22/11/2021

Christchurch in Action is a group supported by Sovereign Housing Association. The aims of the group are to lmprove the lives and environment of Christchurch, we hope to tackle social isolation by holding regular social events, and to improve the look of our community, hence regular litter picks.

To clean our countryside and prevent littering.

Group of dedicated volunteers who regularly meet to clean North Gare beach.

Small Lincolnshire Village adjacent to two A class roads.

We conduct two litter picks a year and have done so since may 1997. Usually in May and October on a Saturday morning.

The group was initiated by the Parish Council with the aim of ensuring that our village and its environs are kept neat and tidy and as litterfree as possible. We welcome more helpers at our next litterpick on Saturday 21st March 2009.

We carry out and organise monthly beach clean-ups on Crosby and Waterloo beaches. We also try to raise awareness of plastic pollution and what it does to wildlife and our environment.

We are a faith-based charity group committed and dedicated to the Area we operate and in giving back to the Community, we created this group to pick Litters off the streets on every 3rd Saturday of every month by 11.00am. The Aim is to make our environment clean and to make Sunderland the cleanest city in the whole Northeast of England.

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.

Mostly keeping Parsons Lane (Wilmington) tidy but other local areas too if time permits.