Trip reports

RSPB Sunday morning event

Sunday, 2 October 2011

The congregation and community of St John's Church, Lothian Road, Edinburgh has been labelled an " Eco-Congregation" for their commitment to promoting a greener environment. Organised around a "Green Ginger Group," various activities try to raise awareness of the necessity for change in our consumer-lifestyles.
George Harris, who heads this group, asked the RSPB Edinburgh Local Group, to hold a stall at a Sunday morning event on 2nd October, to mark the UN designated "Year of the Forests." Nigel and I undertook to go along with our usual array of pin-badges, tombola stall of fluffy-squeaky birds, leaflets galore, banners and membership-seeking literature. Perhaps the biggest challenge was co-ordinating the delivery and unloading of our equipment amid the traffic at this busy junction. Once in the church hall, we were warmly welcomed and fed with coffee and biscuits while we set up shop to the sounds of the morning service nearby. We took a peek at the other stalls; the Woodland Trust, the Forestry Commission, jam-makers, wood-carvers and ethnic jewellery-makers were present. Then we were all shepherded into the church to meet the minister and be introduced to the congregation - a slightly unnerving moment.
However, the encounter seemed to create enough curiosity to bring the choir and the congregation pouring in to see the stalls, for an hour or more of interaction with our wares and conversation with ourselves. We took £3 for pin badges and £11 at the tombola, and hopefully persuaded some RSPB members to think about joining our Group. No new members were claimed on this occasion, but who knows? We may have planted some seeds...... From little acorns, big trees grow.

(Margaret Cook)