Firstport

Community composting. Requested DBZ 10.07.03

Kippen Environment Centre was started by June Waley in 1989 as a small-scale nature club. A year later it was beginning to be a proper environment centre, with its own room in a local community building, and required full-time voluntary effort from June. The same year, the project won several national awards, which gave the project considerable publicity and some cash. The Centre has grown a great deal since then, and now employs June full-time, plus six other part-time staff. The Centre is involved in a wide range of community and formal educational initiatives including advice on making school grounds richer environmentally, educationally and socially, especially by converting grass and tarmac into more stimulating environments for pupils and wildlife. The Centre has worked with about 50 schools in the Stirling area, and has now merged their activities with the Scotland-wide Grounds for Learning organisation. The Centre is also involved in a whole range of other activities. It is running family events to encourage understanding of biodiversity. It works with church communities to make the churches and their grounds more environmentally friendly - four churches are already involved in activities including investigating reducing energy use and influencing the personal behaviour of those who attend church and use church halls. The Centre set up a community composting project, now managed by the council, to deal with the villagers' 'green' waste and provide compost and mulch in return. And it offers a unique environmental education resource centre with books, videos, puppets and equipment (such as nets and microscopes) aimed mainly at pre-school and primary-school age children.

1. Reading Rooms
2. Main Stret
3. Kippen
4. FK8 3DN

• Tel: 01786 870 247
• Fax: 01786 870 247

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