A Round Up Of Activities
Considering tomorrow today
A round up of activities
We had a great time at the Wenvoe Village Show. Well done all those Wenvoe Hub volunteers for rekindling it after the restrictions of Covid over the past couple of years. This year’s at times, very hot and very dry weather has made it a surprisingly difficult one for gardeners, especially inexperienced ones but the show gave motivation for some to expose their hard won produce to keen eyes of judges. It is a lot of hard work to organise but a lovely opportunity to get together.
The Wenvoe Forum decided to join in and we had a stand set up outside in the car park and provided some information. We spoke to lots of people about the various things the Forum has been involved with recently and for those of you who weren’t there here is a round up.
Maybe it was the warm afternoon and the thought of a cold beer that set the agenda, a lot of people were interested in the Community Hop growing. A few Forum members and others in Wenvoe have been growing hop plants in their gardens, harvesting them and sending the cones to join the crop of the Community Hop growing group in Cardiff. They are made into a delightful green hop beer provocatively called Taff Temptress, brewed by Pipes of Cardiff. The Forum has an aim of recruiting enough local growers to brew Wenvoe’s own community beer. Judging by the interest at the show and the new growers recruited, we might not be so far away. If you want to join us e-mail gwenfo.forum@gmail.com.
Along with most of the world, we have been focussing on energy recently and have been asking residents to complete a survey for us. We are trying to assess what we can do to help people in this coming winter when energy prices are going to be so high. We do know the answer would probably be “cash” but in the long run we have to learn to do without fossil fuels and other carbon creating heating, lighting and cooking methods. The real answer is to use less energy altogether and now seems a perfect time to accelerate the process of learning how to do that. Our survey offers different ways in which we might be able to help for the community to prioritise what the forum develops. Please complete it by 31st October, you will find it on our blog site https://wenvoeforum.wordpress. com/ or we will leave some copies at the library and please pass it back to the library or e-mail it to us gwenfo.forum@gmail.com. To encourage you to complete and return a survey, each that includes a name, will be entered into a prize draw for a bottle of wine.
On our table at the show we had a recording of Manny Ebubedike’s thorough rundown of a host of energy saving tips small and large. The recording is a must listen and you will find it via our blog site. https://wenvoeforum.wordpress.com/
One way we can help was mentioned last month. Tackling some of the bigger alterations and installations that will help reduce energy use and keep those bills down is a daunting prospect, full of potential pitfalls. The community could actively help each other with some of these issues by sharing their own experiences. Those who have already travelled the path could shine a light for others. One of the activities we will be undertaking is creating a few case studies and making them available on our blog site. If you have experienced the purchase and installation of a solar panel scheme or of a heat pump or improving insulation, and you are willing to share the story whether good, bad or indifferent as an anonymised, written, case study, we would like to hear from you. A forum member will interview you and do all the hard work of writing it up. Nothing will be made public without your permission. Please e-mail gwenfo.forum@gmail.com, your e-mail address will go no further without your permission. You may be able to help someone get on the road to a more climate friendly future.
To help keep children interested while their parents or grandparents were talking to us at the stand, we held a free guess the name of the bear competition. So now this delightful little bear has a new home and is called Embo.