Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community.
Last Saturday I joined an intrepid bunch of warriors at Holy Trinity Church, for the first community litter pick of the year. It was great to see so many people, especially on a grim and dismal day.
After a few minutes of chatting and letting everyone arrive, people where then split up into teams and given a designated area to work on, ensuring that no one was working on their own.
First thoughts, it is harder to use a grabber litter picker thing, than you would think (for me anyways), my fine motor skills are not fine enough to coordinate picking things up AND getting them into a bag. I can definitely see why some prefer using just the gloves. Although when approaching a dead rat, who found the winter just too hard, distance is everything.
One of the first things that you notice, is how little rubbish there was in open areas, which makes sense, as I always see the street scene guys out and about. It was as you wander off the beaten path (or street), where the trouble spots lurk. Hedges and bushes become beacons to those that can't be bothered to find a bin and over the months, they slowly start to heave with it.
As we wandered along our designated streets, we chatted about our own attitudes towards litter and recycling. I don't think many people will admit to littering, but I genuinely can't remember the last time I dropped something on the floor and just left it there? I even feel guilty, if I don't pick up litter, when I am off on a walk.
Who came along?
I didn't get a chance to speak to everyone, as I was coming down with the lurgy! Lots of faces I didn't know, families with their children, which was awesome to see! Along with this lovely lot.
Halton Housing - The lovely Hannah and Debbie from the Halton Housing Customer Engagement Team. These ladies came along, even with zero sleep, after raising money the night before for a brilliant cause (Target Ovarian Cancer).
Unlock Runcorn - During our community little pick the volunteers over at Unlock Runcorn where also hard at work (as they are every week), I definitely have to join them one week!
Halton Community Development - Chris Featherstone is the designated community development officer for our ward (Mersey ward) and has been instrumental in getting things moving, also a dab hand with a litter picker.
Oasis Rehabilitation - A whole gang came from the Oasis centre, which was brilliant to see and worked really hard!
Community Payback - The community payback group tackled a huge area that we wouldn't have been able to tackle on the day, so that was a really positive contribution.
All Saints and Holy Trinity Church - Holy Trinity Church provided a warm and welcome meeting point for the litter pick, with a very welcome coffee/tea at the end!
Halton Waste Matters - A community skip day was planned to coincide with the litter pick, which provides an essential service to those that can't get to local recycling centres themselves, it gives people a real opportunity to get started on cleaning out their gardens etc. They also do a great work with schools, so check out their twitter feed, they are always looking for ways to engage with the local community.
Local Ward Councillors Pauline Sinnott, along with husband Alan, Norman Plumpton Walsh, along with wife Carol. Norman and Carol chose to spend their anniversary picking up rubbish! It is always nice to see them getting involved with community events, I don't think they have missed a single one, between them.
All in all, I think the grand total was over 80 bags of rubbish!
If you would like to get involved with the next community clear up day, then please do get in touch. We are hopeful that it can become a regular thing, making the community a safer, cleaner space to live and work.
Claire