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Our Story in 2024….
January 2024
We sprang into action with a public gathering to launch ‘Together for the Wild’, the branch of Usk Together for the Climate concerned with Nature Recovery. In this project we continued our joined up working with Usk Primary School, and began working together with Gwent Wildlife Trust and with Save the River Usk.
Our community growing project was launched as Please Eat the Garden (PEG) and several new volunteers joined in time to design a new growing space at the Usk Hub.
February 2024
Climate Café our drop-in 12 – 2 every Thursday, brain-child of Shirley and Graham, was established at Usk Hub.
March 2024
PEG volunteers completed the new growing space at the Usk Hub. This includes the installation of the food-sharing pantry, where vegetables and fruits grown at County Hall by PEG volunteers and transported to the Hub are donated free of charge to the Usk community. This is supplemented by the amazing food garden created at the Hub itself by PEG volunteers.
May 2024
After in-school workshops at Usk Primary from Adam (poetry) and Janine (prose), and factual input from GWT, the children (and some adults!) dressed in costumes reflecting Usk’s 10 most endangered species and came together in a glorious procession through the town. They sang their very own song ‘Together for the Wild’ (words by Janine, music by Usk Primary staff).
May 2024
We ran the café at Usk Famers’ Market.
May/June 2024
Our first Balsam ‘Bashing’ (invasive species removal) took place on two separate occasions attended by residents of Usk and of Llanbadoc. We were trained by Nathalie Nicolaus from Gwent Wildlife Trust and it was a lot of fun and very satisfying indeed to see such a pile resulting from a morning’s work. Amanda has volunteered to head-up our 2025 ‘Bashing’ sessions.
Our banner – designed by talented Mike, with a logo based on the winning entry from Usk Primary School – was commissioned and delivered! Very exciting indeed!
June 2024
Usk Together for the Climate held a stall at the first River Usk Festival. We were very visible and learnt a lot about how to attract a crowd – with a wishing tree, a friendly dog, some leaves to identify and a polar bear sitting on an ice cube!
This month also saw the community garden at the Hub – through thePEG project – being included in Usk Open Gardens.
August 2024
‘Sustainable Usk 2050’ (SUSK) was launched. At the core of the programme are three projects involving students from the University of the West of England School of Architecture and Environment. The first, an exploratory investigation by a post graduate student of town and country planning, began in September and will be completed in January. The overall aim of the project is to raise awareness in the town of the nature of the forces that affect future development and empower local people to effectively influence those developments.The second UWE project will run for eight weeks from late February 2025. It will involve around 100 second year architecture students who will be creating designs for a ‘community building of the future’ which will accommodate a variety of uses that we have identified – and perhaps some that we have not thought of! The broad intention is for students to develop imaginative scenarios for the evolutionof Usk into a model sustainable community for the mid twenty-first century.
September 2024
Usk Community Hub was nominated for the 2024 Wales in Bloom awards, which are part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom competition, running since 1963. Jon Prince and Janine represented PEG in speaking to the judges on judging day when they visited the site and in September Usk Community Hub was awarded Level 4 (Thriving) in ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ category.
October 2024
Again at Usk Hub, we took part in Green Libraries Week by promoting the concept of repair and re-use through Storytelling to pre-schoolers and carers and restoring Louise, the Hub Manager’s, teddy bear’s ‘growl’. It was a roaring success!
Seasonal Apple Pressing took place at Llanllowell Eco Projects.
PEG volunteers ran the café at the Usk Farmers’ Market, raising £186 for PEG’s greenhouse. Thanks Linda for organising.
November 2024
We ran the café at Usk Farmers’ Market, raising £103 for PEG’s greenhouse.
Our first ‘Poets, Pints and the Planet’ was held at Lines Taproom. Writers were invited to read their creative pieces (poetry or prose) about the natural world/the environment/climate – as it is – as it was – as it might be. Some were celebratory, some sad, some reflective, some angry. 5 minutes each. It was a huge success with writers coming to Usk from Abergavenny, Monmouth and around to take part and is set to continue.
At the very end of the month, we held a stall at the first Usk Christmas Fair on Bridge Street, in conjunction with Gwent Wildlife Trust and the Fair Trade Stall.
Usk Together for the Climate Chair’s Report 2024
Janine Amos
Chair
Usk Together for the Climate
December 2024
Action and planning meeting
Action and planning meeting
20th April 2023
We pulled together all the meetings and work we had done so far to see where Usk Together for the Climate wanted to go next.
The emerging popular themes were:
1. Land Group - this is looking at a community garden, cold store and fruit harvesting.
Actions: Organise group site visits, including to the potential Usk community growing sites.
2. Biodiversity Group - Gwent Wildlife Trust offered training on recording species, nature spotting. A great opportunity to get children involved.
Action: Set up a training day for Nature Spotters with Wildlife Trust and Usk Primary.
3. Transport Group - buses, car share, lift share and e-bikes.
Action: Join the group bus trip "Greener Journeys" on 11th May to Chepstow.
4. Engagement and Communications - reaching Usk and surrounding areas starting with the coronation street party. It would great to get a more prominent presence in Usk.
Action: Set up a volunteer rota for people to get involved in coronation party stand.
Full meeting minutes are here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/13Kq5biJSgHwzpV65ryYpbLRmNsm9OJY0/view?usp=share_link
5th Meeting - Biodiversity
5th Meeting - Biodiversity
16th March 2023
We had a packed meeting with wildlife gardener Marc Carlton giving us an illustrated talk on pollinators.
Here are some of the resources and info he shared:
Planting lists for pollinators https://www.biodiversitywales.org.uk/About-the-scheme
Citizen Science Monitoring https://butterfly-conservation.org/butterflies/recording-and-monitoring
iRecord: https://irecord.org.uk/
Pollinators list from National Botanic Gardens
We also had updates on lots of climate-related projects: details of recent talks and offers of support from Gwent Wildlife Trust (Julie Carr and Natalie Waller); Community Garden (Cam); Save the River Usk (Angela); Active Travel, The Cycle Path (Matt); and ‘Greener Journeys’ (Meirion).
Project Team Swift turned out in force to tell us about Swift box making workshops, and upcoming Swift Talks and Walks (Mark, Imelda, Mick and Janine); and Cam finished with an update on the Survey project.
Mike and Janine introduced an Ideas Exchange, a game called ‘Just One Thing for the Climate’, which maybe gave each of us a little nudge in a greener direction.
Usk is now – literally – on the global map as a newly-registered Transition Town (but keeping its friendly name of Usk Together for the Climate) https://transitionnetwork.org/transition-near-me/
Usk Winter Feast
Usk Winter Feast
22nd January 2023
We held a community meal to celebrate local food and the Usk Farmers Market. Planned, cooked and served by local residents using as many locally sourced ingredients as possible.
We had a quiz, heard from local producers and learnt some town history as we connected over food.
We also voted on food related ideas for Usk.
Food buying group (16 votes) - To purchase organic, free-from, Fairtrade, and vegetarian products in bulk.
Community Fridge/Larder (13) - Saving fresh food from going to waste and sharing it in the community.
Community growing space (13) - A source of food for the community to share and a growing project.
Foraging (9) - Sharing collective knowledge about places to forage.
Strawberry club (4) - For children to learn about growing.
Skills people wanted to learn or improve:
Small prepared veg boxes for elderly
Pickling sessions
Fermenting – jam making
Sourdough/ breadmaking – other (seasonal) cookery
No-dig growing
Foraging – especially seaweeds – and mushrooms
Preserving
Composting – getting started – next steps
Calendar/planning – what to do and when
Companion planting
Water butts
Making herbal teas/natural home uses for herbs, i.e. lavender to aid sleep
Overwintering veg garden
Succession planting of veg
Local food banks – how to donate spare food
Veg growing
Google document with ideas here
4th Meeting - Strengthening Our Local Food System
4th Meeting - Strengthening Our Local Food System
2nd November 2022
November’s meeting, held at Sessions House, focused on Sustainable Food Systems. Marianne Fisher, Monmouthshire County Council’s Sustainable Food Projects Manager gave a lively presentation about the variety of community food projects that are already on the go county-wide. One major project that it’s worth keeping an eye on is Our Food 1200. Our Food 1200 has the aim of securing 1200 acres for regenerative horticulture in Monmouthshire and the Brecon Beacons. This is in order to produce enough fruit and veg for every household in the region. The project is looking for support from landowners, land seekers, growers and residents.
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Usk residents came up with plenty of ideas of their own.
A mid-winter Feast in the New Year, as a celebration of all the marvellous local produce we’re lucky enough to have right on the doorstep.
A Community Shop; a community fridge/larder
Further publicity and Engagement for the Farmers’ Market
Foraging
Educating young people in sowing and growing sustainable food. Janine put forward the idea of a ‘Strawberry Club’ for younger children, starting in 2023.
We also heard about:
Green Buses from Meirion
Citizen Science from Save the River Usk
Swift Box making project from Swifts of Usk
Community physic garden from Stella
Monnow Valley Cider from Kevin Garrod who treated us to some of his delicious locally-made apple juice.
3rd Meeting - Water Wisdom
3rd Meeting - Water Wisdom
15th September 2022
We came together in the Royal Legion to hear from two Speakers. Both explained how critical it is for us all to think about how we use water and understand its fundamental value.
First up was Lynne Allbutt, Writer, TV Presenter and Champion for Nature, who reminded us of the water pressures on wildlife and the environment caused by this summer’s drought. Although our hills and valleys are green once again, in this age of weather extremes we can expect more long periods of hot, dry weather in future years. Managing water wisely in our homes and gardens is something we can all do.
Lynne inspired us to return to our parents’ and grand-parents’ more economical ways of using water – with plenty of practical suggestions.
Euan Hampton was our second Speaker, who leads Dwr Cymru’s Cartref programme, which supports customers with common internal leaks. He spoke about the Get Water Fit online tool, which helps you work out how to save water, energy and money. We heard that leaking toilets can waste around 215 litres of water a day.
For fixing leaking toilets free of charge, look up the Leaky Loo scheme.
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Ideas for saving water as a community:
- Communicate and educate as many people as we can about the importance of water in a Climate and Ecological Emergency - in schools and businesses
- Promote the installation of water butts for all homes (with instructions for use and fit) + collecting buckets for rainwater. Bulk buy water butts for the community.
- Don’t wash our cars in summer; take mini-showers; make ‘patio ponds’ for wildlife
- Turn the tap off when cleaning teeth; wash less frequently; make an eco-latrine in the garden; might Usk public toilets use rainwater?
Jubilee Picnic Nature Stall
Jubilee Picnic Nature Stall
3rd June 2022
As part of the Jubilee celebrations we had a 'Together for Nature' stall in the park celebrating the Usk river, swifts and trees.
2nd Meeting - Share, learn, listen and plan.
2nd Meeting - Share, learn, listen and plan.
6th July 2022
We gathered in Sessions House to hear speakers from across the community.
Matt Hamar spoke on Transport - His group Usk Trail Access Group has a vision to create a cycle path route from Usk to Little Mill on the old railway line. Presentation Slides here.
Steve Shearman spoke on Food - promoting Usk Farmers’ Market.
Mark Mogford spoke on Biodiversity - Swifts of Usk and the need for Swift boxes on homes and buildings.
We also heard from Natalie Waller from Gwent Wildlife Trust, who offered support to groups.
Angela Jones and Mike Cowburn updated us on Save the River Usk campaign from. Please sign the petition https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/245192
Tourism rooted in sustainability (swifts, river, food, transport) could combine to attract tourists to Usk, if we adopt a cohesive approach.
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We voted for Ideas for Future Meetings.
The topics with the most votes are summarised below:
Talks from outside bodies e.g. Bristol Energy Co-operative (Matt Hamar has contact) includes talks on wider, general issues (fertilizer was given as an example) and for example how residents can Save Energy; Save Water; Reduce Pollution.
Development of wider knowledge about Biodiversity Loss and Pollution (Causes and Effects) both amongst residents in general and within the Council.
Workshops to learn more in a practical way e.g. Stella Collard will offer ‘Composting’ locally; Mark Mogford suggested Swift box making workshop.
Events such as the next River Walk/March; Cycle Event.
Our first public gathering - May 2022
Our first public gathering - May 2022
Over 6o people gathered in the Royal Legion to talk about the climate and nature emergencies. We wanted to understand what Usk as a community is doing and how it can respond together.
We shared a short film featuring local people: https://vimeo.com/697699837
We created a Green Directory for Usk to show what is already happening: Green Directory
The emerging discussions and energy at the meeting was about the following:
Sewage pollution on River Usk – the community wants to stop this.
Flooding – Can the Council adopt more urban drainage systems.
Smaller, isolated communities welcome the chance to come together.
How do we bring more people in? It's important to get younger people actively involved.
System change was asked for, as well as personal and community change; the community is asking for more government legislation related to the Climate Emergency. Large-scale investment is needed, top-down.
Recycling bags made of durable, sustainable material (these are coming soon)
St Mary’s Church – is campaigning for the care of buildings related to climate change, e.g. solar panels; heating from renewable sources.
Summary of Usk’s plans going forwards:
Coming together as a community really helps to achieve success and helps to prevent ‘burnout’.
Many felt it was important to make small successes and gains and build on these.
We need to build support for Angela Jones and others Save the River Usk
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076029221597
Check out the website; post images of pollution; report pollution to NRW; join Citizen’s Science water testing; and join in the March 11th June 2022.
Keep coming together, once a month, in a dedicated room. Some public spaces were offered free of charge.
Spread the word to other communities; Scouts; WI; Youth groups etc.
Advertise on all other groups’ website pages.
There was strong support for backing one issue at a time.
Action needed for updates through a Newsletter/Facebook Page/ Usk Diary.
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