Meeting Title: ACE Monmouth Community Meeting
Meeting date: 15th November, 7pm
Venue Details: Rockfield Community Centre, Rockfield
Present: Cherry Taylor, Rebecca Cunningham, Charles Emes, Haydn Cullen-Jones, Richard Cotterill, Barbara Cotterill, Nichola James, Sue Parkinson, Chris Seabury, Anthea Dewhurst
Apologies: Dan Damon, Clare Catto, Paul Trotter
Agenda and Notes
- Welcome and apologies for absence
- Introductions
- Agree minutes of last meeting
- Project update
a) Talk from Nichola James from Size of Wales
• Nichola spoke in detail about the work Size of Wales is doing to reduce Wales’ impact on global tropical rainforest deforestation, and in particular its aim to work closely with ACE to turn Monmouth into a deforestation free town. This will focus on people’s buying habits in relation to food.
ACTION: Two follow up meetings to be held with Rebecca Cunningham and Nichola before Christmas to discuss strategy with a view to rolling out this project from January.
b) Rebecca updated the group on other projects.
• Monmouthshire Food Partnership is still in the early stages and ACE is working on where it best fits into this initiative. As part of this project ACE will be hosting a ‘Strengthening Our Local Food Systems’ talk by Marianne Fisher of the MFP at the end of January.
ACTION: Cherry Taylor will join Rebecca at the next Monmouthshire Food Partnership meeting on the 8th December with a view to making a decision on how best to move forward.
• Rebecca, Barbara and Richard Cotterill updated the group on the Repair Cafe. All new marketing materials have been printed and soft launch event to be held on the 20th November. Note: The event has now taken place, update in the ACE Newsletter.
• Bridges are holding a Toy Swap on Saturday 26th November; ACE has offered their support and Rebecca highlighted the need for an additional volunteer during the set up.
5. Marketing and Social Media Update
• Work has begun on updating the website. Charles Emes showed us his initial ideas.
ACTION: Charles, Cherry and Paul Trotter to continue work on this.
• Cherry informed the group that ACE now has a new Facebook group and that the old one will be shut down in due course. The new group will have daily updates based around its 6 themes. Cherry invited people to join the posting team with one or two people taking ownership of a theme. The 6 ACE themes are:
◦ Energy Monday
◦ Transport Tuesday
◦ Waste-not Wednesday
◦ Foodie Thursday
◦ Wild Friday
◦ Shopping Saturday
If you are interested in joining in, please let Cherry or Rebecca know.
• Cherry and Paul are continuing to work on the new ACE marketing material to include a railings banner. Locations for the banner were discussed and it was agreed to put it outside Waitrose for most of the time, but also to move it round the Monmouth wards.
ACTION: Charles to provide Rebecca with a list of locations.
6. Volunteer and Members Update
• Work will continue on engaging with new and current members and volunteers through newsletters, social media, monthly meetings and the updated website once completed. In person engagement through events to start in January.
7. Beictown and ACE Monmouth Festival 2023
• Various options were discussed around the dates on which to hold these two events, and one proposal was to combine them over two days on the 23rd/24th September 2023. Note: Further discussion with Jen Bara who heads up the Beictown initiative is underway.
ACTION: Planning for ACE Monmouth Festival 2023 to commence in January.
8. AOB
• Sue Parkinson updated the group on MCC’s proposal to employ regional Sustainability Officers. The proposal is being reviewed by the Welsh Government and she will update us when more information becomes available.
• Cherry put forward a proposal to lobby the county council to include swift boxes and bat tiles in any new housing developments.
ACTION: Cherry to research and draft a letter.
9. Date of Next Meeting
• Next meeting to be an informal Christmas gathering to be held at Bridges on Wednesday 14th December, 7pm.
