Lots of events coming up, put the dates in your diary and hopefully see you there! Everyone welcome.

Wednesday 21 May: Foraging etc

SOW meeting (note NOT the last Wednesday in the month), 7:30pm at the church hall

In search of wild food and other useful stuff. Come and find out another side to the “weeds” and wild plants around us.

Wednesday 25th June: Tool and knife sharpening workshop

7:30pm at Oakington church hall

Learn how to sharpen knives and garden tools from Nikki, our expert from the Repair Cafe! Extend the life and effectiveness of your tools. SOW will be buying some sharpening tools for community use going forward.

Wednesday 30th July: Hedgehogs!

7:30pm at Oakington church hall

We have a speaker from Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital coming to tell us about their work and all about these engaging animals which seem to be making a comeback in Oakington & Westwick.

If you’ve been lucky enough to see a hedgehog please log it on the Big Hedgehog Map!

There will be a few small items of merchandise connected to the hedgehog hospital available to buy to support the hospital, such as keyrings and notebooks, so please bring a little cash.

Saturday 21st June: Pollination Festival

9am-4pm, Oakington Garden Centre

SOW/EAG will have a stall – come and find out more about the APollOW project and how help pollinators by doing a pollinator count.

Saturday 28th June: Village Day

12:30pm onwards, Recreation Ground, Oakington

If you missed the stall at the Pollination Festival, a second chance here – plus how to recycle everything!

Sustainable Rampton Open Gardens & Wild flower event

Sunday 18th May, 2pm, Rampton Village Hall. Another chance to find out how to help pollinators. Be inspired by wildlife-friendly gardens. More details here.

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Grey Box Recycling

Following the talk at SOW earlier this year, we have set up as a trial scheme a grey recycling box in the village shop. At the moment we are just collecting marigold rubber gloves but hope to extend the range of hard-to-recycle items we could collect in the village. If you use marigold gloves, please take them (clean) to the box when they get holey! More details here.

Tool Share – volunteers needed

Oakington & Westwick have a tool share, kept at Crossways on the crossroads. It’s a really environmentally friendly idea, saving resources (and money) – but it needs a little TLC to help it realise its potential. If we could get it a bit better organised it would be better used, and if it was better used we might be able to get some funding. It would be fantastic if someone – or a couple of someones – would be willing to volunteer as tool share champions, spending a little time (perhaps even one-off) starting this virtuous circle! Please get in touch if you might be interested to know more.