Caring for Creation – Truro and Ely

Caring for Creation: Truro Cathedral gets Bronze and Ely Cathedral hosts its third Green Fair as it goes for Gold!

Truro Cathedral gets bronze!

Truro Cathedral has become the latest cathedral to be awarded Bronze Eco-Church status by A Rocha UK, the internationally recognised organisation that has pioneered work among churches of all sizes and denominations to encourage good stewardship of God’s creation.

This latest award takes the current tally for our cathedrals to 19 Bronze, 20 Silver and two achieving Gold awards.

The award scheme assesses five areas of the life of participating churches: worship and teaching; land; buildings; community and global engagement; and lifestyle.

Recent highlights of work at Truro Cathedral in these areas include:

Prayers for the environment feature regularly in their worship plus there was a service of lament for creation held during Holy Week, there have been several adult teaching courses on the theme of caring well for God’s creation and the cathedral has set up a small lending library of books on environmental themes that is free for anyone to use.

Volunteers have spent most Saturday mornings tending the garden areas around the Cathedral Green and making it beneficial to nature.

The cathedral is reducing its carbon footprint by switching energy suppliers, making sure its lighting is low energy, and is currently looking at ways to decarbonise its heating system.

The cathedral hosted artist Luke Jerram’s installation of planet earth, Gaia last Autumn which was accompanied by Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s photography exhibition and an art display on climate grief by the ‘In This Together’ group of local artists.  This helped raise the profile of caring for creation and the impact humanity can have on the world around us.

Truro Cathedral’s Canon Elly Sheard oversees Creation Care and convenes a small group of interested members of the cathedral community to improve their ‘green’ credentials and are encouraging local individuals and households to make changes in their lifestyles too and asking them to sign up to assess their own impact.

Canon Elly said:

“This Bronze Award is, of course, only the beginning! There are many more things we can and should do to care better for God’s Creation, and the Cathedral’s Creation Care Group is actively considering what will make the most sense for us in our circumstances. 

“We already have a ‘to-do’ list of possible eco-friendly improvements that we could make to the cathedral premises and our ways of operating, and work will take place soon to establish which areas to address first. And we’re going for silver!”

Ely Hosts it’s third Green Fair.

Ely Hosts it’s Third Green Fair. Ely Cathedral has already gained its silver A Rocha UK award and is currently on its journey towards gold. On 27 July it will host its third annual Green Fair showcasing eco-friendly stalls selling home-made, locally produced artisan products and acting as a platform for local environmental groups.

Included in the stalls this year is the Green Fair Swish where visitors can exchange barely worn items from their wardrobes and find something new instead. And the Green Fair Repair Café invites people to bring something that’s broken they can’t bear to throw away like a toaster, kettle, lamp, bag, clock, toy, jewellery, pair of jeans or computer and get it seen by an experienced volunteer repairer for free.

More here.

Like Truro, it too has a dedicated group for the environment, the Ely Cathedral Environment Group was set up to work towards the A Rocha UK Eco Church Awards and is comprised of concerned members of the congregation, clergy, staff and the wider community.