Today, the Environment Team at WMCA gathered together people from all the projects that have received funding in this round – and our secretary represented our project.

It was really interesting to hear about the range of environmental projects happening as a result of this funding. Of course people are always setting up brilliant projects, but it is sometimes hard to achieve what really needs doing when you are reliant on the capacity and goodwill of volunteers. Having access to a bit of funding just really unlocks so many more possibilities to push the project further on.

It was really useful to hear about what other people are doing. We hope to be able to visit other groups who are working on similar projects across the West Midlands – to learn from them, share ideas and find out more about what the funding has enabled them to do.

What we weren’t expecting from the day was to be presented with an actual award by Sharon Thompson, Deputy Mayor of the West Midlands. It’s a beautiful object, made using materials recycled by the Reuse Hub (one of the funded projects) in Wolverhampton.

Left-Right: Sharon Thompson at the Awards Ceremony; a photo of our award, sitting in the mini-nature reserve bit of our project; and the information about where the materials were sourced to make the awards.