Our First Year


Setting firm foundations

In the Trust's first year the Trustees have been busy laying the foundations for the future. Our aim was always to start in a measured way, which ensures that we can set, meet and then raise our expectations in a controlled manner. To date we have received overwhelming support and positive feedback about our work and we would like to continue in this vein as we expand our activities in the years to come. We concentrated on setting up what we hope will become annual events.

  • First Green Day: We encouraged schools and businesses to dress in green, walk, cycle or take the bus to work. Despite the competition of England playing Brazil in the World Cup (not the best day to ask people to wear green!) this was an amazingly successful day.
  • Second Annual Ball: Last year's theme, Venetian Masquerade, proved as popular as ever. On the evening we presented Clare Paisley with an award to acknowledge the incredible work and dedication she showed to the Funky Junk project (see next column).
  • Inaugural Environmental Lecture: We were delighted that Tim Smit, Co-founder and Director of the Eden Project, Cornwall agreed to give the first lecture on 30th January 2003

Projects supported include:

  • Tree-planting at Belcroute headland.
  • 'Funky Junk' (supported by Deutsche Bank) addressing environmental issues through art with Clare Paisley. We were very proud to be part of this £12k project. Clare reached almost 1,500 primary school children across five of the Channel Islands, giving talks about global and local environmental issues. She then honed in on waste and recycling. The children were encouraged to think about the waste they produced in the home and what they could reduce, re-use and recycle. They used the rubbish they brought in from home to make rainforest or local animals, using traditional craft techniques, i.e. no glue or sellotape. You can see the results of this incredible project on line at www.awonderfulworld.org.uk
  • Summer roost boxes for the Natterer's Bat, a rare species of bat in Jersey.
  • Information leaflet and film about the Island's amazing south-east coast. Gerard pioneered the process to designate this area as a wetland of international importance, under the United Nations' Ramsar Convention.
  • We are in the process of considering a number of other applications and are always looking for more initiatives. As the time of all of the Trustees is given voluntarily, every penny of the money we raise goes to local environmental projects.
Our First Year
 

© 2003 Copyright Gerard Le Claire Environmental Trust