On a beautiful sunny Saturday in May, St Mary’s Dunblane celebrated the end of a week of community-wide events for this year’s ECO Fest. The Fest has grown from an environmental day laid on by the church, to a full week of events, supported by the local community, organisations, schools and businesses. The day was full of festival atmosphere: the church hall was packed with stalls and stands, conversations and activities.
Members of the Dunblane Wildlife Trust and Rotary Club shared about their engagement with local schools in practical activities and education. Transition Stirling led workshops for kids, printing natural dyes from flowers onto old socks and making paper out of old egg boxes and hot water. A live jazz band played while families enjoyed picnics on the grass, and kids played in the church garden.
For some space and time to reflect, the church building displayed the entries into the smARTphone + Nature activity. This encouraged budding nature photographers to engage with the natural world in a mindful way, photographing different perspectives and details of natural objects. Inside the church, there was also an interactive Fruits of the Spirit display, encouraging the connection between the gifts God gives us and how we use those gifts to serve His creation.
Back outdoors, a woodland walk led visitors over Holmehill to the Braeport Centre, and included a trail with practical sustainability suggestions along the way. On arriving at the Braeport Centre, the smells of the Indian street food stall from Anjali’s Nimto, were enough to entice anyone in. EV cars were on display in the car park, and outdoor play for children was provided by Under the Trees. Cakes were on sale from the Wee Cake Stop, there was a plant sale, second-hand books and Forth Valley Climate Action Hub were there with lots of information, and a smoothie-making bike! It certainly was an action-packed day.
Peter Holmes (from St Mary’s church vestry) explains that “an important element in the Church’s Environmental Plan is to encourage greater awareness of the need for all of us to act in a more environmentally responsible way…Reflecting on the success of the first two years of the ECO Fest, we looked at ways in which the Fest could be extended to create wider involvement of the community. We thought about a week of environmentally related activities in which schools, youth groups and community venues could be involved. And this then became the plan.”
Peter reflected that “it has been really encouraging to see the very positive response to this initiative, with multiple events during the week of the Fest taking place in the Library, Dunblane Centre, schools and youth groups. There were talks on heat pumps and wildlife, a Repair Café, a ladybird project in all the primary schools and an open garden event. Businesses helped by advertising events and reporting on their steps to promote local suppliers…Increasing the scope of the Fest has undoubtedly positive impact. Many more people have, we hope, been encouraged to consider their response to the threat of global warming.”
Bethany Nelson, Empowerment Coordinator
