St Mary’s church in Reepham has been awarded an Eco Church Bronze Award for its worship, buildings, land, community engagement and individual lifestyle.
Image: A Rocha UK
Reepham’s parochial church council (PCC) took on the challenge of becoming an Eco Church in March 2021.
Once the online survey had been completed, it was found that work needed to be done on only two of the five categories to achieve the bronze award – global & community engagement and lifestyle.
A plan was presented to the PCC in May 2021. Since then the church has been praying for the Saving the Spoon-billed Sandpiper project, raised money to twin both St Michael’s toilets and been involved in lobbying the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, through signing the Christian Aid Climate Justice petition, to increase its global and community engagement.
For the lifestyle section, practical lifestyle tips have been given on a monthly basis through the monthly Nature Notes and Eco Church newsletter (both online and printed) and on the Reepham & Wensum Valley Team Churches website.
Meanwhile, the congregation has undertaken a lifestyle audit, either via the Creation Care website or the World Wide Fund for Nature website, which gives an indication of the carbon footprint of the household concerned.
The survey was submitted to Eco Church A Rocha and the Bronze Award confirmed in March 2022.
The PCC agreed at its March meeting to start working towards the Silver Award, which will involve maintaining previous standards in the worship and teaching category and making improvements on buildings, land, global & community engagement, and lifestyle.
New conservation measures have already been put in place in the churchyard and will be on show at the Reepham Churchyard Wildlife Day on 11 June (see the listing entry on the What’s On page).
Reepham churchyard conservation area with St Michael’s in the background. Photo: Rachel Richmond