Get creative ahead of Great Big Green Week

DO you fancy doing something creative this month? Well there are two opportunities in the run up to Great Big Green Week to get your creative juices flowing.

“Reflections on the River” is the very suitable title for this year’s poetry competition kindly sponsored by Candela Hypnosis.

Your poem can be in any format but no longer than 19 lines. There will be £20 book token prizes for winners of the three age categories, 12 and under, 13 to 20 and those aged 21 and over and a special memorial prize in honour of Dr Richard Fortey.

Poems have to be in by Saturday, May 31 and the winning entries will be read at a poetry reading session at Henley library from 6pm to 7.30pm on Monday, June 9. For more information, visit greenerhenley
.org.uk/great-big-green-week

The other competition also requires pen and paper (hand drawn or digital) but this time it is to design a bug hotel based on an iconic Henley building.

The prize for the overall winner will be to have your design scaled up and built for next year’s pollinators and placed somewhere for all to see.

So, whether it’s Leander Club, St Mary’s Church or the Kenton Theatre (we are spoilt for choice of wonderful buildings in this town), picture it as providing a home to keep our pollinators safe. It could become a tourist attraction in its own right.

We hope to display all your entries at the Bee Friendly Henley stall at Greener Henley’s Big Green Festival on Saturday, June 7. We would love to receive entries from families or clubs. Either hand in your design to the information office in the town hall or email communications@henleytown
council.gov.uk by May 31 with your name (age if under 18) and contact details. Good Luck!

All of us at Greener Henley have been really busy organising various events for Great Big Green Week, which is a national celebration of groups working to improve their environment. It is our way of showing what we have been doing and what we plan to do to make a safer, cleaner and greener Henley.

This year’s events begin on Saturday, June 7 with the Big Green Festival in collaboration with Henley Town Council. We will be taking over Falaise Square in Market Place from 10am to 4pm for a full day of interesting and fun activities for children and adults.

Test your knowledge at our mini environmental science fair with students from Gillotts School’s Eco Club. They will show you some of the activities we did with 120 schoolchildren last November.

Visit the Bee Friendly Stall and find out how to make a bee brick and how to recognise a hairy-footed flower bee when you come across one. If you come dressed as a bee (or all green) we’ll give you a prize and a chance to have an insect painted on your cheek. We will also have lots of bee-friendly plants to give away — so bring a bag.

Find out about the exciting escapades of the Henley Toad Patrol, or best plants to grow for butterflies at the Butterfly Conservation stall.

Take the weight off your feet and have a cuppa in the Swap Shop Café where you can talk to a friendly guide on how to make positive changes to your life.

Other interactive stalls include the Wildlife Trust, with information and volunteers from the nature reserve at Warburg. Clean Air Henley have a great game for children (and agile adults) to play. There will be interesting things to see and do at all the stalls.

Have you joined the Nature Squared campaign? This is a collaboration between Henley in Bloom, the Henley Standard and Greener Henley. Call in at the Greener Henley information stall to see how close we are to getting 500 sq m of plants for pollinators growing in and around Henley. You will be able to pick up a packet of free seeds to grow your own or help yourself to a ready grown “food plant” for insects.

Have a look at our gallery of pollinators — we will provide a helpful guide on plants to grow to provide a rich larder for solitary bees. You will also see what the wildlife working group has done towards nature recovery and protection in the town.

While you are in town on the Saturday, you can pop in to the Prelovd Fair in the town hall where, from 11am to 2pm, you will be able to shop the best of secondhand and vintage fashion. Here is a glimpse of what’s on for the rest of the week:

Sunday, June 8: Henley Rotary Club Plasticblitz — a litter pick down at the river from 10am.

Tuesday, June 10: the Regal Picturehouse will be showing Honeyland, a moving documentary film about a lonely keeper of wild bees in a remote mountain village in Macedonia. This will be followed by a panel discussion and question and answer session.

From 11am to 3.45pm The People’s Commission on the Water Sector: Securing Public Value is a public inquiry at the town hall. This is a free ticketed event.

Wednesday, June 11: From 7pm to 9pm, Professor Chris Merchant, meteorologist and climate scientist from Reading University, will present “In Our Hands: Our Changing Climate, Our River, Our Future”. This talk is followed by a question and answer session.

Thursday, June 12: Greening Your Business workshop, from 5.30pm to 7.30pm in the River & Rowing Museum café.

On the same evening from 7pm there is Flood Question Time: Rising Waters and Resilience at Henley Rugby Club, featuring advice from experts about being prepared for floods.

On Sunday, June 15 there is a paddleboard river clean and join the Big Green Picnic from noon to 2pm in Mill Meadows by the bandstand. For more information,visit greenerhenley
.org.uk/great-big-green-week

l Diana Barnett is the secretary of Greener Henley, a climate action group.