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All
the News back to September 2009
Friday 3rd September 2010- Unbelievably it is now exactly 20 years since a small group of us met in Oxford and founded Sage.
At the time it seemed a pretty radical thing to do. Much has
changed since then. The Christian environmental movement has grown very
considerably both in the UK and further afield. But the environmental
problems the world is facing have become much bigger in the last 20
years, and climate change is just one of them. Sage has
been a little less active over the last year or so, as several of our
core members have been moving house, job or otherwise engaged. However,
our recent summer meetings have suggested that we are about to move
again. We are planning a special celebratory edition of Sage Words which should be out by the end of this month.
Saturday 28th August 2010- The second and larger Sage
social at the Hodson's house in Haddenham! This time the British
weather relented, and we were able to have an outside BBQ. And we had
four of the original members who were present at the first Sage meeting in September 1990. We welcomed a new member, Daisy the dog, and started planning for the autumn and further ahead.
Friday 13th August 2010- The first Sage
social of the summer at the Hodson's house in Haddenham! This one was
rain affected, but we had a nice vegetarian indoor BBQ. Sadly, said
goodbye to Susie (Scotland) and Kaihsu (Helsinki).
Wednesday 21st July 2010- Sage member, Martin Hodson, spoke on “Are GM crops necessary to secure global food supplies at
affordable prices?” at the summer conference on GM Crops and Food
Security 2010-2050 put on by the ASSOCIATE PARLIAMENTARY FOOD &
HEALTH FORUM at the House of Commons, London. My talk is available to
download HERE.
Saturday
6th March 2010- Living
Hope: Green Churches, Green Schools
A day conference for anyone connected with a church or school and
interested in how we carry out our mission in an age of environmental
change. Bishop Alan Wilson carried a report on his BLOG
Friday 1st January 2010- The Sage New
Year walk this year was possibly the first ever venture into
Buckinghamshire! Admittedly we were only just over the border from
Oxfordshire this time. Fourteen brave Sage
walkers
met at the new house of Martin and Margot Hodson in Haddenham.
After coffee we set out through Haddenham village across the frozen
countrside for Cuddington. We were very fortunate with the weather as
although it was cold it was sunny all day. We had lunch in Cuddington,
and then walked on to Gibraltar (yes it really does exist in Bucks!).
Met three rather over-friendly horses on the way... We left three of
our party there to sample the tea in the local pub. Thence all back to
Haddenham. We sent out a rescue party to Gibraltar, and then all
gathered for a really rather wonderful vegetarian meal.
Saturday 12th December 2009- Back once more to the annual
Green Fair at the Town Hall in Oxford. The Sage team
this year had quite a few unexpected difficulties to deal with, but
rose to the occasion! First difficulty was the slight problem over our
booking. Then we got slotted into the quietest room in front of the old
fire place. Richard Riggs set up our display on the Friday afternoon,
but there was no table! Hence the famous "don't panic" email. We
arrived there to find that the Green Party had discovered a table for
us. Next problem was how to get all our stuff there without using a
car. The traffic wardens were really hot on preventing people unloading
and unloading outside the Town Hall this year. Enter Clare with her
amazing bike powered contraption. She was able to shuffle our stuff
around without any tickets from over-zealous wardens! Probably thought
this was the quietest year for some time for the Sage team.
Our rather out of the way location meant better conversations when
people found us, but first they had to get there! Note to us all- book
early for next year!
Saturday 5th December 2009- Impressions
of The Wave - London
This was my first demo event and it was a good day. I went up on one of
the 6 Coop coaches from Oxford; the transport and roads seemed very
well organised; there was a good atmosphere; the rain just about held
off and there was time for much needed tea at the end before coming
home! I was disappointed to miss the service at Westminster Central
Hall, and not even to hear it ‘piped’ outside,
however it
did mean I joined in with the singing and praying of the alternative
service in the square, with pedal-power-amplification by the Cactus
wagon, and I met with the A Rocha UK representatives and claimed a
placard to carry. There was then a ‘pre-march’
march up to
Grovesner Square to join the rest of the crowds, where, after a spot of
face painting and lunch, I met up with Sage friends Karl and Felicity.
It was a gentle amble over the 3 mile route; chat and laughter with
waves of deafening whistles, drums & chants; conversations with
friends & strangers with my A Rocha placard drawing interest
&
recognition; impressive levels of creativity all around - with body
painting + blue wigs aplenty, over-sized pandas + polar bears, a huge
rolling wave machine pushed by half a dozen people, and hundreds of
both professional & home-made placards and signs; there were
rumours of 20 or 40,000 people there – hard to imagine from
our
place on the streets. We were nearer the end of the march so missed the
3 o’clock moment as Parliament was encircled, but as we
crossed
the Lambeth and Victoria bridges it was moving still to see the crowds
stretching around the seats of power. On reflection now it seemed
indeed the fun and peaceful day intended –somehow curious in
representing such serious purpose & issues -but it certainly
was an
encircling of our national and world leaders in passion and, judging by
the Christian presence there, hopefully also in prayer, and we must
continue to do this over this fortnight and beyond.
Clare
Newgass (her collage of photos from the day is now on the Sage home
page)
The Wave, Transition and people
we know
Since
we moved
to Haddenham, Margot and I have been very involved in Transition Thame
and District (TTD), a local group looking into living a more
sustainable lifestyle. The Wave began for us on the previous Sunday
afternoon, when we had a special banner making session with TTD in the
Scout Hut. In the summer the Climate Rush visited us in Haddenham, and
stayed on the village green. They gave us some tips on banner
making, and these proved very useful. We all drew around our hands, and
then stuck the images onto the banner. The completed product looked
great!
Margot
and I
decided to go to The Wave on the bus organised by TTD. There were two
buses, one from Thame and Long Crendon, and ours from Haddenham and
Chinnor. A fair number from St Mary's, Haddenham were on the
bus with us, as were people from both the Baptist and Methodist
churches. Our coach got a bit stuck in the traffic getting into London,
but we made it to the meeting place in Grosvenor Square by about 11.45a.m.
The place was absolutely packed with people from all ages and
backgrounds. Many were dressed in shades of blue, and there were lots
of placards, banners etc. We had a long wait before we set out on the
march, and were nowhere near the Houses of Parliament at 3.00pm when
the aim was to surround the Houses of Parliament and carry out "The
Wave".
On
the way there
I said to Margot that we would be bound to run into people that we
knew. She said it would be a random collection of people and she was
right! The first were newly weds Emma and Chris from London.
Emma Morrice was the tour manager and compere for the Hope for Planet
Earth tours, and had married Chris at the end of October. Then Anna
Pickering popped up- so the Oxford group must have been somewhere
near, but we didn't see Kaihsu! A bit further along the march three of
the girls from Climate Rush who visited us in Haddenham came past- so
they could see how we had got on with banner making! We needed
the banner to avoid getting totally lost in the crowd! Next along came
Anne Owen from Marlborough, a former student on CRES and now JRI
associate. Then Margot had a chat with Tom Honey. Tom was former Vicar of
Holy Trinity, Headington Quarry in Oxford, and is now Canon Paster at
Exeter Cathedral. Some years ago Sage went to
Holy Trinity for Environment Sunday when Tom was vicar there. Once we
got back home
and we looked at Facebook it was obvious that almost everyone we knew
was there. But in a crowd of maybe 60,000 (estimates vary) there was no
chance of seeing everyone!
It
was tiring, but well worthwhile. Whether it will have any impact on
events in Copenhagen we will never know.........
Martin
Hodson
Wednesday
2nd December 2009- Bishop of Oxford calls on
world’s leaders to take brave decisions at Copenhagen- see here.
Saturday
7th
November 2009- The Big
Climate Event.
This event was organised for 150 people from Oxfordshire's Community
Action Groups, as a time to network and learn from one another. However
there is a Diocesan Environment Group (it was news to me!), who asked
if they have a stand, and I finished up making a display. With some
scratching around we collected enough examples from Oxfordshire
churches for a simple one. But finding them was hard work. So no point
in making extravagant claims for churches, I saw it as just showing the
flag. The heading was “Churches... in your
community!”
The event was good – well organised, stimulating,
informative,
with a lot packed in. There was not much time to talk to people on the
stand, but everyone who stopped to talk seemed to be pleased that we
were there. The aim was to remind people that churches are there on the
ground, as ready-made communities. A few expressed frustration because
they could see the potential, and wanted to know why it was not being
realised. A man working in rural communities complained of finding
church wardens and PCC members who were very positive, until they put
on their church hats, then nothing happened! We also wanted to
encourage any Christians present, and a few introduced themselves.
Low Carbon West Oxford is the trail-blazing CAG that emerged in 2007
after Botley Road was flooded. They have done a lot of face-to-face
work with householders. They found many people who wanted to reduce
their carbon footprint, but just needed someone to take a lead and help
them understand what they could do. A survey of what motivated them put
environmental reasons at the top, but close behind was the sense of
belonging to a community. Surely lessons for churches there. Saving
money on fuel was way down the list.
The plenary talk at the beginning was lively but hard-headed. The
message was that among a big majority of people, we are losing the
match. The opposition is well organised, knows how to communicate their
message, and spends billions on it. His answer was that we have to
raise our game: organise across a wider spectrum, learn from each
other, be very creative, learn to communicate. From a human point of
view he is right, which is why we have to look to God as our only real
source of hope.
Richard Riggs
Tuesday 4th
November 2009- Sage is pleased to
announce that the latest Sage Words October 2009 is now ready to download. Get
ready for the Wave!
Monday 5th
October 2009- Natural
England are looking for assistants for their volunteer botanical
surveyor, Angi Toller who is working at Aston Rowant National Nature
Reserve every Monday 10am-4pm.
It doesn’t need to be the same person every week. Please give
Jenny Crook a call if you can do a certain date. Botanical knowledge is
not an essential and you will learn lots during the day! Please bring
warm, waterproof clothing and sturdy footwear. You will also need a
packed lunch. Volunteers will need to register by completing a short
form, then you will be insured and also be able to claim mileage rates.
Contact:
Jenny Crook, Community Liaison Advisor (South East) Tel: 01844 351833.
Thursday 3rd September 2009-
Margaret Mary Hollingdale
12.11.1942 - 3.9.2009. We
are sad to report the death of Margaret Hollingdale on 3rd September
2009, after a long illness. Alec and Margaret were amongst the eary
Sage members in the 1990's, before they moved to Kent. However, this
was not the end of their association with Sage, and we continued to
meet them fairly frequently at our events. Our thoughts and prayers are
with Alec and his family at this time.
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NEWS
ARCHIVE
The Sage web
site has been archived by the British Library's UK
web archiving consortium, and you can
see it at Sage
archive!
This is particularly useful for looking back at our old News items
(back to 1st July 2004). So far they have archived the News page 13
times, and each time you can look at the whole previous year. Have a
look at:
Wednesday 21st April 2010- Sage member, Martin Hodson, wrote an article "Sceptical about climate scepticism" for the Living Lightly blog from A Rocha UK.