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Worcester Abundance starts in an old plum orchard

Free fruit – what’s the catch?

So asked one puzzled visitor to the Worcester Countryside Centre last Saturday afternoon, while admiring the bowls of luscious red plums on the One Planet Worcester table. There was no catch – the plums really were free, picked that morning in a disused Evesham orchard by volunteers from Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Worcestershire Wildlife Trust and the Vegan3counties groups. Mums and Dads were not slow to snap up the bargain, filling bags to haul off for jam making and plum crumble, while kids just stuffed sweet fruit straight in!

Rod Howell, who chairs the One Planet Worcester steering group, explains “we were contacted by the owner of a disused orchard on the edge of Evesham – he was upset to see fruit going to waste but did not have the resources to pick and distribute it. This was a great opportunity for members of the One Planet Worcester coalition to have a fun day out, a summer picnic and a fruit-fest all rolled into one! We have decided this is the start of our “Worcester Abundance” campaign.”

Abundance is right! Over 200lbs of Victoria and Monarch plums were picked and all the volunteers went away laden. There were still brimming bowls of surplus fruit to be given out to the public at the Countryside Centre. “We had some great conversations with visitors” says Robert Wilkins from One Planet Worcester. “People immediately grasped the absurdity of air-freighting and long distance trucking plums to Worcester shops while fruit on our doorstep is rotting in the grass. Many said they knew of fruit trees in private gardens, parks and waste ground that regularly goes unpicked.”

Importing fruit from overseas releases green house gases and uses up precious fossil fuels that are becoming more scarce and expensive every year. If you would like to see an end to this waste of our homegrown fruit, please get involved with the Worcester Abundance campaign. You can visit our website at www.oneplanetworcester.go.uk . But here is a challenge from One Planet Worcester – this autumn, find a fruit tree that would otherwise go to waste, pick the fruit and enjoy it. What? Go scrumping? No, better ask the owner first!

Events – we need them!

If One Planet Worcester is to be a success it must catch the imagination of everyone in the city.  One way to do this is through a lively and enjoyable variety of activities through the year that focus us on the need to change for the better. 

The challenge is to engage people at an emotional and visceral level, because just knowing something with the rational mind is not always enough overcome our inertia and reluctance to embrace change.  Positive messages work best, not fear and guilt trips!

As One Planet Worcester we have very limited financial resources and all our groups have busy agendas of their own.  However it might be possible for a group from within the One Planet Worcester family to get together with another of like mind and similar interest to run an event that will fly under the One Planet Worcester banner but play to their combined strengths and expertise.  Doing it this way would also help to build networks within One Planet Worcester and share our understanding of the way forward.

The size and nature of the event and its target participants could be very variable – they do not all have to be ambitious big projects that are daunting to arrange.  Some may even work best at a house group level but could still be very effective.

Some suggestions

• Run a training session on how to talk to people on the High Street. Take us out and test our skills.

• The why’s, how’s and delights of vegan food – followed by eating!

• The challenge of seasonal food.  How do we live with a veg box scheme without getting sick of cabbage?

• You know about Green Belts and the pressure for housing? Would you run a seminar?

• Show the fair trade video Black Gold and lead a discussion?

• Walk us round a nature reserve to explain how climate change threatens our countryside.

• Organise a guided bike ride on a summer evening?

• Share your vegetable growing skills with school groups?

• Collect unwanted seasonal fruit from gardens and orchards, bring them to communal distribution points for sharing, cider or jam making. 

• A historical perspective – when was Worcester sustainable?  What was life like then?  A speaker followed by discussion group.

• Transition Hereford meets OPW – brainstorming fuelled by food and folk music?

• Let’s have fun too – delight us with eco-drama or a picnic in the park?

So here is the One Planet Worcester Action Point

Commit your group to organising one event for One Planet Worcester in 2008 – if you don’t like the ideas above, be creative and enjoy the challenge.  Liaise with the steering group to book a time slot and have help with publicity.

oneplanetworcester@yahoo.co.uk

[ Here ] is how Transition Town Totnes is facing the challenge