practically do at a city/town/village level to tackle climate change while also improving the lives of the people who live there. One moment (there were many) that stuck in our minds was when he shared this quote by Cuban social scientist and anthropologist Alberto Villoldo...

"There are those that follow maps, and those that make them"

As a society we have been waiting for someone to create a map for us to follow that will help us tackle the climate and ecological emergencies. What we need to do is make our own!

A new 'Losing Our Cool' podcast episode has also been recorded, introducing us to the immersive world of James Edward Marks, who some of you may have met at the Autumn Fayre, where he wowed the community with beautiful soundscapes created by converting an apple tree's unique vibrations. Use the green hyperlink to find more information on Losing Our Cool on our blogs and podcasts webpage.

We had a busy September preparing for the Autumn Fayre and then running the events on the day. Thank you to everyone who came along to the Shaping the Future zones!

We had a terrific day and are very grateful to the volunteers who helped to make it happen.

There was a wildlife trail, dressing up costume swap shop at the Charlton Kings Library, a children's art and photography exhibition in the Kings Hall and and lots of fun activities in the Stanton Hall, including listening to plants…?! Best of all, the activities were completely free.

August was a very interesting month for CK Futures.

We supported Parish Councillor Lynda Johnson with the roll out of children's summer activities, launched an art and photography competition for children and young people, and were busy planning lots of activities for the Autumn Fayre on September 24th, the Great Big Green Week, which also runs in September, and a new series of Sustainable Living Workshops which start in October.

Two new 'Losing Our Cool' podcast episodes have been recorded and are now available, one from climate communicator Laura Gelder-Robertson, who discusses how she spent her life savings on planting trees! And one from our very own ex-chair Rob Williams, who shares his passion for the nature of Charlton Kings.

We also launched a 'We Are Nature' Young Artist and Photographer Competition in August, with prizes for the best artwork and photography submitted in four age categories from under 6 to 18 years old.

CK Futures and Planet Cheltenham were invited to work with year 6 at Richard Pate School to kick off their climate term and to demonstrate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on our environment. The group identified some great ways to reduce our carbon footprints and shared what they had learnt and some of the actions they are taking. Thank you to year 6 for the enthusiasm and ideas

June was a busy month for CK Futures, with the 'We Are Nature' campaign continuing and events and talks happening throughout the month. Cllr Helen Evans and Izzy Kaminski from Planet Cheltenham had a brilliant time talking to people about the environmental, climate and nature projects CK Futures are involved with at the Summer Fayre. The nature art and nature selfie activities proved very popular with children – including some big ones!

The team were very pleased to be invited to Charlton Kings Junior School to talk at two assemblies. The pupils were set some fun nature challenges, some of which will be continued over the summer holidays. We can't wait to see how they get on.

Cllr Felicity Parnham has also been busy recording new Losing Our Cool podcast episodes with host Michael Childs, which will be released soon. You can listen to a range of podcasts here: https://bit.ly/losingcool

We were thrilled to welcome Science Editor at the Times Tom Whipple to Charlton Kings, for his talk with Patricia Thornley about who should bear responsibility for tackling the climate crisis.Tom Whipple visited Cheltenham in early June to take part in the Cheltenham Science Festival and he agreed to come to Charlton Kings for a special climate event with Patricia Thornley while he was in town. It proved to be a fascinating conversation. Tom and Patricia talked about some of the technological and scientific advances that will help us to move away from fossil fuels and discussed how the changing roles of Governments and businesses will impact on our ability to tackle climate change in the years to come.

We have been running a series of workshops for the last few months and our final workshop is on Consumerism and how we can make choices to benefit our pockets and the environment. This workshop will feed into our third campaign, Conscious Consumerism which will start in October. Whether you are simply interested in the workshop, or whether you would be interested in volunteering some time with us to craft our third campaign, please come along and say hello.

We have now moved on to the second of our three campaigns and are delighted to have launched "We are Nature" with an excellent CK Futures talk on family friendly activities from Jenn Haigh, owner of Hoots Owl Forest School and the Cotswold Forager, Rob Gould.

There are now two new Podcasts available on the Losing our Cool website, both from local, nature focussed, business owners. We have the Chatty Gardener, Mandy Bradshaw telling us all about pesticides, ponds, pollinators and Mindy Pickering from Badger Wood Adventures Forest School talking about how reconnecting with nature is positive for us and the climate.

For our April CK Futures talk we welcomed Master Composter Mike Bush, to talk to us about all aspects of successful composting with knowledge that can be applied to both garden and allotment composting. It was a brilliant talk and several local residents went on to join Mike at his home the following weekend for a practical composting session!

This month we welcomed Karen Watson, the Environmental Partnerships Manager at Cheltenham Borough Council, who joined us to dispel the myths and explain the destinations of your kerb side recycling.

If you want to find out more about recycling in Cheltenham check out these web pages on the Cheltenham Borough Council website.

Food Waste Recycling

Plastic Bag and Wrapping Recycling Trial

General Recycling

This month we were delighted to be joined by Borough Councillor Max Wilkinson as he introduced Cheltenham's Climate Emergency Plan. You can download the Emergency Plan here: https://bit.ly/3BZz5vJ Max gave us a brief overview of the plan and there was then a Q&A session which gave the attendees a great opportunity to dig into some of the finer detail of the plan. The video of the session will be available to view on our You Tube page and can be accessed via our Recordings of previous CK Futures talks page.

We are launching our first climate related campaign on "Food Waste" this month with a focus on bite sized tips to help people make easy and sustainable changes. We will be using our Instagram page to collate our A-Z of tips and partnering with FRONT Community Hub to launch the Sustainable Living Workshops as well as continuing with our monthly CK Futures Talks.