April 2024 Newsletter
After the huge success of our first Sustainability Fair last year with the support of Charnwood Borough Council, we’ve confirmed the date for this year. This year’s Sustainability Fair will take place on Sunday 29th September in Queen’s Park Loughborough from 10am-3pm. We will have stalls representing a variety of local sustainability and eco groups, including Transition Loughborough, Incredible Edibles, etc. sharing information on their projects, how you can get involved and how you can lower your own carbon footprint, as well as entertainment, workshops and local small businesses selling sustainable products and gifts, like Men & Women in Sheds, Buckingham Bees and Real Refills. More information will be released closer to the time. If you’re interested in a stall at this year’s fair, please fill in the online form.
This year, we’ll also be running an Eco Christmas market on Sunday 3rd November, in Loughborough Market Place from 10am-2pm. This will be an ideal opportunity for people to buy sustainable, locally made gifts and crafts, and we’re also hoping to be able to run one or two sustainable Christmas craft workshops on the day. If you’d like a booking form for the Christmas Fair, please fill in this online form.
For more info on either event, or to get involved, please get in touch here or email info@charnwoodecohub.org.
Volunteer of the month - Jennifer Agu
We’d like to do a shout out to our wonderful volunteer Jennifer Agu, a postgraduate student at Loughborough University who approached us a few months ago offering her support. Along with helping us out with social media and loads of other key behind the scenes tasks, Jen is a Sustainability Ambassador for the University’s Sustainability Team and has just been recognised for her outstanding efforts in that role as well (we honestly don’t know how she fits it all in). Thank you for everything you do for us, Jen! We are always looking for new volunteers, especially if you have expertise in particular areas, but just an extra pair of hands for events and things is welcome too - get in touch to let us know how you could help!
We have some exciting plans in the offing, and we would love to hear what you think about them! We are currently involved in talks with another local charity about an exciting collaboration that will involve setting up a physical Eco Hub in Loughborough, out of which we hope to operate a Tool Library, Makerspace (or Hackspace) and a Scrapstore, as well as offering a space for local eco/sustainability groups to hold meetings and small events or workshops. We would love to hear what you think about our idea, and gather some feedback on how you would use the space, either as an individual or as an organisation. You can fill in our online survey here. Please do share the link widely, as the more feedback we can get the better! If you’re interested in getting involved in this project, please do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you! To learn more about what a Scrapstore is, take a look at this video all about Cardiff Scrapstore.
Charnwood Eco Hub holds networking event for local eco groups
Charnwood Eco Hub recently held a networking event for local groups involved in projects that support sustainability or protect and enhance the local environment. More than 15 groups were in attendance on the day, including Incredible Edible, Transition Loughborough, Loughborough University, Loughborough Climate Action and Barrow Greener Living Group. The event was intended to offer local groups the opportunity to make connections and talk about potential cross over and collaborations. The idea was conceived after last year’s inaugural Sustainability Fair, where the various groups who ran stalls at the event were so overwhelmed with enquiries from the public that they didn’t get the opportunity to chat with each other. We also had a representative from Charnwood Borough Council along,chatting to groups about potential funding opportunities for their activities and projects. If you’re involved with a local eco group and would like to be included on our mailing list to be kept informed of future events, or would like us to share information about your group and events on our website or Facebook page, please get in touch.
Loughborough’s Beacon Bingo Hall listed as asset of community value
Charnwood Eco Hub has successfully applied to Charnwood Borough Council to list the former Beacon Bingo Hall as a community asset. Originally opened as a cinema in 1936 as part of the Odeon cinema chain, the building was subsequently converted to a social club in 1969, after which it became a bingo hall, until its eventual closure in 2021. In order to qualify as a community asset, a building must have been used for community benefit in the recent past. Its listing means that should the owners decide to sell, local community organisations are given the opportunity to put a bid together to buy it. Listing a property doesn’t prevent the sale of the building, nor does it limit the use that it can be put to by the current owners.
The building is also Grade II listed as a building of architectural significance – it is a remarkably well preserved and accomplished example of the 1930s modernist cinema style employed by the Odeon cinema chain, at that time, style leaders in cinema design. The small car park adjacent to the Bing Hall has recently been opened as a pay and display car park, creating valuable additional town centre parking spaces.
A representative of Charnwood Eco Hub, who applied for the building to be listed, said, “The former Beacon Bingo hall is an iconic building. We asked for it to be listed as a community asset so that if the current owners ever decide to sell, the community has an option to put a bid together to offer to buy it on behalf of the town and maintain its use for the social benefit of local residents, which has been its sole purpose up to this point. So many socially historic buildings have been converted into flats or offices, and whilst we’d of course rather see this beautiful building put to any use rather than allowed to fall into disrepair, it would be amazing if it could continue to be a community space. We would love to hear what people’s favourite memories are of the building.” Contact us to share your memories of the Beacon Bingo Hall.
Volunteer with us!
We’re looking for volunteers to join us at the Eco Hub in a wide variety of roles, including customer service, admin, social media & marketing, and tech support, and we’d love to welcome you to the team! For more information on how you can get involved email us for a volunteer application pack!