The Wombles of Willenhall

We are a group of residents and holiday makers who want to keep Chapel St Leonards village and its beach free of litter. We welcome anyone who would like to join in. We meet every Thursday at 10am at the pullover onto the beach. Afterwards we go and have a drink and natter so it's ideal if you want to make new friends.

Living near the recreation ground and being a dog walker I usually pick up litter whilst wandering and have taken part in litter clearance events in Chelmsford. My hope is that by setting up this group I can act as a focal point for local residents in helping to maintain the beauty of this town by taking part in occasional "pick-up" events.

Who are we? We are an environmental group undertaking planting in our village, litter picks, promoting reduction in Co2 and smart driving, and working with the local community to make our village a litter free area. We deliver over 1700 newsletters around our village promoting our message and work with Thringstone Primary School and the local brownie group various events, including a scarecrow festival in June 2011 which brought together all sectors of the community . We held another scarecrow event, in conjunction with Thringstone Methodists, on Saturday 6th July 2013. Our chairman litter picks daily, and is helped by others who litter pick regularly. We try, where possible, to recycle items which can be recycled. We petitioned for extra recycling bins in our village and now have two tin and plastic bottle recycling points and a glass recycling point, and are currently asking for the council to consider ways of recycling acceptable items put in roadside litter bins. Between February 2013 and the end of February 2014, we removed 1,958 bags of litter from the village and woodlands, which we feel is a staggering amount. We have also worked with other groups on environmental issues in the village, and were part of the steering group that saw Thringstone Youth Club win the Children and Young People\\\\\\\'s Green Footprints Award in 2011 for their mural project. We have taken over several flowerbeds and previously untidy and unused areas in the village for planting and offer historical and environmental walks around the village. Please see our website which is www.friends-of-thringstone.org.uk for further details on our group, plus details on our constitution, health and safety policy, equal opportunities policy, parental consent statements and volunteer expenses statement. You can also see on that site details of all our publications. What have we done? In 2009 we won the NW Leicestershire Green Footprints Awards, were awarded an outstanding achievement certificate by East Midlands In Bloom in 2009, and won a gold and silver in the village achievement awards run by the Rural Community Council. In 2010 and were finalists in the Community and Partnerships category of the NWLDC\\\\\\\'s Green Footprints Awards and again in 2013. In 2011 we won The Queen\\\\\\\'s Award for Voluntary Service, something of which we are very proud, especially since 2011 was the European Year of Volunteering,. In 2015 we won the Big Tidy Award at the Keep Britain Tidy Jubilee Awards 2015. In 2021 we won the Leicestershire Live Environmental Heroes Award and also won the Community Organisation Award 2021 with Leicestershire Community Champions. We have a facebook page, and we are also on twitter - address is @Thringstone2. In 2019, our chairman was awarded a British Empire Medal for service to Thringstone and in September 2019, her dog, who accompanied her on all her litter picks, was awarded a commendation from the PDSA.

Rubbish disposal and fly tipping is becoming an increasing problem nationally compounded by reduced services across the counties. Many communities are taking it upon themselves to get out and tidy up their local areas by grabbing a bag and a litter picker and spending an hour or so in their immediate local area picking up discarded rubbish. If you are interested in meeting up once a month then please come along on the third Saturday, and together we can make a difference to rubbish and fly tipping in our area. All equipment is provided, including ‘kids kits’ so that children can participate safely too. We meet at 10am at the Gamston Village Hall and are out for a maximum of 2 hours. The monthly litter picking is in Gamston but the equipment is available for all residents of the villages of Adbolton, Bassingfield, Gamston and Holme Pierrepont to use.

We are part of the Litter-Free Purbeck Group. Our aim is to tackle the litter problem by engaging the broader community to raise awareness of what can be done, not only by litter-picking activities, but also to deal with the varous sources of the problem at corporate and individual levels.

This group was set up to encourage individuals to litter pick in their own streets. We now meet in groups and attend organised events to spread the word.

I started litter picking as I was annoyed by the litter in the hedges outside Roys supermarket and it snowballed from there. I regularly litter pick around the village and also other areas whilst out and about. I am doing this for the wildlife and the environment.

Mum, teenage son & daughter, daughters boyfriend, Grandad and Olive the dog - fed up of running, cycling, walking, fishing and seeing lazy people’s rubbish thrown in the hedges and verges of our lovely countryside - trying to make a difference, teach good standards and promote looking after our world.

Welcome to the Keep Stoke Tidy group. We are a small group of volunteers with an increasing concern about the litter across the city. It seems difficult to walk more than a few yards lately without coming across at least one discarded face mask, food wrapper or empty plastic bottle. Rather than choose to live with this we have decided to improve the situation by making a city-wide litter-picking network that we are calling ‘Keep Stoke Tidy’. Our aim is to make sure that every area of this wonderful city has an active litter picking group and through the wonder of social media we would like to support those groups in advertising litter picking events. For those areas that don’t have a litter picking group it would be great to see new ones start up. Throughout the year each group will continue to have their usual local litter picking days but with a larger network it would be brilliant to think that each month of the year we could vote for an area to focus on. We could then arrange an event with a larger group of volunteers, with as many people as possible from all of the other groups coming to work together to focus on that area. We will be arranging events throughout the coming year and posting them on here as well as on our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1101046337300192 If you are arranging an event in Stoke-on-Trent and would like more pickers please get in touch.

Though litter is picked regularly in the Village of Horndean unfortunately no sooner it is cleared than more is dropped. We are hoping to have all ages to help us keep Horndean and surrounding areas as clear of litter as possible. If you are interested in volunteering please contact us.