Meeting Notes From Tuesday 30th November

Hurst Rethink Community

We introduced our new Community initiative led by Prue Heron and Anna Riis. Sadly neither could join us due to COVID but we discussed the first event – Hurst Rethink Doorstep Carols. They have done some great PR for it and we hope lots of streets in Hurst will take part at 6pm on Wednesday 15th December.

Please encourage your neighbours to take part!

You can read all about it on the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1283442965409893

Christmas Stall update

Our stall will be opposite Morleys on Sunday 5th December. We want more people to find out about who we are and what we do.

  • We should include a sign up sheet for interested people to give us their contact details – LB/CW to organise
  • We will take cash and card – CW to organise float and machine
  • Final schedule for stall with 3 x people on the stall – LB to complete and circulate

Green Energy and Homes

Sonia MacDavitt is now heading up this area. She gave us an update on what she’s been looking into – mainly how community energy could work. She will continue to investigate and plans to meet HKD Energy soon.

We should also look at helping people switch to green energy and provide advice on how to use less energy – something for the New Year.

Tim mentioned an app you can use which shows when the best time to use energy is – TE to share.

If anyone wants to help Sonia on this team, please let us know.

Biodiversity & Nature

  • Amanda gave an update on the investigation she’s been doing into tree planting:
  • The Queens Green Canopy campaign runs next year ahead of the Jubilee in June – they will give out plaques to communities who plant a certain amount of trees. It would be great to get one! Their website tracks how many trees are planted and where: https://queensgreencanopy.org/ so we could use this to track any trees planted in and around the village.
  • The Woodland Trust gives free trees to communities who have a minimum of a size of a tennis court to plant. You can apply now to get trees in March. This is definitely worth looking into.
  • We agreed to approach private landowners rather than try to use council land as this should be an easier route. For example Hurst College, Danny House, Local Housing Associations and care homes, possibly Washbrooks – also other local farms or businesses. We would set up a volunteer group to look after trees once they’re planted. We need to approach private landowners
  • In tandem with this we will encourage people to plant trees in their gardens and can give advice on the type of tree and where to get it from e.g fruit trees, local varieties.

Agreed we should set up a task force to start working on it in the New Year – LB and AT to organise a meeting in January so we can agree a campaign to get landowners on board.

New trees have been planted on Weald Close – AC or other to circulate a photo when they’ve got one

Green Transport

Lucy updated the team on the latest news on the cycle route between Sayers Common and Hassocks. Progress is slowly being made and the route will be completed in small sections.

LB to circulate the plans to the team

We agreed we should hold another bike swarm – perhaps in spring. We will discuss a date at our next meeting. We should also tie it into Bike to School Week next September.

Bike Parking – there is more bike parking than people realise in Hurst and LB suggested a campaign to highlight where the bike racks are by using bike rack knitted jumpers! This is a quirky and fun way to raise awareness and promote cycling to the village.

LB to contact Hurst Knit and Natter group.

Schools Liaison

Kirstin G and Kate S are now the schools liaison team for Hurst Rethink. Kate is focussed on St Lawrence and Kirstin on Downlands. We have also made contact with Hurst College recently as well as a governor from Albourne School to help them with their eco programmes.

Kate has been helping run the St Lawrence Eco Club and is planning a second hand book sale to coincide with World Book Day.

Kirstin informed us that Phil Cole has stepped down as eco lead at Downlands so we will wait to see who takes on the role and set up a meeting with them.

Other business

Hurst Festival event ideas – Hurst Festival is currently in its planning state and would love ideas for events. They would love Hurst Rethink to be involved again. We agreed to hold another debate or similar and perhaps also a talk. We would love to encourage more cross generational connection with teenagers and young adults. We are also looking at putting together a biodiversity trail.

If anyone has any suggestions for events, please let us know.

WSCC food waste trial – this was raised as the Lib Dems recently put together a petition for our area to be included in the trial – you can fill it out here https://digitallibdems.typeform.com/to/t9OO93kh

We also discussed home composting and agreed that a talk on composting would be beneficial – CW to add to list of talks

EV charging points were discussed, including the West Sussex Connected Kerb project – you can register your interest in a kerbside charging point here: https://www.connectedkerb.com/west-sussex-chargepoint-network

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