The BWCE Fund provided a grant of £1200 to Climate Hub Bath & North East Somerset to help with the development of a physical Climate Hub that can act as a focus for climate action work locally. Here Climate Hub members tell us what they’ve done with support from the BWCE Fund…

We have been working hard to find a more permanent physical space for Climate Hub BANES, speaking to many agents and landlords throughout 2023. During this time we continued to ‘pop up’ in short term spaces and at events such as Extraordinary Earth Day, local carnivals, and holding our Greener Christmas engagement in Keynsham (see below).  We recently organised and ran our Springtime Assembly over a weekend in March, supported by the National Trust at Bath Assembly Rooms, and we are currently working closely with another organisation to take on use of central premises in Bath and hope to be able to make an announcement about this soon !

A Greener Christmas in Keynsham …

The Hub popped up in Keynsham Make Space on 9 December 2023 for our fourth Greener Christmas, since starting life as The Green Outreach Hub.  Make Space is a lovely venue with great facilities for art and other events. Around 100 adults and children came in during the day to make Christmas wreaths with natural materials, clay animals and other crafty items. We used a quiz to highlight the difference in carbon emissions related to different food types, and had vegan savouries and bakes to taste and vegan cookery books on display, as part of our Great Green Reads display.  We gathered feedback from people about changes they intended to make to reduce their carbon emissions in their food choices.  We also provided information from the Centre for Sustainable Energy on how to reduce home energy use and get help with fuel bills.

We were grateful to Keynsham Town Council for their invitation to use the space and for their support with planning and delivering this event, including support on the day from 4 local town councillors, and handing out fliers in the nearby Farmers market.  Thank you also to BWCE for grant funding,  which enabled us to buy, amongst other items, a children’s craft table, which we used at this event.  Having the backing of BWCE has been a great boost to Climate Hub BANES, in many ways and we look forward to continuing to find ways of working positively together for a more sustainable future for people across the area.

You can contact Climate Hub BANES at [email protected]