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The The Exhibition of the posters the primary school children of the community produced in support of the campaign opened yesterday evening. It was brilliant.
I had spent all week worrying that nobody would turn-up, despite having sent out approximately 100 invitations. As it was, we had about 80 present, which was just perfect for the size of the venue, and today there has been a steady stream of visitors, and we hope the same will happen tomorrow.
Maureen Watt, MSP, [who also happens to be Minister for Skills & Schools] formally opened the exhibition and gave out the prizes – a winner and two runners-up for each of the six schools. She obviously has a good relationship with the Heads and Teachers in the local schools and, I could see, that they were absolutely thrilled that she had taken the time to come and see the effort their children had put into supporting the campaign.
In her speech Maureen commented on how good it was to see the children participating in environmental projects. She mentioned having recently visited Banchory Primary P2/3 and congratulated them on their success in the Total Total Green Award [mentioned below].
Our Overall Winner was Fergus Upton, Aged 6, from Durris Primary School. Congratulations to Fergus [who, most unfortunately, was ill last night and his prize and certificate will be presented to him at School Assembly on Monday]. His poster is pictured above.
A random selection of some of their P2/3 posters.
This class has just won the Scottish Division of the TOTAL ‘Total Green Award’ for schools as a result of what they have done to support the Banchory bag Campaign, and all the class is going down to London for the judging of the National Winner and a visit to London Zoo [which for children from the North of Scotland may be a 'once in a lifetime' experience. They are all over-the-moon, including their teacher. I believe the school will also receive £1,000 from Total.
Last week they sold another 500 of their own-design cotton bags in Banchory's Somerfield [well done, Somefield, for inviting them to sell bags in the store]. That makes 1,000 bags they have sold.
Go Green Bags were kind enough to mention our campaign here in Banchory on their website http://www.gogreenbags.com/. They have a picture of our Banchory bag on their home page and, if you click on Towns ‘read more’ there are lots more wonderful pictures of our bag. We can’t wait to get them!
Unfortunately, the shipment has been delayed by the unpredictable weather patterns around the world in recent weeks. [Fortunately, however, the factory and all the workers employed in China are all safe.] Go Green have done a super job on the bags and BbC know they are doing their best to get the bags to us just as soon as it is possible.
We now believe the shipment will arrive in the UK on June 7 [the day we are supposed to be having a promotion with Waste Aware Aberdeenshire. We will now use the occasion to hand-out more of our Bookmarks [which have been very popular] and to talk with shoppers and tell them to come to St. Ternan’s Fair where we will hope to be handing-out the bags. It looks like being a very lively event this year.] Of course, the shipment has to clear customs and we have our fingers crossed that the bags will be with us by then – June 14.
Sharon and I spent Saturday afternoon looking through the posters that many of the children of Banchory, Hill of Banchory, Durris, Drumoak, Crathes and Strachan Primary Schools produced. They are brilliant and I will put photos of some of them on the blog over the next few weeks.
Unfortunately, we will not have enough space in Woodend Barn to hang all the posters received and choices had to be made. I hope that all those that we are not able to display in the Barn will be hung in the various schools.
Below is a random selection from Durris School.
This leaflet will be inserted into the Banchory & District Initiative Community Newsletter which will be delivered to every household in Banchory and the surrounding district in the next few weeks.
I would like to thank the Raemoir Garden Centre for their efforts to help the campaign. They are doing a good job. I think we should all re-use the small cardboard trays that they now put plants on. It would be easy to take them with you next time you go to buy a plant…….. just like taking your reusable bags!
As well as the Garden Centre, I also visited both the golf clubs in Banchory. I hadn’t thought of approaching them before, but they are both now thinking about ways in which they can cut down/eliminate completely single-use plastic bags.
I delivered the last of the invitations today to The Ashvale Takeaway and was informed that they were getting their own Go Green bags with THE ASHVALE on one side and DELICIOUS & NUTRITIOUS on the other.
You could have knocked me down with a feather! Well done, The Ashvale!
This gave me the courage to talk with the Manager of the Indian Restaurant, The Derbar, which I had been reluctant to do and, again, I came away walking on air. Although they will not go as far as getting their own reusable bags, the Manager said he would be more than happy to put-up posters all around the restaurant.
That is great, as we have had an amazing response from the primary school children of the area and are being inundated with posters……… all incredibly good and all showing how much of the message the children have absorbed.
I spent Friday going around Banchory handing-out invitations to all the shopkeepers to join us for a glass of wine at our local art centre [Lang Byre at Woodend Barn] on Friday, May 30 to celebrate the opening of an exhibition of posters which the primary school children of the area have designed to support the Banchory bags Campaign.
A local MSP, Maureen Watt, the Minister for Skills and Schools will formally open the exhibition and BbC intends to use the occasion to thank all our sponsors and the traders in the town for their support.
Invitations have also been sent to our local MSP’s, MP and Councillors, all our sponsors, Heads of the various schools in the area and teachers, as well as the prize winners, their parents and siblings.
An Aberdeen Art teacher will be judging the posters and, from those that I have already seen, I think he is going to have a very difficult task indeed.
Members of the BbC team are doing ‘follow-up’ visits to the shops around the town and The Shieling is the latest store to report that they have ceased ordering plastic bags. Well done.
I heard this morning that the Cleaner, Greener, Banchory bags are on the ocean but not due to land in the UK until May 31 and we are not sure, at this stage, where they will do so. It will probably take 4-6 days for them to be cleared by the authorities and then they have to get to Go Green, be sorted, and delivered from St. Andrew’s to Banchory.
It makes our thoughts about commencing to hand them out on our joint promotion day with Waste Aware on June 7 rather unlikely. However, we can still make good use of that day by stopping and talking with people around town and handing-out our bookmarks and, hopefully, the bags will be in Banchory in time to be given away at St. Ternan’s Fair, which looks as if it will be a very exciting event this year.
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