Nature based solutions to flooding in Charlton Kings, a presentation by Heather Moore from Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust.

Watch this presentation on nature-based solutions to flooding, and hear about what Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust's Waterscapes team are doing in your area to re-design driveways to combat flash flooding. Discover how to build a model rain garden with us, to learn exactly how to construct your own at home, at work, or in your community.

Together, the UK's gardens are larger than all of our National Nature Reserves combined, making them incredibly important for wildlife, and giving us gardeners an incredible opportunity to make a real difference in the fight against the loss of our native wildlife species.

And wildlife gardening isn't just something we do to help nature. There are benefits to us too. The happiness we feel when we get our first tadpoles in our wildlife pond, the excitement when birds build a nest in our nest box, or our child's pride when they spot a bee landing on one of the flowers they planted.

Nature gardening can bring real joy to our lives. But what can we do in our gardens to make them welcoming to nature? What plants should we plant? What does our local wildlife need?

A group of local experts joined us for this interactive event, coming armed with a wealth of nature gardening knowledge to help them answer as many of your questions as possible.

This was a free event hosted by CK Futures, part of Charlton Kings Parish Council.

CEO of Severn Wye Energy Agency, Sandy Hore-Ruthven (awarded an MBE in the recent honours list), joined us for our February talk to discuss all things energy.

He gave an overview of the UK's current energy situation, and his thoughts on the strategic and policy changes that will be needed to tackle the problems we are facing.

He also discussed some of the options for householders and companies - giving top energy tips and information about retrofit and business energy.

This was a free event hosted by CK Futures, a Charlton Kings Parish Council Initiative.

Kate Raworth, the author and economist behind the award winning Doughnut Economics book of 2017, came up with the theory after becoming increasingly disillusioned with the state of economics and the core theories we have based our economic system upon.

In this interactive event, Raechel Kelly explored the seven key ideas behind Doughnut Economics. What is GDP? Why the obsession with growth? Is there another way? How can we get into the sweet spot where both people and planet can thrive?

ABOUT RAECHEL KELLY Raechel Kelly is a local mother of three who works in the sustainability sector, helping organisations of all sizes tackle complex environmental and social issues. She is also working with local charity Vision 21 on an exciting new project 'Planet Cheltenham', which aims to empower Cheltenham's citizens to take meaningful action on climate change. Before setting up her sustainability consultancy The Liminality, Raechel spent 13 years working in sustainable finance.

Patricia Thornley, Director of Supergen Bioenergy Hub joined us to discuss the question, do trees really help fight climate change?

In this fascinating talk, Patricia explained the science of planting trees to save carbon, discussed other forest and deforestation related controversies and shared some of the ways trees benefit all of us.

Nick Grayson, Birmingham's Green City Manager, joined us to discuss how we can fix the climate and ecological emergencies and tell us about the extensive work he has done in Birmingham.

Nick is passionate about transforming cities to create places that deliver wellbeing for the planet and for their citizens.

Towards this aim, during his time as Green City Manager in Birmingham, Nick has implemented a plan to tackle issues in four main areas: Climate, Nature, People and Justice (or health and wellbeing). In this fascinating talk, he talked us through this plan, the benefits of it, and how it can be made a reality.

Mike Bush, Gloucestershire Master Composter, talked us through the art of composting and answered tricky questions from residents. In this video Mike covers the basics of composting greens and browns as well as leaf mold, vermicomposting and active aerated compost teas.

Karen Watson, Environmental Partnerships Manager at Cheltenham Borough Council, joined us to dispel the myths and explain the destinations of kerb side recycling in Cheltenham.

Cheltenham Borough Council is keen to engage with the local community to look at new ways of doing things to improve the recycling service in the future and so this gave residents the opportunity to share their thoughts on how different plastics might be collected at kerbside and how Cheltenham Borough Council can make it easy for residents to increase levels of recycling in Cheltenham.

Councillor Max Wilkinson, cabinet member for climate emergency, gave us an introduction to the Borough Council's Climate Emergency Action Plan.

The Plan sets the pathway to a Net Zero Borough, while highlighting the shared responsibilities across different levels of authority, including the Borough Council, County Council and government, as well as communities and businesses.

Patricia Thornley - Director of EBRI (Energy & Bioproducts Research Institute) at Aston University, Isabella Kaminski - freelance journalist with the Guardian, and Raechel Kelly - The Liminality, and lead for Planet Cheltenham, guided us through the maze of COP language, commitments and "greenwashing" whilst sharing their thoughts and reflections on their experience of attending COP26. The importance of community action and personal empowerment to reduce our carbon footprint were among the topics covered in the fascinating hour-long session.

Eoin MCQuone from Go Climate Positive delivered an excellent presentation about the steps that small businesses can take to go carbon neutral and beyond. He focussed on ways to reduce our carbon footprint that are in line with the latest scientific thinking on climate change.

Dr Jonathan Scurlock – chief advisor to the National Farmers Union – talked to us about whether it is possible to achieve net zero carbon emissions across the whole of agricultural production by 2040. This was our first "in person" event in the CK Futures Calendar so far.

Dr Peter Boait - a Research Fellow at De Montfort University talked to us about how we can make the changes needed to our homes and modes of travel to respond to climate change, not just one house at a time but through collective solutions that can work for multiple households and avoid people being left behind. Technical examples included shared loop heat pumps, a district heating scheme for part of Cheltenham, and sharing a solar powered car.

Matt Cleevely from Cleevely Motors Ltd, who has over 20 years' experience in the car business, talked about Electric Vehicles (EV's), the benefits, the charging, and the performance. Cheltenham based Cleevely Motors Ltd have supplied and maintained EV & Hybrids for 4 years. Matt talked us through what it means to own an EV - driving one, ownerships costs, battery charging options at home and away from home, grid capacity and a great deal more. A big thank you to Matt for sharing his knowledge and to the attendees who asked lots of great questions.

Severn Wye is a sustainability charity working across Wales and South West England. Justine talked to us about energy conservation in our homes, a very important step in helping the UK meet its 2050 net-zero target. Newer forms of energy generation such as solar panels and ground source heat pumps are important but ENERGY CONSERVATION will be vital. Justine discussed retrofit plans - home specific plans to reduce heat loss, the role of insulation and the importance of using the right type of insulation, the need to ensure appropriate ventilation, and a great deal more.

Justine answered questions during the webinar but there were a few she didn't address before the webinar ended. Her responses to those questions are set out in the document below.

• Responses from Severn Wye - Webinar questions (PDF, 175 Kb) The speakers have provided responses to the questions posed at the webinar, click here for the details.

Raechel Kelly of The Limnality considered the folowing questions in her webinar: What is climate change? How can I do anything about it? Even thinking about it all is overwhelming and the solutions are too expensive right? Participants were invited to come along to this informal talk to find out more about the climate crisis and how they can turbo charge their ndividual actions to create real change.

Thank you to Raechel for a really informative and thought-provoking presentation. And thanks to the 30+ residents who attended and asked some great questions. Raechel covered lots of ground, the basics of climate change, Individual Action as well as System Change ("both are required") and the actions that we can take as Consumers and as Citizens.

'We Do Not Inherit the Earth from Our Ancestors; We Borrow It from Our Children'

About the presenter: Raechel Kelly is a local mother of three who works in the sustainability sector, helping organisations of all sizes tackle complex environmental and social issues. She is also working with local charity Vision 21 on an exciting new project 'Planet Cheltenham', which aims to empower Cheltenham's citizens to take meaningful action on climate change. Before setting up her sustainability consultancy The Liminality, Raechel spent 13 years working in sustainable finance.

Raechel answered lots of questions during the webinar but there were a few she didn't get to. Here are Raechel's post-webinar responses to those questions that didn't quite make it on the night!

In an interview on BBC Radio Gloucestershire with Kate Clark, Cllr Felicity Parnham speaks about how CK Futures is helping to make Charlton Kings a more sustainable parish and reduce its carbon emissions. She talks about the footprint facts to be found on Charlton Kings streets and encourages us all to calculate our carbon footprint using the WWF carbon calculator.

Mike Bush, a Charlton Kings Resident, talked about his 'Path to One Tonne'. Listen to Mike as he tells his story – from his family's decision to reduce their carbon footprint through the changes made to their home. Mike Bush is a local Charlton Kings resident and retired Energy Adviser. From 2007 onwards he took steps to reduce the carbon footprint of their 1930s household, from a whopping 18 tonnes to 1 tonne per person. This involved investigating technologies that were available at the time and installing insulation, triple glazing, solar thermal water heating, wood-burning stoves, photovoltaics, battery backup and adding a passive solar extension to his house. Hear how these measures successfully reduced his carbon footprint.