Churches Together Celebrate Christmas with local traders.

They describe themselves on their Facebook page as:

We are a group of Christian churches that seek to promote Christian unity and reach out with the message of God's love for all in the local community.

Here's a rather special message to us all.

Joan Rimmer local historian of Formby

Local author and life-time resident of Formby Joan Rimmer recalls some of her memories of life in Formby from just before WW II to the sixties.

Her books on Formby are highly valued and praised by everyone, she is a skilled chronicler and she rightly deserves this spot in the limelight. And on a personal note, she is one of the nicest people I know in Formby and an important local champions for all things good about Formby.

This video is the latest in a series entitled 'Sefton Lost Voices' and is well worth looking for on the Sefton Council web pages.

There's a time in the year when you look out of the window.

And the world seems poorer somehow. Trees shed their leaves, and we feel a strong sense of loss, perhaps even grief. Something in our life appears to have died.

This annual reminder of the inevitable passage of time is a sobering reminder to many of us; the older one gets, the more you recognise your own mortality.

But I find consolation in this fascinating story about the life cycle of trees. The more trees we plant as individuals or replace others like the prematurely ageing Horse Chestnut trees in the village, due sadly to disease, the more I feel I belong to a constantly creative process.

All of us must take care of our shared earth during our opportunity to contribute to an act of creation unfolding here and now. 

In part two of this video series, Paul from Plantlife and our Ancients of the Future project, takes you step-by-step through our ageing process work and the benefits of fungi on best practice for woodland cross-taxa management. In this video, you'll learn about the Ancients of the Future project work happening on the ground. Find out more about the project here: https://naturebftb.co.uk/the-projects...

The Back from the Brink Project has published their latest story of restoring biodiversity in our local Dunes.

And they write:

What is the habitat of Gems in the Dunes?

Sand dunes are wonderful places, but they are very fragile. The dunes of the Sefton Coast, stretching from Southport to Seaforth, form the largest undeveloped dune system in England. They are home to some real gems, including one of our rarest reptiles, the colourful Sand Lizard, and the scarce Natterjack, a charming little toad. There are also many other special plants and invertebrates, all depending on the dunes.

Why is this habitat at risk?

Sand dune systems are extremely vulnerable to a number of pressures. These include urban development, overgrowth of vegetation and frequent human disturbance. Unfortunately, many of the species that live in the dunes need very specific conditions to exist. All of this means that a significant number of species face extinction here if the dunes are lost to them.

How we’ll save Sefton's threatened wildlife

This Back from the Brink project, led by the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust, is determined to ensure a safe future for these creatures and plants. We will work with key partners and landowners along the Sefton Coast, to carry out various habitat management tasks. These should directly improve the quality of the habitat for Natterjacks, Sand Lizards, the impressive Northern Dune Tiger Beetle and many others.

Vital to all of this is helping the public to recognise the importance and vulnerability of the dunes. We will offer a range of activities to get them interested and involved, including monitoring, habitat management, walks, talks and a whole host more!

What we’re aiming for

By the end of the Project, we aim to ensure that people will have become as involved and passionate about the sand dunes of Sefton and the gems that live there, as we are. In this way, we hope to secure their future for future generations.

How to get involved

Can you help us by getting involved with surveys, or with management for the gems in the dunes? Find out more at our talks, walks and events.

You can get the latest news, and find out about upcoming events, by following the links below.

Project Officer
fiona.sunners@arc-trust.org
01704 571575

You maybe wondering, what on earth is 'Twicket'.

According to Wikipedia it's:

Twicket (a portmanteau of Twitter and Cricket) was a village cricket match, streamed world-wide on the Internet on Easter Monday, 25 April 2011, with the intention of highlighting the need for high-capacity upstream broadband to enable community content provision. 

This innovative exercise—claimed to be a world first—caught media attention, making BBC television news, BBC Radio London,TalkSport,Radio New Zealand and being written about by The Guardian,The Observer and Metro and mentioned on Twitter by Stephen Fry, the BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones and Jonathan Agnew (BBC cricket correspondent)

Source: Wikipedia

So you might be asking,  why am I making such a fuss about it. The answer is simple, it's by way of a tribute to John Popham, who sadly passed away a few days ago. In common with a huge number of admirers, to judge by the numbers of his Twitter account, he was greatly admired. His 'Twicket' project was his idea to show us all about how local communities could be connected to the Internet. Here's how our local  BBC covered the story. Do watch its only a short news item, but shows us all how John was such an imaginative and innovative man.

In John's own words;

What have you done this week that has made life better for someone? #fridayreflection