There is still time to sign up to your activity for the Birmingham's Great British Spring Clean.
Arrange your litter pick & clean up between 28th May & 13th June and BCC Cleaner Greener Street Team can then help out to supply any equipment you may need and orgainse collecting the bags at the end of the activity.
To take part, please contact me on info@bosf.org.uk with the date, time and location for your event.
I can then pass this over to John Murphy at the Cleaner Greener Streets Team to log with him the details of your event.
They also have some spare equipment available!
Let's get together to help make Birmingham cleaner!
Update from Get Grants
Get Grants deliver FREE Virtual Events to help fundraisers keep connected, including:
Meet the Funder – Tesco Community Grants: Monday 24th May, 10am – 11am
Michelle Brodie, Community & Environment Lead for Groundwork West Midlands, will be presenting on Tesco Community Grants. This fund supports thousands of local community projects across the UK. Through this event you will have the opportunity to ask questions about the relaunch of this grant scheme, gaining unique insight into the decision-making processes of this funder. Register your FREE place via Eventbrite
Virtual Fundraisers Networking Event – Thursday 27th May, 10am – 11am
Get Grants networking events give fundraisers the opportunity to connect with other like-minded people who face similar challenges. You will be able to share frustrations and success, get fundraising inspiration, and gain advice from Get Grants fundraising experts. Register your FREE place via Eventbrite.
It’s a very simple idea – register your organisation as a good cause with easyfundraising and you will be able to collect free donations when anyone connected to the organisation shops online with 4,300 well known retailers including Amazon, eBay, Argos, John Lewis, Trainline, Booking.com, Currys, Aviva and Waitrose and Direct Line.
Easyfundraising is free to register and use.
Your organisation does not need to be a registered charity to use easyfundraising and it is open to organisations of all shape and size including schools, nurseries and pre-schools, sports clubs, churches, community groups, CICs, local interest groups and support services.
Highbury Sustainability Festival 13th June
The Chamberlain Highbury Trust invite you to a free, interactive, accessible community festival on the Highbury Estate in Moseley’s Highbury Park On Sunday 13th June 2021.
We are hosting this festival to share our pledge to making Highbury sustainable, our commitment to protecting its wildlife and plant species and our promise to our community to keep providing quality accessible events and opportunities.
Our Sustainability Festival will be a creative and interactive festival where you can spend time outside experiencing the changes made to the estate. Along the way you will encounter activities, displays, art works and performances. Sustainability is really important to us and not just for the mansion and park. We want to support our community to find inspiration to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly. We know there are already amazing things happening locally and we want to give people opportunity to celebrate those.
We all know that getting hands on and seeing change and sharing ideas has a much bigger impact that being told what to do. We hope that you too can come along and make up another piece to the jigsaw and the local effort to tackling climate change and being more sustainable.
The new Friends of Swanshurst Park have created a sticker that they are using around the park to help promote the group.
This is how they are inviting new volunteers to join their group.
Job & Volunteer Vacancies at Martineau Gardens
Chief Executive Officer
Our CEO is retiring and we are seeking an inspirational leader to join our small independent charity. The successful candidate will be someone who shares our vision and values, invites innovation and thrives on making a positive difference to the people and communities we serve.
Lunch & Learn - A City of Nature from Natually Birmingham
The Public Health Lunch & Learn series is a programme of talks to share insight, evidence and practice on a range of topics over the year.
The speaker this month is Debbie Needle, Community Facilitator for the FPA Project, who will be presenting Volunteering in Birmingham’s green spaces.
On Tuesday 25 May 2021, from 12.00 to 1pm.
Birmingham’s green space volunteers do an amazing job looking after our parks, community gardens, rivers, cemeteries, and streets. But although this powerhouse of people is great, it is not the best it could be. The benefits that volunteering brings both to the people who volunteer their time and to the environment, needs to be available to everyone in this city of a million plus people.
Help the Wildlife Trust Preserve Joys Wood & Moseley Bog
Moseley Bog and Joy's Wood is a magical, iconic nature reserve nestled in the heart of Birmingham where you’ll experience an abundance of wildlife and rare habitats on a site steeped in history.
Tens of thousands of visitors are captivated by the reserve's serene magic and unique beauty each year. Please help The Wildlife Trust raise £5,000 so they can work in partnership with the Friends of Moseley Bog and Joy's Wood to repair the reserve's paths and boardwalk, to protect its precious wildlife and enable visitors to continue enjoying this important site long into the future.
You can donate via Justgiving.com/campaign/MoseleyBog or you can text MOSBOGAPPEAL to 70470 to donate £10. Texts cost £10 plus one standard rate message and you’ll be opting in to hear more about our work and fundraising via telephone and SMS. If you’d like to give £10 but do not wish to receive marketing communications, text MOSBOGAPPEALNOINFO to 70470.
Green Games Meeting
You are invited to a virtual Green Games meeting
Monday June 21st
6:30 - 8:30pm
Can the 2022 Commonwealth Games be truly "zero carbon"? Green Games network and the 2022 sustainability team discuss the implications.
Many groups and individuals came together in late 2018 to form the "Green Games" network. We proposed practical actions which the organisers of the 2022 Commonwealth Games could adopt to improve the sustainability of the Games and the legacy for the city / region.
In March 2021, the Games organisers published their official sustainability pledge (https://www.birmingham2022.com/about-us/our-purpose/sustainability/) which includes a commitment to make the Games "zero carbon".
What does this pledge mean in practice? How will food, water, waste and transport be made more sustainable during and after the Games? This online meeting on the 21st June is an opportunity to hear from the 2022 Games sustainability team about the new pledge and what it means for local communities.
This is a free online public meeting hosted by Climate Action Network West Midlands and Slow Food Birmingham. A link to the "Zoom" online meeting will be sent nearer the day to everyone who books a place
Celebrating Communities Grants Celebrating Communities is now available for projects under one of three themes: 'Getting Active', 'Ready, Steady, Fun' and 'Celebrating Culture'.
The first application window is open until 1 June. Then it will open again from 1 October until 30 November.
Severn Trent Community Fund
Grants from £2,000- £250,000 for projects making an impact on improving community wellbeing. Click here to find out more!
PEPPLE Fund – Closing Date 30th June
Grants up to £10,000 for community groups / schools to improve habitat that promotes biodiversity from South Staffs Water. Click here to find out more!
B & Q Community Reuse Scheme
Groups have access to unsaleable items within stores and end of stock items. Click here to find out more!
National Heritage Fund
Funding restarts for Heritage Applications of grants from £3,000 - £100,000 Click here to find out more!
The Screwfix Foundation
Grants of £5,000 to assist community groups with building repair, maintenance, improvement or construction of homes and community buildings. Click here to find out more!
National Updates
New report highlights pronounced inequalities in access to nature Out of Bounds: equity in access to urban nature explores the barriers to parks and other green and blue spaces that some groups experience, and calls on nature-focused organisations to take action to address this.
Natural spaces in our towns and cities have lots of benefits: for our mental and physical health, for communities and for the local economy. However, not everyone has equal access to these benefits. This report looks at the evidence on equity in access to urban nature and how we can address it.
Make Space for Girls
Make Space for Girls campaigns for facilities and public spaces for teenage girls. The team behind the campaign say that parks, play equipment and public spaces for older children and teenagers are currently designed for the default male. Provision is almost entirely in terms of skate parks, BMX tracks, football pitches and MUGAs, which are used predominantly by boys.
More than a year on from the first national lockdown in spring 2020, the Office for National Statistics looks at how people's perception of nature changed during the pandemic and whether this is likely to continue as restrictions ease.
The research highlights how nature has been a source of solace for many, as lockdown rules were heightened our appreciation for local parks and green spaces. These areas within walking distance of home – have become wildlife-watching spots and gyms.
The research found that along with the rise in outdoor exercise, people’s interest in nature surged. In May 2020, 36% of people responding to the People and Nature Survey by Natural England said they were spending more time outside during the pandemic than before. This rose to 46% in July 2020.
Local green and natural spaces have been important for well-being during the pandemic, however the research found that not everyone has equal access to the green space they need to improve their personal wellbeing. There is a clear connection between how people have been using the outdoors under coronavirus restrictions and the distance between green spaces and their doorstep.
Post Pandenmic: Green Urban Spaces
A new e-publication from APSE explores the value of green urban spaces and the benefits brought to communities throughout the health pandemic. It also explores the protection of these resources as part of the urban environment, including the role of these spaces in climate change amelioration, health and wellbeing of citizens and enhancing the feeling of ‘place’ amongst citizens.
The Soothing Sounds of Nature
Researchers in America have found people who experienced the sounds of nature felt decreased pain, lower stress, improved mood and enhanced cognitive performance. The sounds of water were most effective at improving positive emotions and health outcomes, while bird sounds combat stress and annoyance.
Green Infrastructure Cools Cities & Improves the Urban Environment
A controlled field study over two summers in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, found that all types of green infrastructure studied were beneficial in cooling the city and improving the urban climate.
