October hibernations and colonisations

As I mentioned last time, September is the busiest month of the year and I put in nearly 2 months worth of work in September, so I had the first 2 weeks of October off on flexi. This gave me a chance to have a look at projects in other parts of the country with new eyes. One of these was in my home town of Wallsend where I spoke to a local user of a Country Park, developed on an old Coal Mine from 1987. The litter and dog fouling there is a big problem and I talked to him about Keep Wales Tidy and the litter champion scheme that we have here and he said he wished that it also covered the north-east of England. Secondly, after telling my Dad about some of the things we do in Cardiff linking litter champions with Primary Schools, my Dad got in touch with the nearest primary school to him and now he volunteers there using his excellent gardening skills and the kids, the teacher and my Dad are loving it. Far too often teachers and assistants are given tasks that they know little about and are expected to just run with it (It is not just schools that this happens in that’s for sure). Well, by joining up with local expertise the teacher can quickly gain skills, knowledge and the confidence to better perform these activities. This ramble leads nicely into a lovely project in Bute Park that we were asked to do. The dock feeder, which we have pulled balsam, dug out invasive maples and cleared rubbish from, has several patches of bank which is eroding into a lottery funded footpath. We were asked to pilot a bank shoring up, or revetment, project to stop this erosion. I’d never done this before with recycled plastic revetment boards and posts, so 2 of my experienced colleagues, Thom from Blaenau Gwent and Paul from Merthyr came along to try out a feasibility 10 m section. I watched, took photos and helped in parts and it turned out to be hard work but do able.

I reckon it looks pretty good. For the only CFMEP event of the month, we finished it off by sawing the tops off the stakes, dressing the silt backfill with topsoil and added a little wildflower seed mix on top.

Carefull readers would know that we created a pond in Splott with Ysgol Glan Morfa, South Splott Residents’ Association, several church groups and physical help from John Lewis. The pond cost about £370 altogether. We only planted it in April of this year, but I led its first pond maintenance project later on this month. Armed with nets a much rake and sample trays, we killed 2 birds with one stone, we removed some overgrown pond weed and looked into the pond weed to see if it was starting to be colonised. The kids were split into 3 groups each time and were led by a local volunteer. I was extremely surprised at how well it was colonised and the best find of the day was a damselfly larva. These invertebrates can tolerate only good quality water, so that is brilliant news.

So, we built the pond with hardly any money, involved children and local residents to become stakeholders in the project from the very beginning and now we have seen that the pond is starting to be colonised beautifully already. Moreover, the children and adult volunteers know now how to do basic pond management. In a 2-3 years time we will also have to thin out the native plants that we put in there, but a great result all round. £300 of this money was from a grant from Cardiff Council’s Tidy Towns allocation and we’ve demonstrated how we can carefully spend this money with a fantastic cost/benefit ratio. Moreover, this pond can be used as a started pond for similar projects throughout Cardiff.

We now have 69 litter champions in Cardiff which is absolutely amazing (5 more waiting for kit). The latest spattering was in North Whitchurch. Over the last 2 years we have signed up quite a few in and around the Coryton roundabout which is a constant litter (including shopping trolleys) nuisance. During the coastal path clearance in Atlantic wharf earlier on in the year, 4 walking ladies joined in and said they were interested in doing some tidy ups somewhere and at some point. In September, they joined in with a clean up with Hollybush Residents’ Association, Coryton Primary, Barclays and Coryton Primary School (http://flic.kr/s/aHsjCbKY78). They got in touch this month and asked to set up a group based around the North Whitchurch area. They are called Cardiff Tidy Taffs, so keep an eye out for one of their monthly tidy ups and several of the local litter champions are keen to join in to get some help. If you want to be on their mailing list, get in touch.

On the subject of finding out things, many years ago when I did some survey work for Monmouthshire Council I came across the Monmouthshire Green Web site, which had lists of events, groups and other green/outdoor related activities and opportunities. Several years ago Adansdown C1st and Adamsdown Environmental Action Group created a Green Map for Adamsdown which listed things like schools, gardens, litter problem areas and other useful information. These approaches are altruistic in their benefit to all. There have been many times, where I have thought, I’m tired and I just want to know what is on in Torfaen or Monmouthshire that I can just join in with. Well if you type in “Events in xxxxxxx” Google you get loads of sites and it is really difficult to find information. In today’s difficult environment when everyone claims to be a community hub, a third sector body blah blah blah, it is so difficult to find the basic information that can help community groups grow. Cardiff Transition Group also knows this as they are all involved in voluntary action groups in Cardiff. As such, several months ago they set up a GreenMap for Cardiff and this lists groups, activities, contact details etc. The map link is here: http://cardifftransition.com/mapping and the events page here: http://cardifftransition.com/events-home The map is cluttered (you can filter what you are interested in) and the calendar in its early stages of development, but it truly serves this altruistic purpose. It is definitely worthwhile thinking about engaging in this mapping system even if it is only to check and see what might be going on in Cardiff on one of your free days.

I have been very busy all this week on Wild Weekend projects and in Ely Baptist Church we planted some bulbs for wildlife and they planted some wildflower seeds the next day without me after I showed them how to do it.

Finally, I have also been busy trying to work out how to make bat and hedgehog boxes from wood available from Homebase as part of the Wild Weekend scheme. This is because the wood is completely different from the wood that we would normally use for these projects. These will be appearing in and around Cardiff and Torfaen in the next few weeks.

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.
 

Tidy Wales Week Events in Cardiff Sep 17-23rd

Here is a map of all the , so if you just want to join in with an event for Tidy Wales Week, look at the map below for locations, dates and times. These will be updated daily when I get this information. Some meeting times and locations may alter so check the map and email the contacts on each event just in case.

View Tidy Wales Week in Cardiff in a larger map

For more information on events in Cardiff, contact Chris Partridge on chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org or 07717412270

To get a TWW registration form download from:
http://keepwalestidy.sequence.co.uk/campaigns/tidy-wales-week
or email tww@keepwalestidy.org

August Update

An exciting month this month with efforts on Himalayan balsam with the knowledge that the pulling season is nearly over, but with the disappointment that there is a huge area untouched. In total I’ve been directly involved with 55 Himalayan balsam events this year from late June until the end of August. This has involved a massive 403 volunteers of which 154 were completely new to the Himalayan balsam world. These volunteers put in a massive 642.5 voluntary hours. Seasoned veterans Cardiff Rivers Group have been pulling it up and new group Cardiff Trails Scrubs have had their first experience of tackling the plant mainly on the Ely near Leckwith. We’ve educated and informed the Mill Road Group who dived in with enormous enthusiasm on the Ely just downstream from Birdies lane bridge on the Fairwater side (I think the stress release of the work swung it for them almost more than anything else). The group enjoyed it so much that they were disappointed that they had to stop and now have to wait until next year. Pics here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBesR7d http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBnn8BY http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBsgbZU

Left. Around 90 ft of balsam before you can get to the river, and nothing but balsam (30th July). Right. You can see the river now with an area of 80 x 140 feet of balsam cleared by the Mill Road + Group (Aug 16th).

 

Awareness raising is one of those tasks where you can invest a lot of time and if an event has few people, for example it is pouring of rain can be almost a waste of time. However, this month in Fairwater, Friends of Cardiff Dogs Home and Fairwater Communities First organised a Dog Show behind Fairwater Leisure Centre and it was heaving with people and their dogs. On 2 separate occasions on the day groups of youths came up to my table and asked if they could litterpick the whole area. They collected about 3 big bags of rubbish and it was remarkable. They weren’t in school and it wasn’t an organised event with a youth centre. Over the past 2 years, I’ve invested efforts in Waterhall Youth Centre working really closely with the brilliant Communities First Team (why have Cardiff Council let these amazing people go?), we’ve litterpicked, made dormouse boxes as part of last year’s Wild Weekend and Cardiff Park’s Services gave us some daffs to plant and we planted a load of daffs in the dark outside Fairwater shops with some of these kids. This small investment from me and a few others has led to them caring enough that they wanted to make a difference. These kids don’t know much about section 42 wildlife, they don’t really understand sustainable development, was it time well spent as a Keep Wales Tidy Officer or value for money from a Welsh Government Tidy Towns point of view? I like to think so.

Some of the kids helping out at Fairwater Dog Show (Ben, Right Right, earned his Goodies in Hoodies Hoodie last year with the work he did making dormouse boxes with me for Wild Weekend)

 

Last year for Wild Weekend in some places, we made dormouse boxes and these were made from plywood. What I found in some places, is that the wood quickly starts to rot, but they stand out in situ. I had a little idea about this and set up a trial event at Llanedeyrn Playcentre. I have done a reasonable amount of work here and with the kids, we have regular litterpicks of the adjacent woods, we have pulled the Himalayan balsam here for the past 2 years and also put up 3 bat boxes which haven’t been vandalised even though they are pretty obvious. Anyway, we put together 3 dormouse boxes from left over materials and then decided to get creative. Using a dark brown and dark green wood preservative, we camouflage painted the dormouse boxes, so they will be better hidden in situ and also have some wood preservative quality. These will come in handy for Wild Weekend events (for more info on Wild Weekend go to http://keepwalestidy.sequence.co.uk/campaigns/wild-weekend-2012) Pics here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBqLgZw

Just some of the kids at Llanedeyrn Playcentre who helped to build and trial camo paint a few dormouse boxes.

We’ve just started out performing a really nice project in Llandaff Cathedral Cemetery in partnership with Cardiff Council’s Bereavement Services (who have just taken over the site management) and Conservation and Policy Group. The initial point of the work was to organise volunteer events around Prichard Bridge just to the north of the Cathedral. The Conservation and Policy group need to inspect the bridge to see how they can best preserve it. However, the bridge has trees around it, landslides on both sides of the arches and loads of potentially hazardous litter under it. While on a site visit with all partners, I noticed that there was Himalayan balsam, Japanese knotweed, rosebay willowherb, buddleia and it was extremely wild. Bereavement Services have given us almost carte blanche undertake almost any improvement works, habitat or otherwise. Like many parts of local authorities across Wales, there isn’t always capacity to do all the things they’d like to do, so with our help and expertise, we can do some really nice stuff here, with volunteers, schools and even to help them set up a voluntary group to achieve this. They will then be able to support this work in ways in which we can’t easily do and everyone benefits at this amazing site. So for our first event, we just pulled a large patch of balsam and on the last event, we performed 3 activities; litterpicking, balsam pulling in the thick brambles and clearance of one of the landslide sides of the bridge. Pics here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBFiKEC http://flic.kr/s/aHsjBPcvtq and a map showing some of the progress of our work can be viewed here: http://goo.gl/maps/OFEgc.

Top. Boys working on clearing and sorting the landslide. Bottom left. Intact 40 year old plastic sweet wrappers found in the landslide. Bottom Right. Most of the vols.

Don’t forget to register a Tidy Wales Week event Sep 17-23. However if you can’t fit one in then, but can either side, just let TWW@keepwalestidy.org know (oh and let me know too please).

Finally, a quick thanks to Parks services and Street Cleansing for helping to remove rubbish after events this month, Communities First in Ely, Fairwater, St. Mellons & Llanrumney for being brilliant as per usual and helping out again this month, Lucy from Cardiff Council Tidy Towns and Danielle from Waste Education and Enforcement, Cllrs. Carter & Ali for performing proactive environmental work with and without us in their wards and Cllr. Govier for enthusiastically embracing the environment from so many angles.