The Eco Church initiative at St Mary’s continues to have a significant impact in 2024. Amongst the highlights are that a wild orchid has been identified in St Mary’s churchyard in June 2024, when none were identified in the 2019 survey of flora and fauna; more slowworms have been identified in the churchyard since rewilding has taken place; and additionally, in May 2024 swifts nested in a swift box (one of thirty made and put up by church members) on Green Road outside the nucleus of the colony in the village centre, which indicates a secure colony with signs of developmental spread…

To find out more about our Eco Church progress under each of the five headings of the scheme, continue reading below:

WORSHIP AND TEACHING

The highlight is the genuine engagement of so many in the village with the principles of Eco Church and nature conservation. It has been very rewarding to see how many people enthuse about our goals, or have come along to get involved – for example the community cutting of the churchyard wild areas twice a year. We undertook a major community survey of what our church offers in 2021 which demonstrated the depth of interest in conservation and promoting wildlife; there was a call for strong Eco Church projects from the church and wider community which was translated into our ‘Church Development Plan’ as one significant strand of four main goals, and this has been continuously on our PCC Agenda since then. It has also been aided within this category of Worship and Teaching by our review of services which resulted in developing a ‘Sunday Praise’ style service, which has been the opportunity for a number of key services on Eco Church aspects, and also the further development of the already existing ‘Pizza’ service for children, with a regular monthly Eco Church slot in every service since then.

We have held services promoting reducing carbon footprint amongst individual congregation members, through a range of lifestyle choices, and we have tried to recycle or re-use – including food left over at any events being immediately redistributed to others in need.

BUILDING MANAGEMENT

We have made a great impact on improving our carbon footprint by installing 28 solar panels on the South Aisle roof. This has been a large project but it has effectively made our heating and electricity costs almost carbon neutral. We had to obtain a faculty and manage the project, and this has also included spending money on enhancing the roof over the South Aisle.

A second initiative we have tried is evaluating when we need to put the heating on and for how long. We have combined some events, so the heating is used on the same day, used the smaller Castle Room for some acts of worship (which is much easier to heat) and we have infra-red heaters on poles at the end of the pews to give more instant warmth. Managing the heating has been more difficult as we have an older congregation and many feel the cold! However, we have also improved on the cost-effectiveness here, perhaps mainly by installing a new set of oak and glass interior doors to the main entrance (another major project requiring a faculty) which have made a great difference in the winter months.

We have also had a major clear out of the rooms, cupboards and resources of the church, rationalising, recycling and re-using where possible, as a lesser aspect of our management of buildings overall.

LAND MANAGEMENT AND NATURE CONSERVATION

We started in 2019 from a relatively low base, realising that we needed to attract wildlife back into the churchyard as our initial surveys showed, because of continuous cutting, that there was not as much as one might expect. We are delighted with the impact we have been able to make to date. Another challenge has been needing to adapt our planning continuously, as we consider who is available for cutting when we need to strim back, and also how we will manage new demands as grave plots evolve. In this latter category, now that we have added a cremation bed and this is beginning to fill, we do not have room for another, so we have taken the decision at recent PCC Meetings to next place cremation stones along the edge of the set path through the churchyard.

Resolving concerns about the balance of ‘cut’ and ‘uncut’ was a particular highlight as we did not want to cause upset or concern in the local community. It was mainly a process of negotiation and repeated education – the Haughley Wildlife Exhibition was one response designed to achieve this. The comments book included the following: ‘The best exhibition I have seen in Haughley’; ‘Really interesting’; and ‘Beautiful photographs’. We included local footpath maps, nature walk guides, and photos of the main village streets left wild that year too. Another highlight was that we identified so many flowers in the churchyard, and birds in the parish, as we did, once the areas were left uncut for a year. And a further highlight has been the return of some species to the churchyard – for example slowworms, more of which now live under some of the wooden sheets left out to encourage them, and most recently orchids where there had been none evident in our first wildlife survey.

The newly landscaped and cleaned War Memorial (Grade II Listed) was dedicated at a Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance in 2023. The paved area replicates the historic design from 1920 in extent (although it was previously crazy paving), and means that those gathered at the Memorial can stand here (with good access for those with more limited mobility), instead of on the grass. Thus, there is the additional ecological benefit of better preserving the grass area.

The newly created cremation bed was constructed in 2023, to accommodate needed space; this had been a possible wilding area but we have had to be flexible in this regard and retain this as a more formal space with cut grass surrounding.

Use of the boundary by the moat as a specific specialist habitat has been successful – the corner joining the old and ‘new’ churchyards, and the moat boundary in the ‘new’ far area of the churchyard show the extent of wilding and specialist habitat achieved. The bold experiment in leaving the far area of the churchyard wild apart from two rows of graves to the right of the path, and some particular graves in the middle and on the far side, with cut paths through to them, also shows the significant extent of wilding we have been able to negotiate and manage. Images of all the wild flowers and grasses revealed in St Mary’s Haughley churchyard after the first year of leaving areas wild were displayed in the Haughley Wildlife Exhibition of 2022 and have since been added to, from 57 to 62 varieties.

In the village, Haughley Old Street, the main village street, has been left to grow uncut during No Mow May as a result of the Parish Council Biodiversity Group, St Mary’s and Haughley Nature Watch initiative. There are other areas of wildflower meadow in the village.

COMMUNITY AND GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

In particular we have made a significant effort to engage with the ‘global neighbours’ concept, through collection for the Bishop’s chosen charity in Kenya, through Christian Aid’s work to support those most affected by the climate crisis (this year in Burundi), and by being part of a toilet twinning scheme. Some of our existing activities have also integrated very well into the requirements of this category. We have held sessions training those who most use the church, particularly the whole of the PCC, in how to turn off lights, minimise resource use, etc… For many years we have also organised and participated in Suffolk ‘Ride and Stride’, the Diocesan bicycle ride or walk between parish churches. The Parish Council organises a local litter pick at least annually, and several members of the congregation take part in this. As one parish within a Benefice of three parishes, we hold a Benefice Service periodically and have used this on occasion to make the other parishes aware of Eco-Church goals and our progress towards them. We have used other events to also celebrate Eco Church principles – for example, the Coronation was celebrated by members of the congregation knitting giant flower tapestries we hung from the church tower – complete with bees and butterflies as pollinators! We have also published a whole series of practical guides (including those by Caring for God’s Acre) for the local community.

We have been in discussion with the Primary School about joining the Christian Aid ‘Global Neighbours’ scheme, to raise awareness of other communities around the world, and their challenges, and are hopeful that this may be considered.

LIFESTYLE

One of the main highlights has been the enthusiasm of members of the congregation once the principles were explained and understood. People have brought their own ideas and innovation to the theme as well as addressing the ideas in the Eco Church survey. This has led to interesting dialogues, with individual discussions and suggestions on a range of aspects of lifestyle. Another highlight has been the Open Gardens in 2024, with stalls reusing plants and cakes donated from individuals. A minor challenge has been to really understand what ‘lifestyle’ means in the context of the church community – this has made us audit, clear out, tidy up and think carefully what we need to use or keep and what we can reduce, re-use and recycle. We have reviewed the materials we use for cleaning, and those we use for teas and other functions, and these are all in line with the recommendations of ethically sourced products.

We have appointed a group to champion the cause of our church becoming more environmentally sustainable; we have installed cycle stands at the church and encourage cycling and walking and reduction of car use; we have encouraged church members to undertake a personal carbon footprint audit, reduce their personal energy consumption, and limit waste by ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’; we have operated for many years a communal Christmas and Easter card scheme, as well as recognising the birthdays of members of the congregation each month; we encourage the consumption of ethically sourced and ‘LOAF’ products (Locally grown, Organic, Animal friendly, Fair trade); and both undertake ourselves as a church, and promote individually, ethical financial investment.