Comment - March 2010
Welcome to our new website!
Over the past few months our website team - Rachel, Ruth and Martin have been researching, writing, editing, designing and linking a wide range of material which we hope you will find helpful and informative. But it is not finished yet, and you can help by letting us know your views on what has been done so far and sending us ideas, news and views which we can add over the coming weeks before we start to publicise the site.
We still need more case studies to illustrate the many actions which churches can undertake to improve energy efficiency, manage buildings and encourage biodiversity. We have a template for this which you can download from our case study section.
Later this year we will be using this website to carry out our second Measuring the Footprint audit. You can start to collect the information now - all we need to know is the total number of energy units used in our churches, halls and schools. You will find the units recorded on gas, electricity and oil bills. The details will help to work out what is the annual total energy used by CofE - a total which Synod voted to reduce in 2005 and continue reducing year by year as churches install more efficient lighting and heating and consider carefully the amount of time heating and lighting are used. Suggestions and advice for saving energy can be found in the Toolkits section.
This year Shrinking the Footprint is encouraging every church to consider the environment around its buildings too, by supporting International Year of Biodiversity. Added together our churchyards are a huge national park containing a fantastic array of wildlife which we want to celebrate. You will find more details on the website.
Please take time to discover our website. We hope to feature new developments as they happen. There are churches planning to install new equipment and they will be sharing the various trials and tribulations that new projects can involve. It is important for others to learn from experiences, both good and bad, so please keep us posted with details of any projects which may only just be beginning. By doing this we hope to share experiences of fund-raising, planning and development to help get others started.
Another new section will contain news from afar. Churches and initiatives around the Anglican Communion and first hand news of international environmental issues reported by the Church's chaplains serving around the world who will sending us their news.
So, do please use this site and help us keep it bang up to date.
