Did you know that 10th-18th June was the Great Big Green Week, supported by many organisations including the WI?

Here is how Stradbroke WI have been going green, not only for one week but throughout the year.

Our WI has a village litter picking activity every year.

We have exciting speakers on environmental issues. For example, Rubbish Walks by Jason Alexander in March was about enjoyable rubbish collecting, wildlife cameras and helping kids become involved in being outdoors. Later in the year we will have a talk on Suffolk Recycling.

We visited a local farm which uses biomass, solar panels, and other forms of renewable heating, and later in the year will be visiting Gooderstone Water Gardens and Nature Trail in Norfolk in June. We are looking forward to seeing beauty and diverse flora and fauna.

One of our members led a village team which organised a successful and extensive native tree and wildflower meadow planting project in Stradbroke, as part of the Queens Canopy scheme.

We have ducks in our village and at least one member has had them breeding in her garden.

At least one member of our WI has installed air-source heating at home and a number of members have solar panels on their roofs.

Stradbroke Parish Council declared a climate emergency three years ago and one of our members is in the PC Climate Change Working Party, which received a donation of six swift boxes from Save Our Swifts (Suffolk Wildlife Trust) for our Leisure Centre. A few of our members have swifts under their roof tiles or have boxes–in hope. Some of our members attended a village talk from Aldeburgh’s Amazing Swifts ( on endangered swifts) last year.

We have a leaflet of ideas for WI for environmental enrichment gardening. We distributed a voluntary (anonymous) wildlife gardening survey last month.