What's New?
Throughout our history we have tried to introduce new ideas into our little community whenever we can. We take some pride in having pioneered community-led composting schemes in Aberdeenshire, but we're not going to sit back and rest at that. This page has been added to the website because we intend to keep doing new and innovative things to benefit our environment. Some of our recent ones are shown here.
This page will continue to be used in future to describe more ideas. If you have any suggestions, please let us know!
Summer Mission 2022
Our visitors from Kentucky in action
Saving Trees
In 2021 when building work started on the new site in Johnshaven we discussed saving young trees since Fotheringhams needed to remove a number of mature trees to provide access to the site. They agreed to help and we identified a number of hawthorn and other trees to rescue. Most of these were taken along the coast to Tangleha to help create a new nature area there. here are some pictures.
Tree Planting
We all now recognise the importance of climate change, and the need to do our bit, so various tree-planting initiatives have been underway. Shark volunteers did their bit during March 2020 as shown in the photos:
Improving the Compost Site
The compost site has been in use for 10 years now. We started with wooden bays and turned the compost by hand. Then we got Polly the tractor and used it to turn, but this has got more difficult over time as the amount of compost has increased, so in 2019 we built more permanent bays to allow easier turning. Here are some pictures of the cleared area ready for foundations:
and here's the finished bays:
Helping the Primary School
As some of you may know, the Primary School have been busy over the last year creating their own green areas, and we've been helping them by providing lots of yummy compost. Here are a few photographs:
Delivering Compost
We've supplied quite a lot in 2018, to fill planters around the village as well as at the School, and to Bervie and St Cyrus. Here are some pictures of putting it all together:
A Living Roof
Living roofs are becoming more common as communities recognise the benefits they bring, see livingroofs.org.
We decided to create one for the container we use at the compost site as an illustration of what can be done and to improve the appearance. In 2014 we painted the container and in 2016 we finally managed to add the living roof, which is a wildflower meadow on a roof. More information about Living Roofs can be found on Build Your own Little Green Roof (courtesy of RedRoseForest)
It was an ambition for quite a long time before we finally managed to complete it in October 2016. The method we used was to purchase a "Living Meadow" turf in rolls, use some of our own compost, and make a wooden frame. See the pictures now on the Living Roof page, which we will keep up to date as the flowers grow in future.
Plastic Bag Free
Our hope is to make Johnshaven plastic bag free! Following on from the Scottish Government's introduction of a charge for disposable plastic bags we wanted to build on this by focusing on the damage such bags cause in our environment, so we organised a competition for pupils at the local school to help in the design for a reusable jute bag, which was then distributed free of charge to village households. The bags are still available if you need one!
You can see the results on the Bag For Life page.