PICK DEAL CLEAN - Logging Form for Picks

 

PICK DEAL CLEAN has a new logging form to record all the picks people are doing.

It would be great if people could log any picks done since 1st April.

This will tie into the mapping Jamie is doing and give us some stats to use as evidence for discussions with DDC etc.

The link can be used by colleagues who are not on facebook

DOCS.GOOGLE.COM

PICK DEAL CLEAN - 2021 Litter Collection Log

Please use this form to log your individual litter picks. Community or Group picks like the Deal With It Community Beach cleans or the Scouts should only be logged by the organiser of the event. NB. No Personal Data collected.

LINK: https://forms.gle/717ZJQH7LgvVkDPd9

Deal Station Garden - Repairs, Painting and Tidy up sort of Week

The Deal Station Gardeners have been busy this week

Nick and Steve repaired one of the planters on the ramsgate side

And today Sonja, Penny, Charles, Vicky & Steve - painted them all and gave the planters a good tidy. and thx to Chris Mansfield for the Photos

The garden in the planters - which grows fruit and veg and edible flowers - has been going now for 8 years. If you would like to join in the fun please email Sonja at Station@dealwithit.org.uk

A Deal Litter Diary - #21 March 2021 #PICKDEALCLEAN

I have a keen assistant at North Deal Community Park. 

A year 4 pupil who brought her gloves with her after school because she knew her small hands could reach under the slats of the wooden wall at the adventure playground. "There's all kinds of stuff down there!" 

At least the act of stuffing it where only junior pickers can reach means it won't be carried by the wind to join the swamp of plastic waste under the perimeter hedging that needed picking

#DealLitterDiary #PICKDealClean

CleanupCrew@dealwithit.org.uk

Monster Cauliflower Glean 9th March 2021 #Gleaning

Thank you to our Deal With It volunteers - Lucy, Sally, Jill, Judy and Steve - on today's monster Cauliflower Glean.

 
With our colleagues from the Hythe Community Environment Group we collected a wopping 1.4 tons.

 
About 800kgs is going to FareShare Kent and the rest to local food charities in Deal, Dover, Thanet and Shepway.

Big thank again to our host farmers Trevor and Stephen Bradley.

Cauliflower Glean 2nd March 2021 - #WeAreGleaners #Gleaning

Our first field harvest today - some 375 kilos of Cauliflowers gleaned by our volunteers Julie, Jill, Sally, Lucy, Tim & Steve.

Many thanks to Trevor and Stephen Bradley at Boundary Road Farm for their kind donation

Cauliflowers are going to

• Deal Foodbank
• Dover Foodbank
• BECHANGE Aylesham
• Dover Pantry
• Our Kitchen Thanet
• United Families
• Deal Salvation Army
• Sandown Primary School
• Hornbeam Primary School
• Deal Aged Concern
• Talk It Out
• Felix Project (London Fareshare)

So far this year we have collected 1ton of potatoes, 100kgs of Apples and 375kilos of Cauliflowers in 9 gleans.

We will have another cauliflower glean next week - to get involved or if you are involved with a local food charity please contact us at gleaning@dealwithit.org.uk.

Deal With It is the local hub gleaning group and part of the East Kent Gleaning Network which is  supported by the food charity Feedback

A Deal Litter diary - #17 - 5th February 2021

Can I walk to my friend's house WITHOUT litter picking on the way?

Impossible!

It's a collection route I don't ever frequent so I prepare for the worst. 

Halfway to my chums, I have to halt the pick - the bag is so heavy I'm struggling to carry it. 

I am granted permission to empty & photo on my friend's driveway, then I manage to stuff the dirty, smelly mass of muck in the litter bin at the top of Middle Deal Rd. 

Experience tells me most of the load had been blown from bins, for months, & ignored. 

Why can't I turn a blind eye as easily as others apparently do?

A Deal Litter Diary #16 - 26th January 2021

Today, the coldness & rain really do force me to cling to home territory. But no matter - there's still plenty to pick!

It's Tuesday, & there is a suspicious amount of "clean" litter. Recently dropped? By whom? We're in lockdown - there's been hardly anyone around, & the weather's keeping wanderers at home too. I picked these streets no longer than a week ago.... What has happened in the meantime?

I work it out. Can you?


Helen C
#DealLitterDiary
cleanupcrew@dealwithit.org.uk

DEAL HOP FARM: 5th Season Launch in February 2021

Our colleagues in the Deal Hop Farm - Deal's Community Hop Growing Project - is launching its 5th Season at the Beginning of February

The project was started in 2017 and in 2020 had some 265 sites in and around the town (people's back gardens, allotments and community spaces) with about 400 local people involved.

Last year the group harvested an impressive 211 kilos of hops and to date its brewing partners have produced over 65k pints of 14 different beers using its hops 

To kick the season off it has two virtual meetings aimed at new members and those who want to find out a bit more.

Please register at the eventbrite sites for details of the Zoom meetings

DHF Season 5 Launch – Thursday 4^th February 2021 7pm

1DHF Season 5 Launch – Sunday 7th February 2021 3pm

 

Alternatively you can email info@dealhopfarm.org.uk for more information.

A Deal Litter Diary #15 - 17th January 2021

It's been a while since I've been up Golf Road - weeks in fact. Cold, dark, windy rainy days really aren't conducive to the picking of litter!

Experience tells me that there has been some collecting during my absence - I am not picking weeks' worth of waste. Interestingly what I do find is a lot of very light, transparent items which become camouflaged & easily missed. 

A pitfall of this pastime is that you see all. Today's collection is a mucky mass of mainly plastic mess: this photo isn't one to linger on!

Helen C

#DealLitterDiary

CleanupCrew@dealwithit.org.uk

Gleaning News 2021

 

GLEANING NEWS

The 2021 Gleaning Season has officially started – we did our first one this week under the COVID regulations – 240kilos of Potatoes collected.

We are routinely delivering to 20 different local food charity organisations and schools plus contributing to larger amounts going to Felix in London and FairShare in Kent

In 2020, we did 31 Gleans during the year and collected an amazing 10 tons of food.

Nationally ( we are part of the Feedback Gleaning Network ) the total was over 650 tons ! 

Thank you to all our volunteers for making this happen x

COVID & Volunteering

The new lockdown and advice on avoidable contact has meant we have to review our risk assessment for the gleans, especially with the more dangerous period that we are in.

Voluntary work is an exempted reason for leaving your home.

The latest advice from KCC is that all volunteers should be having regular lateral flow test for covid, at least every 14 days.

Some of us are doing these weekly because of other volunteering commitments.

Tests are quick and local at Dover Discovery Centre or Sandwich Guildhall.

You can book a test here

Each glean will have its own cap of volunteers depending on the site, parking arrangements and what the farmer wants to happen.

We will be trying to structure different ‘shifts’ between the groups.

 

GLEAN 21/1/2021

Looks like potatoes and possibly some Kale – If you can make Thursday and have a current Test please let me know

Organisational Changes

As well as being part of the national gleaning network, We work closely with our friends in Hythe (Hythe Environmental Community Group).

Our shared vision is to have independent hubs around Kent who will supply their local organisations as well as combining for larger Gleans when the opportunities arise.

As we grow and co-ordinate with other gleaning hubs, we are setting up an "East Kent Gleaning Group" with its own co-ordinator Charmaine Jacobs who will also be starting up a Folkestone Hub.

The idea of the EKGG is do more gleans on the especially on weekends and try to involve a wider range of farms in Kent

Deal With It and Hythe groups will continue to organise and coordinate weekday gleans. Both groups will maintain independent email lists but will publicise and support EKG gleans

Hopefully all of this will mean more gleans, more produce for local and regional food charities and less food waste.

We are asking all volunteers to register at East Kent Gleaning as well as ourselves- please could you go to JOIN US IN THE FIELDS

If you want to join us or are a local organisation that could do with some of our gleaned produce or a farmer who would host us please email Gleaning@DealWithIt.org.uk

Letter from Friends of Betteshanger 13th January 2021

The Friends of Betteshanger gratefully acknowledge the support of eminent academics in their fight to save the Betteshanger site from development by Quinn Estates.

Sir David Baulcombe, Royal Society Research Professor and Regius Professor of Botany at Cambridge and Michael Crawley, Emeritus Professor of Plant Ecology at Imperial College, London have both submitted objections to the planning application, to Dover District Council.

Sir David says:
"I object strongly to the proposed housing development. This rewilded site is at least of national importance and the development would be an act of ecological vandalism. The Friends of Betteshanger provide a compelling case for complete cessation of this development."

Professor Crawley say:
"The fact is that many of these older brownfield sites are much more valuable in their biodiversiy contribution than the community benefits of new housing. The benefit to the individual developer is clear. But he does not bear the costs of the loss of ecological structure and function. That biodiversity is a genuine community benefit. You must not allow this habitat destruction to go ahead."

We also applaud all the local people who have sent in objections on the grounds of the site's value for wildlife and people. It is obvious that there is a groundswell of opinion now, that during this time of ecological crisis and climate change, sites such as Betteshanger should be left intact for their biodiversity value, for the benefits, both physical and mental that they bring to people, especially at this time of Covid, and for their role in carbon sequestration.

In Dover District Council's new Draft Climate Change Strategy there is a plan for hedge and tree planting projects to improve carbon sequestration and air quality. There is a plan to maintain the existing tree stock, biodiversity and carbon capture rich areas. There is a plan to identify areas suitable for renewable energy, biodiversity and tree enhancement and rewilding. There is a plan for a sustainable pattern of development.

Given these ambitions we see the Betteshanger decision as a watershed moment.
If planning permission is granted then we shall know that the Council's new Climate Change Strategy is so much hot air. However if they refuse we shall know that they are serious in their ambition to tackle both climate change and the ecological crisis.

Best wishes
Sue Sullivan 

(Friends of Betteshanger)

A Deal Litter Diary - #14 6th Jan 2021

 

 It's a sunny afternoon. I venture down  an alley unvisited before on foot - I have, rather naughtily already been through on my bike a week or two earlier. 

What a site I have missed when I pedalled at speed to avoid being caught! But surely, my misdemeanor pales into insignificance compared with this collection, fenced off from the path? There's a primary school nearby: no doubt children use that footpath. 

What kind of message about our environment is this mind-boggling collection giving our young people? 

A Deal Litter Diary - #13 - 2nd January 2021

 

Christmas. A storm. Veolia operatives almost overwhelmed with the stacks of recycling to be collected. 

Upending boxes at dusk, thousands of paper and plastic scraps float and land in the vegetation-clogged gutters of our town. 

The mashup of debris becomes part of the landscape. Do we even notice anymore, as we get our daily exercise, walking the sad streets? 

Where does the environment that we all care about so deeply start and finish? Does it include that mucky gutter? 

Final Glean of 2020

Deal Volunteers

At least 1.5tons of Braeburn apples collected with colleagues from Hythe, Folkestone, Canterbury and Thanet today from a orchard in Elmstone nr Preston. 

Food going to food charities in east kent plus the majority going to the The Felix Project including local charities:

• Deal Foodbank
• Deal Salvation Army
• Deal Aged UK
• Talk It Out
• Emmaus Dover
• Dover Foodbank
• BECHANGE Aylesham

Big Thank you to our gleaning volunteers today - Tim,Sally,Janine,Tom, Jill & Hub, Lucy and Steve.

This our last glean of 2020 - its our 31st ! 

With nearly 10 tons of food collected and distributed locally

If you want to join us in 2021 please join our email list gleaning@dealwithit.org.uk

Xmas Potato Glean 17th Dec 2020

We did our last potato glean of 2020 at Boundary Road Farm today - Many thanks to Trevor Bradley for his continued support and generosity.

Dino Potato

Thanks to our volunteers Tim, Sally and Steve who filled some 20 sacks today - food going to:

• Deal Foodbank
• Deal Salvation Army
• Deal Aged Concern
• Dover Foodbank
• Hornbeam Primary School
• BECHANGE at Aylesham
• Emmaus Dover
• Our Kitchen in Thanet

Our last glean on 2020 will be a apple glean on Saturday .....

A Deal Litter Diary #12 24th November 2020

 

I'm learning a lot about plastic: its versatility, durability, pliability, transparency, lightness - how many more abstract nouns can I apply to this awesome material?!

Aldi's patriotic bag fails to burst as I cram in 100s of bits of litter - over 90% of which are plastic - picked from just some of North Deal's streets last week.

Just as I think it's impossible to squeeze another wafer-thin fragment of film into the Union Jack carrier, I manage to slide the sliver in.

Emptying it is almost an act of artistic beauty: the colours - bright, shiny, twinkly. The sound - crisp, crackly, tinkly. Seasons Greetings. There will be tons more to pick up after the 25th.

Helen C

CleanUpCrew@dealwithit.org.uk

#DealLitterDiary

Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust need your support:

View this email in your browser

Please remember to help us make the Goodwin Sands a Highly Protected Marine Area!


Dear Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust Supporter,

Firstly, we would like to thank all of you who have responded to the Call for Evidence about the proposed Highly Protected Marine Areas. We really appreciate it as every submission shows that people really care about protecting the Goodwin Sands.

Secondly, if you haven't had the chance to do it yet, this is a gentle reminder that you still have time, as the consultation runs until 15th December 2020.

Please see below for tips on what to say and a link to the Call for Evidence. It really doesn't take long to complete!

The Goodwin Sands MCZ is a prime example of how marine protection just isn’t working; the government’s marine licensing authority granted a licence to remove 3 million tonnes of a protected habitat for landfill in Dover because they were advised by Natural England that the fauna would recover within five years.

This action makes a complete mockery of the meaning of the word ‘protection’. Why is a marine protected area even being subjected to an activity from which is has to recover?

The failure of MCZs' to protect sensitive marine areas has been recognised by the government so they are now considering a new initiative – Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs). Within these HPMA’s, commercial activities that damage the seabed, including marine aggregate extraction, or sand mining as we prefer to call it, will be banned.

Five pilot sites have been proposed for designation as HPMAs and the government has issued a a Call for Evidence to give the public an opportunity to express their opinion.

Goodwin Sands MCZ is not included on this list but we feel very strongly that it should be, since none of the proposed sites are under similar threat from sand mining. Not only has the Goodwin Sands been recognised by Defra as containing habitats and species worthy of protection but the sandbanks provide a vital sea defence for the chronically eroding East Kent foreshore.

And of course, the area is a graveyard of over 2,000 naval and merchant ships, their crews and passengers and contains the graves of scores of brave young airmen from the Battle of Britain. That in itself should make it a prime target for protection.

Indifference is tantamount to agreement! We are therefore urging you to please respond to the government’s Call for Evidence with your views before 15th December 2020.


Like us, you may not be able to provide any relevant information about the currently proposed sites. We have used box number 9 at the end of the online form labelled 'Feedback on the Online Survey' to submit our views and recommend you do the same.

Reasons the Goodwin Sands MCZ should become a pilot HPMA include:

• Protected habitats are currently under threat from marine aggregate extraction
• The Sands act as a vital sea defence for the unstable East Kent foreshore
• The area contains the wrecks of a recorded 2,000 ships spanning 700 years or more - probably the largest maritime graveyard in the world - some say 50,000 souls have drowned there
• The area holds the graves of scores of British, American, German and Polish airmen from WWII

Thank you for your invaluable help and support!





Respond to the Government's Call for Evidence before 15th December 2020


Visit the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust website


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You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.

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*goodwinsandstrust@gmail.com*

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A Deal Litter Diary #11

How far does litter travel? 

 

The feather-light packaging that has dramatically reduced costs for manufacturers is swiftly transported considerable distances from the unlidded recycling boxes where it is put out for collection.

A moderate wind speed can transform our streets into an unseasonal snowstorm of wrappers, boxes, blister packs, receipts, scratch cards, transparent film...

But when I find a label from a pack of Indian sandstone in a gutter in Ethelbert Road, that really sets me thinking.

What is the true cost of convenience & desire?

Helen C

CleanupCrew@DealWithit.org.uk

#DealLitterDiary
 

Big Broccoli Glean 2nd December 2020

 

Wednesday's Broccoli Glean yielded approx 564 kilos of Broccoli collected from a farm in Stourmouth - Thats a lot!

Many thanks to our volunteers today: Lucy, Tim, Sarah L, Jill, Sandra, Ian, Mark & Jane, Steve and Sarah G for deliveries. Thanks again to our generous farmer host/donator Trevor Bradley at Boundary Rd Farm.

This week's glean has gone to:

• Deal Foodbank
• Dover Foodbank
• BECHANGE Aylesham
• Dover Big Local (Pantry)
• Deal Salvation Army
• Deal Age UK
• Talk It Out
• United Families
• Sandown Primary School
• Hornbeam Primary School
• Felix  Project London
• and Glean Colleagues in Hythe for their network

This is our 29th Glean of 2020 and we have collected this year nearly 9tons of food for our community

Friends of Betteshanger latest news

 A recent BBC news item (see link below) shows, people are celebrating the unexpected discovery of a rare plant in Norfolk which has not been seen there for over 100 years. The plant is Grass Poly and it is one of the UK's rarest plants. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55104153

It is the same plant that is growing on one of the proposed development platforms at Betteshanger, found by the Kent Plant Recording Group earlier in the summer. Betteshanger is the only known site in Kent where it grows.

Far from celebrating its presence here we are anticipating its destruction if the Quinn Estates development goes ahead, despite untested proposals to 'translocate' it to Betteshanger Park.

This is what Professor Carl Sayer, who found the Grass Poly in Norfolk has said to the Friends of Betteshanger.

"To celebrate the re-occurrence of Grass-Poly at one site and then destroy it at another would seem madness to me and I am in full support of your efforts to protect the site you mention and importantly this important endangered plant."

Will Dover District Council celebrate the presence of Grass Poly at Betteshanger ? Or will they risk its destruction by giving Quinn Estates the go ahead for their development ?

Only time will tell.

Friends of Betteshanger.


Friends of Betteshanger are a group of local people opposing Planning Application 20/00419 by Quinn Estates which proposes to build over 200 houses on the old pit head site at Betteshanger, much of which has been rewilding for many years. It is now a haven for wildlife of all kinds. New members welcome on our private FB page, Friends of Betteshanger.