St Mary's has earned A Rocha's Silver Eco Church award, and we're now working toward Gold. Eco Church is a national scheme that helps churches put environmental care into practice - not just in worship and theology, but in the details of how a church actually runs: its building, its land, its community life, and the choices it makes day to day. We've been doing this in all sorts of ways, from how we manage the churchyard to how we think about energy and waste.
Behind it all is St Mary's Eco Group - a handful of parishioners who got together because they believe small, practical actions add up. Climate change, pollution, and how we use resources affect everyone, and none of us can fix them alone. But a parish, working together, can do more than any one person - and that's really the whole idea behind Eco Church: embedding a simple environmental response into everything the church does, rather than treating it as a separate project on the side.Each month, the EcoMary column picks up a different thread of this - sometimes practical, sometimes reflective - connecting the rhythms of the natural year to the life of the parish.Want to get involved, or merely curious what we're up to next? Get in touch - new hands and new ideas are always welcome.