Show Some Climate Love: Grantown’s Green Heart Workshop
Happy Valentines Day! February is a great time of year to come together, get crafting, and to show some ‘climate love’. On 6 February, our Development Officer Alice teamed up with some of our members in Grantown-on-Spey: Sustainable Strathspey, Fiona’s Wholefoods and Refills, Spey Shed and Grantown Remakery to host a fourth annual Green Heart workshop, inspired by the Climate Coalition’s ‘Green Heart’ initiative.
Prepping for the event
February can be a difficult time of year, the nights are still dark, the weather can be dreich, and natural world is still ‘wintering’ before the watershed of Spring. When Pete Grant, from Sustainable Strathspey, approached me to collaborate on their fourth annual Green Heart workshop, I was delighted to be involved.
‘Green Heart’ crafting is a initiative from the Climate Coalition to encourage communities across the UK to ‘Show the Love’ and make, share and wear green hearts in February. The idea is to craft a green heart and then share our stories about our love for nature and the climate and action we’re taking to care for the world around us. Sharing our stories is so powerful, whether it’s with friends and our local communities, or as a political action by sending letters to elected representatives (MPs, MSPs or Cllrs).
Pete and I were keen to invite local collaborators. Fiona from Fiona’s Wholefoods and Refills offered her beautiful cafe space for the workshop and display of the green hearts afterwards. The Spey Shed, our local ‘Men’s Shed’ that’s open to all, were keen to make wooden hearts with volunteers out of scrap wood. The Grantown Remakery, a local social enterprise the repairs and remakes furniture, kindly donated some fabric and offered display of hearts (which is needed as there are just so many!). It’s exciting to collaborate and work with such dynamic and motivated groups!
We shared the event with the local community through local Facebook pages, informing the primary and secondary school, popping a couple of posters up, sending emails and by word-of-mouth.
“Pop down to Fiona's from 3-7pm on Tuesday 6 February 2024 to make your own green heart for the climate. We'll have lots of craft supplies, so you can cut, stick, paint, draw, sew or scribble to your heart's content! There's no pressure and no judgement, just a relaxed environment where we can create, chat and grab a cuppa! If you want to bring along your own crafting projects and materials, or have any scraps of fabric or clean bits of 'rubbish' that would otherwise be recycled, you'd be more than welcome to incorporate them into your design!”
On the day
After setting up, and having the classic anxiety-fuelled conversation before you’re hosting an event; ‘what if nobody turns up?’, folk started coming in. In just 10 minutes the cafe space was full to bursting! There were families with nursery and primary school children, friends, couples and individuals of all ages! The buzz in the room was amazing, and the creativity was astounding! Several folk went upstairs in the community centre to have a go at making one of these beautiful wooden hearts with the Spey Shed. The wood is from old decking, and the larger hearts are made from two pieces of wood, inserted together and tied up - how innovative!
It was an afternoon of lovely conversation, from compliments about creativity and crafting prowess, to general chit-chat, and climate conversation. It was great to see so many engaged people, and to talk about the climate action groups and projects that are ongoing in the area, including Sustainable Strathspey and the other event collaborators, as well as the work we’re doing at the Hub.
Wooden green hearts from the Spey Shed!
People used a whole variety of materials to make their green hearts special! The green crafting kit supplied the basics, and folk brought along cardboard, leaves, pine needles, scraps of material from home to make their hearts unique. The wooden hearts from the Spey Shed were a real highlight.
Hearing people’s love for nature and the world around us was incredibly touching, and I was struck by the huge variety of care and concern from folk. We talked about the amazing Caledonian pinewoods in Strathspey, including the local community-owned Anagach Woods, and what an amazing resource it is for the community, nature, and our collective wellbeing. We talked about growing food and plants, composting and recycling, climate and flooding, and all the incredible species living alongside our community: twinflower, curlew, crested tits, one-flowered wintergreen and more! One of my favourite quote came from one of our wee 4-year-old crafters:
“I really like butterflies. I’m worried for all the butterflies in the wind and the bad weather”
After the event
After making sure all traces of green paint were removed from Fiona’s beautiful cafe space, and all the green hearts were drying, it was time to think about next steps. Through the conversations on the day and the writing on some of the green hearts, it was clear Grantown had a lot to say! Sustainable Strathspey are collecting comments from the local community to compile in a letter to send to elected representatives (MPs, MSPs and Cllrs) along with some of the green hearts. If you have any views on what the community is doing well, what we’d like to see more of, and how our representatives could better support our communities and environment, please get in touch. We’ll be inviting comments until the end of February, so please feel free to send any to sustainablestrathspey@gmail.com.
The green hearts are up on display at Fiona’s, with more to go up in the Grantown Remakery. The display will be up for the rest of February, and if you’d like to add your own heart, please drop it off at Fiona’s and we’ll get it hung up!
Check out this display!
What’s next?
The craft supplies for this event were purchased by Sustainable Strathspey as part of a ‘green crafting kit’ enabling them to run this event and other craft workshops into the future. The opportunities are endless and the ideas are flowing, including hosting another craftivism workshop as part of the Greentown Show, Sustainable Strathspey’s annual green festival held every September. The funding for the green crafting kit came from the Highlands & Islands Climate Hub Community Climate Action Fund, which helps kickstart community-led climate action projects or supports community engagement around climate action.
If you have any ideas for climate action projects or community engagement events, please get in touch with one of our Development Officers in your area!
The Highlands & Islands Climate Hub runs the Highlands & Islands Climate Festival every September, running from 1-30 September in 2024! To find out more about the exciting events in communities across the region, stay in touch by signing up as a member to receive our monthly newsletter.