3rd Heathfield - Ibn Battuta Scout Group

Friends of Riverside Park was set up following a failed attempt to build a water park on the land which is owned by East Sussex County Council & Lewes District Council and now known as Riverside Park, Newhaven. The site was up until the late 1970s/early 1980s a landfill site for the town. Once the site was full to capacity it was capped and left to nature. We now have a wonderful array of wildlife and recently funds were spent by the local Councils to make improvements including a properly laid circular path, benches dotted around the park, a bird viewing platform, owl nest box and various hibernacula and scrapes. Scrub has been managed to improve the quality of the soil. All this has been done with the help and assistance of the Friends of Riverside Park who work as a go-between the Community who use the Park and the Councils. As part of our ongoing support we organise monthly litter picks to safeguard the natural environment & are making other small improvements to the area including more litter bins and hopefully seating.

Keeping the area litter free and making it a nicer place to live. Parks, Water Parks, Mersey Paths and anywhere else that perhaps is an eyesore and needs some TLC from the local Litter Squad.

VOLUNTEER GROUP DETERMINED TO KEEP COPYTHORNE PARISH LITTER FREE

Commissioned group of the South Area Council, Barnsley. Working with you to make your community better - we are going to make our community a better place to live for future generations.

Volunteer group litter picking around the West Wylam area of Prudhoe, Northumberland.

Aim to tidy up my surrounding area for the Queens Birthday for the residents, visitors and passers by.

We periodically organise group litter picks around the Purbrook and Widley areas, including in local woodland. The aim of the Adopt a Grot Spot campaign is for individual residents to tackle litter in areas not routinely cleared by the Council.

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.

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.

CUDS was formed primarily to litter pick around our town and its environs. We do so about 4 times a month for 2 hours each time and then have a cup of tea and the all-important biscuits. We also strip useless bits of turf off areas, dig over, plant bulbs and sow wildflower seeds which we maintain on 2 roundabouts and various other places. At present we have about 28 members. We are not a charity - we are funded by grants for which I apply and have back-up from Dervizes Town Council's Park and Open Spaces team when we can't shift all the stuff we have collected ourselves. When we started over 3 years ago, we were viewed with some suspicion - as in 'Are you all doing Community Payback?' and so forth - interesting to think that a great group of oldies would be doing that! Now, in our bright blue hivis vests emblazed with CUDS on the back, nearly everybody knows who we are - and if they don't, they must have been asleep. We work with local groups - Beavers, the Canoe Club, The Lions at their Fair and recently with The Fulltone Orchestra at their free event in the Market Place. We are also planning our reward - apart from cake, which we have before our summer and Christmas breaks. This time we are going on a day out to visit various gardens in Somerset - it's great to be sociable and many have made firm friends within our group.