These are the minutes of the last open meeting
Meeting Title: ACE Monmouth Open Meeting
Meeting date and time: 21st November at 7:30pm
Venue Details: Zoom
Present: Charles Emes, Sarah Read, Vivien Mitchell, Jem Jenkins-Jones
Apologies: Fiona Wilcock, Cherry Taylor, Nichola James, Cheryl Cummings
Agenda and Notes
1. Welcome and apologies for absence
2. Climate Fresk
Sarah provided an update on the Climate Fresks (an interactive workshop to learn collaboratively about climate change) that took place during Wales Climate week. The Tuesday 12th event had six attended, while the Thursday 14th event had 19 attendees. Several parents attended the Thursday event who were home-schooling their children so brought their children along to learn about climate change. Hazel Clatworthy from MCC also attended the Thursday evening. Direct feedback from attendees was that they enjoyed the fresk and got a lot out of it.
The meeting agreed that ACE should organise more climate fresks as it aligns with the objective of engaging the community and communicating the issues around climate change.
Target audiences would be: Monmouth u3a, other Monmouth community groups, Monmouth Town Council and Monmouth County Council.
Action: Sarah to provide some potential dates in 2025 where we could hold more Climate Fresks
3. Wye Valley Climate Action Group
Charles and Sarah provided feedback on the Wye Valley Climate Action Group meeting in Llandogo on 14th November. The WVCAG consists of three organisatios: Wye Valley National Landscapes, Herefordshire Wildlife trust and Radnorshire Wildlife Trust. They span both nations either side of the Wye and aim to link up communities and organisations all working to tackle climate change with the aim of sharing best practices and activities. The inaugural meeting involved a brain storming session to see what topics should be covered in future meetings.
Action: Charles to keep ACE members posted on future meetings
4. Square Farm Talk
Rob Whittall of Square Farm is giving a talk at Bridges on 28th November on Regenerative and Organic Farming, where he will be sharing his experience of the regenerative agriculture project and future plans for Square Farm. The meeting is to be held in the Kymin Room which has a maximum capacity of 60 so and Eventbrite free event has been setup to keep a track on numbers. Meeting attendees agreed to share the Eventbrite link on their social media groups.
Action: The event is free, and but places are limited so please book on Eventbrite
5. Xmas Party
Charles had investigated possible dates when we could hold the Xmas Party at Bridges. The Ballroom is a large enough room for ACE to use and it is usually free on Friday evenings. The best date that doesn’t clash with other events would be Friday 13th December from 6-9pm. Jem confirmed that the Ballroom looks nice at the moment with Xmas decorations. An invitation was made for Transition Monmouth members to attend. Vivien offered a bottle of mulled wine for the event.
Action: Sarah to create material from the Climate Fresks that we can put on the display boards. The Farmers Mentoring project material is still on the current display board so can be used as is.
Action: ACE members are invited to provide tasty treats to go with the mulled wine on offer.
6. MTC Funding
The People and Places committee had deferred discussion of ACE funding to the November meeting. ACE presented an interim Chair’s report and Treasurer’s report following the October meeting which it hoped would be helpful to town councillors.
Action: Charles to advise on the outcome of the November meeting
Action: Charles to make an offer for ACE to attend a council meeting
7. Garden Mentoring Scheme
Cheryl Cummings offered to mentor another person as part of the garden mentoring scheme. The other mentors (Cherry, Sam and Jen) will be approached to see if they are willing to mentor again in 2025.
Cheryl offered to host another “Wild Garden” event which has proved so popular in the past. There was enthusiasm to take Cheryl up on this offer.
Action: Charles to ask Cheryl when the best time of year would be to hold the open garden.
8. Energy Saving Advice Talk
ACE was recently contacted by the Severn Wye Energy Agency who expressed an interest in collaborating and providing free energy advice.
Given that December is a very busy month, it was decided to postpone the event until January.
Action: Charles to create posters and leaflets for the energy saving advice event in January and distribute them around town
Action: Charles to firm up the date and book a venue.
9. AOB
a) Earth Day is April 22nd 2025 and ACE will aim to organise an event to coincide with that date.
b) Sarah said that an Infra-red camera was available to rent from Benthyg. It’s £50 for a week but it would be worthwhile if it was rented by a group of householders to identify potential draughts and cold spots in their home.
c) Jem wanted to organise a Clothes Swap event which is about reusing and recycling clothes rather than purchasing new clothes. At an event held at the NEC you got as token for every item you brought in and then you swapped the token for an item of clothing. Any left over items were donated to charity shops so there was no waste. An event in the spring of 2025 was floated as a possible date.
d) Seed Swap in on 8th February 2025. Vivien asked for ACE members to donate plants as this is an important fund raiser for Transition Monmouth.
e) A Climate Festival in 2025 was briefly discussed. Vivien suggested a one day event which has been a successful strategy by Friends of the Lower Wye. By keeping the event well organised but restricted to 4 hours makes the logistics easier to manage and the volunteers aren’t completely drained at the end of it. Further discussion was deferred until next year.
10. Date of next meeting
The date of the next meeting was agreed to be Thursday 16th January, via Zoom, 7:30pm.