Christmas Carols, Parties, Meals and Meetings

It has reached that time of year where everything seems to come with a Christmas theme, this evening is full of excitement as Kat will be singing in the Carol Concert at the beautiful Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul in the Old Royal Naval College, Queen Mary building. Also this evening we have the Facilities Management Christmas party, so we can celebrate listening to Kat’s singing with a glass of mulled wine later on.

The Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul at Greenwich

Tuesday was the London Universities Environmental Group (LUEG) Christmas special with workshops on Green IT and Environmental Legal Registers and a big get together with London based People & Planet members to work together on our preparations for Green Week. Green Week is set for February 7th – 14th and has a love theme as a result of coinciding with Valentine’s Day and the strap line ‘Love your Future, Love your Planet’ will be the message spread across the country by the various People & Planet groups.

Without a People & Planet group here at the University of Greenwich the Sustainability Team has decided to take up the reigns and organise some events for Green Week in February. Our Sustainability Champions have been set the task of getting their department to contribute and our champions are currently working away on their ideas for February. If you would like to get involved please email the Sustainability Team and we will help you run an event for it. If you want to find out more about Green Week and People & Planet have a look at their website. http://peopleandplanet.org/gogreenweek/go-green-week-2011

This week has also seen the launch of Walking Works at the University and three lunchtime walks this week, Iain has had great success with his two walks at Avery Hill, marching through the snow and taking in the fresh air. At Greenwich on Wednesday we managed to scale the hill up to the observatory and look at the breathtaking views of London, meet our bees in the Mausoleum and learn some fascinating nuggets of information from our resident expert Alison Lawrence. These walks of course all contributed to our efforts towards the walking challenge, and I can reveal as of 11:30am December 10th I have worked off the equivalent of 2.65 mince pies this week! The University’s partnership with Walking Works is for the following 12 months so expect to see a lot more walking taking place over the campus throughout 2011. To register and work out your mince pies earned through walking go to: http://www.gre.ac.uk/offices/fm/transport/walking-works

Sunset and Snow at Avery Hill

Walkers at Greenwich

Yesterday saw a meeting between Sodexo, SUUG, ABM and the Sustainability Team to draw up plans for Fairtrade Fortnight at the University. ABM as usual were full of bright ideas for the fortnight and still enjoying the wave of success from receiving all those awards at the Good Food on the Public Plate awards last week. Keep an ear to the ground and eye out for more Fairtrade promotion during 2011 and the Fairtrade Fortnight from February 28th – March 13th. Fairtrade Fortnight 2011