September, busy like the squirrels

I joined Keep Wales Tidy in August 2010, so a few years ago now. The first thing I had to do was organise the Great Taff Tidy events in Cardiff. After I let my hair down for a cuppa, I then had Tidy Wales Week (TWW) to do at the end of September. Well the same thing happened this September with Tidy Wales Week, officially from the 17-23^rd, but extending earlier each year by a few hours followed by a deadline for the Wild Weekend grants on Wed 26^th September. Well I did loads for TWW and also had a hand in 11 Wild Weekend grants, so fingers crossed for all of those.

For TWW, As far as I can see, Cardiff Rivers Group started it off this year down in Atlantic Wharf area doing some really important clearance work on Allied British Ports (ABP) land. Their story and information can be found here http://cardiffriversgroup.blogspot.co.uk/. it is a great example of how volunteers can be used to do brilliant and valuable work without needing to be directly supervised, just educate and empower. After events on Flatholm and in Adamsdown with EAG, the week really started for me with the launch event in Roath Brook. Here I encouraged Marlborough Primary School to adopt a stretch of Roath Brook in Roath Mill Gardens, just down the road from the school. Here is an example of a really lovely park with relatively little litter, plenty of dog fouling, but the litter you can see stands out a mile as it is on the steep banks and in the stream itself. The plan is to train up the school so they can act like a mini-Cardiff Rivers Group in this stretch. Moreover, I’ll teach them how to perform water quality surveys, how to identify and report invasive plants (in the case of Himalayan balsam how to pull it up) and maybe to survey the wildlife. Importantly, their presence and efforts has already attracted some local volunteers to help out and will certainly affect the behaviour of some of the dog owners who aren’t so responsible. For pictures see here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCa99gp

From the banks and in the stream, Marlborough Primary School and local vols

Marlborough Primary in the Roath Brook.

Keep Wales Tidy have now helped 2 contrasting groups to keep a stretch of Roath Brook clear of litter. Their patches are only separated by private ownership near Penylan Library. One group is young aspiring environmentalists from Marlborough Primary and the other of a more mature standing, Cardiff and District Soroptimists. If I am lucky, and it works really well, some of the pupils may even go out with the Soroptimists out of school time.

Friends of Bute Park have been brilliant again going out 4 times altogether during the week and they have some great stuff on their facebook site: http://www.facebook.com/Bute.Park.Cardiff

Cylch are another group putting their money where their mouth is and looked like they had great fun along the barrage. You can have a look at their blog entry here. Well done to Emina and the gang.

 

One of the big things I have been doing for sometime is encouraging schools to come out and play as they often make a huge impact. Over in the Lakeside area I joined up one of our Litter Champions with the school and they’ll be going out to tackle some local areas: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCaoCfd

In Discovery Woods with Lakeside Primary and local litter champion Ian

We have also had great success in Chapelwood Woods with St. Philip Evans http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCcJPrY, the woods opposite St. Bernadette’s in Pentwyn http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCbbQuG & Coryton Primary School & the Hollybush Estate http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCbKY78. In Chapelwood, in Feb 2011 BT helped us pull out 37 bags and ½ tonne of rubbish filling up a Parks Services transit. In Sept 2011 for Tidy Wales Week St. Philip Evans and I pulled out 35 bags plus 100 kg of rubbish. This time we pulled out just 10 bags. In the woods opposite St. Bernadette’s. CFMEP pulled out over 50 bags of rubbish and 1/3 of a tonne across January 2011, in Jan 2012 CFMEP and the School pulled out 35 bags, 75 dog poo bags and a bottle of sick from this small woodland. For Tidy Wales Week 2012, St. Bernadette’s pulled out  just 6 bags of rubbish and 10 dog poo bags up a tree (small dog by the looks of the poo). So our aim here is to target this irresponsible owner with the children and to address the tipping of garden waste into the edge of the woods. The children all know the answer “Put the poo bag in a bin, not up a tree and put your green waste into the green bins or a compost bin”.

St. Bernadette's making a start

St. Philip Evans Primary making a difference in Chapelwood

Holybush Residents' Association working with Coryton Primary School cleaning up the estate and making a start on behaviour change.

I started working recently with the newly formed Chapelwood Residents Federation and these guys are great. To make things flow even easily, loads of the kids on the estate have done activities with me from their schools or from the amazing Llanedeyrn Playcentre, so as we went around on our TWW event, loads of kids joined in with us. A young Dad stopped me part the way through and asked if their 4 kids could join in. I happily got some more pickers for them and the 2 girls especially got stuck into removing some of the graffiti that was around the estate. It is a great start for these guys and 4 of the kids have asked to be KWT Litter Champions and I am awaiting parental permissions. One of these has already planned a schedule for the litterpicks. How promising is that?

These kids want to live in a nicer world on Chapelwood Estate (removing graffiti)

 

Cleaning up the information panel in Chapelwood, It might be a bit "Life of Brian" but no capital G and where's the apostrophe'?

For a map of all TWW events in Cardiff see here: http://goo.gl/maps/KF3Kb

One of the nicest projects CFMEP have been involved with has been with Bereavement Services in Llandaff Cathedral Cemetery. We have been given complete trust in helping to improve part of the old site. we pulled up some balsam and are digging up rubbish from under a bridge so it can be surveyed and there are some great monuments that are hidden under vegetation. One of the nice parts are watching some of Barrie's boys tidying up around one of the great features which are seats around great yew trees.

 Barrie's boys make a tidy job

Sue's bit

Just to end, I've been a bit reflective of late, must have something to do with selling my massive BMW motorbike, when I was a youngster I always wondered why my Mum & Dad had stuff like the Kinks & Moody Blues in the house when there was so much cool music around. I was in the car the other day and put on an album of my youth Megadeth's Rust in Peace and thought "oh it is just so good". I realised that it is now over 20 years old and it still sounds as fresh as the day I bought it from Woolworths one lunchtime from School the day it came out. I'm not sure it means I've grown up though.