Every two years, the Chesham Bois parish council holds a summer fete on the Common along North Road. This is a very popular occasion, featuring music, entertainment and a wide assortment of stalls, selling food, drink and local crafts. Many local organisations are also represented. The fete has enough to occupy residents and visitors to Chesham Bois for a summer afternoon in a lovely location.
The 2020 Village Fete was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic so the Council is delighted to be holding the long awaited 2022 Fete on Saturday 11th June. Artisan stalls, refreshments, local school photo competition, live music and lots more!
This year the Sustainable Amersham Plastic Free team has partnered with the council to make the event more sustainable.
We have worked with the various retailers to create guidelines to produce less waste and our stall provided guidance on how to recycle the various items present, including various collection points.
This initiative was a success with the attendees of the event being really participative and the
Even if the event required a fair number of volunteer manpower it was a success fulfilling our objective to leave the fete’s location clean and collecting most recyclable items, taking them away for recycling and saving them from going to landfill.
This is the beginning of a local collaboration with the council to make our events more sustainable
COLLECTION OVERVIEW:
Biodegradable/ Compostable vegware:
Brown cups 43
Large glasses 134
Small glasses 92
Bowls 8
Coffee cups
(Kingdom coffee) 35
Other coffee cups 42
plastic/paper mix – retuned to Costa for recycling
Cardboard
2 full kerbside boxes
Soft plastic
1 large purple rubbish bag – taken to Tesco
Glass/metal/plastic
I blue wheelie kerbside bin full
Waste for incineration:
3 purple rubbish bags full
Lastly the “Show your COLOURS” campaign asked our neighbours to bring in their own reusable picnic ware to reduce the plastic waste at the end of the event, and we saw some of our residents carrying their own glasses and plates.
Chesham Bois Fete Event Update:
After over two years, the Chesham Bois Parish Council returned with their long awaited Summer 2022 fete. The fete was held on the 11th of June, on the Common along North Road. It featured music, entertainment and a wide variety of stalls: food and drink shops, arts and crafts, and local organisations. This year, the council took a green turn to the festivities by partnering with Sustainable Amersham Plastic Free Team with the goal to make the fete more eco-friendly. The collaborative efforts were to ensure as little single-use plastic as possible was used on the day and to minimise rubbish through recycling at all possible opportunities.
The organisers encouraged attendees to bring their own reusable picnic-ware and cups, and even decorated the event with more sustainable alternatives, for example avoiding single use decorations and balloons. Similarly, members of Sustainable Amersham worked at the recycling stall where they helped everyone separate their waste. There were clearly labelled bins which segregated food waste, glass, metal, plastic, cardboard and biodegradable veg-ware and waste for incineration. Soft plastics were taken to Tesco in Old Amersham and used cups to Costa on the High Street in Amersham. Aside from these efforts, there were also stalls which informed the fete attendees about Terracycle, a recycling platform which collects difficult to recycle consumer waste, who were fundraising for the charity Medic to Medic.
Overall, the fete was well attended by people who were highly engaged and supportive of these renewed, green efforts. The sunny day and the lively atmosphere made for an enjoyable afternoon for all. As organisers, the success of this event demonstrated that people really were interested in creating a positive change for the sake of our planet. This has encouraged us to host and collaborate with local events more and we plan on having a stall for Heritage Day in Old Amersham. The centre will be open throughout the festivities, from 11:30 to 5 and we are looking forward to helping out and seeing the contributions from attendees.