With many environmentally conscious people among our membership, we were delighted to be approached by Overton Community to commit to a plastic-free pledge.

In signing the pledge, our Chairman Stan Gibson has promised that Overton Photographic Club will:

1. Work to remove at least three single-use plastic items from our activities.
2. Commit to include our stance on single-use plastic in communications.
3. Raise awareness and support plastic-free initiatives in the community.
   

Achieving our goals

How we will achieve this will be developed over time, but some of the things currently under discussion include the following:

• In normal, non-COVID times, the Club meets at the Overton Recreation Centre on Bridge Street. All our refreshments are served using reusable cups, cutlery and crockery from the kitchen. However, thought will go in to how we move forward with our teabags, biscuits and milk – all of which can come wrapped in single-use plastic.
• Communicating our stance on single-use plastics starts right here with this blog post, which will be shared on our Twitter account, our Facebook Page and in our Facebook Group.
• Raising awareness will start by promoting Club night as Recycle night! Our Club room is only a few paces away from St Mary’s church and their BEAD recycling site, so it will be easy for all of us to pay a quick visit before our meetings start.

Promoting the initiative

One opportunity to promote initiatives in the community came in a recent meeting where Club Members showed ‘Something Completely Different’ – new projects and experiments they may not have shared before.

Club Member Amanda Hepburn shared some of her images and GIFs made for The Party Kit Network. The Party Kit Network – founded and run by Hampshire’s own Isabel Mack – promotes the hiring of reusable party kits to prevent thousands of paper and plastic plates, spoons, tablecloths, decorations and more from entering landfill. 

To date, there are no party kits for hire in the Overton area, the closest to us being in Whitchurch and North Waltham. Perhaps someone reading this might like to fly the flag for reusable partyware in Overton by starting a kit! Find out how to get involved by running your own kit for hire, or find one to hire for your next party.