ECO Congregation Report to Council and JAEI – 2019
St Francis, Parkview
- Eco themes, including hymns, feature regularly in our services, including in particular the Season of Creation.
- The monthly Environmental prayer diary is circulated to all parishioners.
- We publish an environmental quote in the pew leaflet each week
- We are posting appropriate information on our website and Facebook page.
- Articles on environmental topics are included in each of our quarterly parish magazines.
- Some of our monthly Park Views talks have covered topics with environmental themes and implications.
- We have an eco-group committee which meets most months in the year and considers and organises activities to promote our green environment objectives.
- We held a third Eco-Eucharist in Melville Koppies which was again well supported and enjoyed. It has become an annual event.
- A pet Eucharist was held in the church garden in October, and many parishioners brought their pets.
- The project to install photo-voltaic cells to produce electricity during the day was funded by parishioner donations during the year and installed in November. In the period to end of November 50% of our electricity usage was supplied by the system.
- We have established a number of marked waste bins on the church premises for different materials to better enable recycling.
- The Mpact Ronnie Bin installed just inside the Church property in January 2018 has been supported by parishioners depositing their waste paper and cardboard. The proceeds have been better in 2019.
- We launched a project to encourage parishioners to produce Eco-bricks from plastic waste. Production of Eco-bricks has been much improved, and we supplied over 100 in the year.
- We involve our youth in eco activities where-ever possible.
- We are still investigating use of more affordable green cleaning products at the church.
- We had a Saturday morning ECO-walk in the Houghton Wilds in September as part of the Season of Creation. All who attended, mostly first timers, loved the outing.
