Sustainable Oliver’s Battery is holding a Green Picnic on 4 September. This event aims to offer fresh ideas on how we can live well together, whilst causing less damage to the natural world and the living processes which clean our air and water, recycle our waste and grow our food.  Bring a picnic and come ready to share ideas and pick up new ideas.

Green Picnic

Although at times it may seem too daunting, everyone has their part to play in moving towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Small changes by individuals multiplied across a community and then country wide is a fundamental part of the solution towards reducing climate change, working hand in hand with countrywide policies.

As we have seen during the pandemic, we are really good at coming together in our communities, learning from each other and providing solutions.  There are experts in every community hidden away and by providing opportunities for people to come together to talk about the issues and solutions we can share the knowledge and begin to make a difference.

On 4 September (1-4pm) on the Battery in Oliver’s Battery we are having a ‘Green Picnic’ to start this process of sharing knowledge and building plans to become more sustainable.

There will be stalls focussing on a number of areas including:

• The carbon footprint of Oliver’s Battery. Where our greatest impact is and how we could make changes
• Travel and active travel with maps and information about cycling and walking routes.
• Housing & Energy. Winchester Action on Climate Change
• Growing local food – in your own back garden
• Wildlife teams from a number of organisations – how can we help protect the local environment and improve it ourselves
• Buying local – local sustainable companies

At the picnic we will also have maps of Oliver’s Battery to record information from you at a house by house level.  These include

• Solar panels, ground source heat pumps or air source heat pumps
• Habitats that you have in your garden
• Discussions on verges that we could leave for wildflowers, following the successful wildflower areas on the Battery itself.

Green picnic competitions

There are two competitions, open to all ages:

Hedgehog Highway Poster Competition

Create a poster to encourage people to make gaps in their fences to allow our spiny friends to travel between gardens and avoid roads. The winning poster will be published in the next OB-server magazine. Bring your named entry to the picnic.

Upcycling Competition

Turn something old into a useful product.  There are money prizes for the 3 best ideas. Bring your named entry to the picnic.