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Pinned Support sustainable choices

Kids’ Winter Clothes Swap

Winter is fast approaching, but your children are growing even faster! Before heading to the shops, take part in our clothes swap. Switch your clean, gently used, outgrown clothes for something that fits.

How it works

September 22nd – 29th drop off your clean, gently used children’s (ages 0 – 12) winter clothes to Calne Library.

Sunday 5th October 11am – 2pm come to the Tesco Showroom to find something for your kids to wear. All items will be free.

You may bring items to swap on the day – please make sure they are clean and ready to swap, otherwise we will not be able to share them with others.

You do not need to donate to take an item away, nor do you need to take an item in order to donate!

Please note that we can’t guarantee that you will find something that fits your child – it depends on what is donated! Anything left over will be donated to charity or recycled as appropriate.

If you have any questions or have a large quantity of items to donate, please get in touch with us at contact@sustainablecalne.org.uk

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Walking and cycling

Bike Repair Day

Do you have a bike that needs some repairs or adjustments to get it back on the road? As part of our mission to help people get bikes back into use we have a professional bike repairer available at the Pocket Park this Thursday 21st August 2025.

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Support sustainable choices

Repair Café – save the date!

Sustainable Calne will be running a repair café at Calne Town Hall on Saturday 10th May 2025 from 10:30am to 2:30pm

Let Sustainable Calne help you repair or reuse items, saving money and the planet!

Our event is to help get items that need some repairs back into use. We know not everyone has the machinery, tools or knowledge to do their own repairs so we hope this will help!

Bike Repairs (especially children’s bikes)

Cost: Free, except for the cost of any new cables or if replacement inner tubes are needed

Punctures, gear adjustments and replacement brake or gear cables. Please make sure the bike is fairly clean so we don’t get mud all over the floor!

How to donate and buy second-hand white goods

Cost: Free (PAT testing)

KFR will be at the event and can advise on donating or buying second hand white goods and furniture. They will also be offering free Portable Appliance Tests (PAT) which community groups and others may find useful.

Hand and machine sewing repairs

Cost: Free

The hem on your favourite tee shirt has come undone?
Lost a button from a jacket?
Seam come unsewn or another simple repair needed? Bring them along.

Decorate a plant stake

Cost: Free

Calne Men’s Shed have made wooden decorations which you can paint while you are at the event and use as plant sticks or to decorate your garden. These are made from scrap wood.

Tools for Africa

Do you have some unwanted tools (of all types but not gardening tools) that could be refurbished and sent to Africa? Please check what is needed by visiting the Tools for Self-Reliance website. We can only accept things that are listed.

Plant swap

Bring your spare seedlings.
If you don’t have your own, please take some for a donation. This will go to Oxfam as part of their plant swap fundraising.

Café

Enjoy a cuppa and homemade cake while you’re there. Bring one of our flyers with your contact details on to enter our free raffle for a hamper of eco-goodies.

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Partners

Waking Up to our Ecological Selves

Bremzero will be running a weekend of workshops exploring our responses to the state of the world, and inspiring hope and action.

  • Honour your feelings in response to your own suffering and the suffering in our world
  • Connect with your heart-felt values and gain new perspectives
  • Enjoy the sense of interconnectedness with the group and indeed all life
  • Gain clarity about what you can do, in connection with others, to make positive changes

When: June 6th to 8th 2025

Where: Bremhill Village Hall SN11 9LD (Friday at 19:30)
Ratford Retreat Centre, Calne, Wiltshire SN11 9JX (Saturday and Sunday)

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Champion greener energy use General meetings Meetings Retrofitting

Heat Pumps talk

  • Date: Monday 20th January at 7pm
  • Place: Calne Library
  • Cost: Free (no need to book)
  • Speaker: Bean Beanland

Our first event of the year is a talk about Heat Pumps. Bean Beanland of the Heat Pump Association, who has recently done a series of podcasts with Evan Davis of R4, will join us for a talk and Q & A session.

We plan to follow this up with a talk from a local installer.

We’ve added slides from the talk and other resources about heat pumps, so you can catch up if you missed this excellent talk.

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Enhance our local ecology General meetings Meetings

Avoiding the insect apocalypse

  • Date: Tuesday 15th October at 7pm
  • Place: Calne Library
  • Cost: Free (no need to book)
  • Speaker: Jeremy Percy

You have probably noticed the reduced number of insects this summer. Our environment and food supplies depend on insects to pollinate plants. Come along and find out why this really matters and what we can do to help.

This event is run in association with Friends of the Marden Valley

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General meetings Meetings Support sustainable choices

How Climate Change affects Fairtrade farming

Hear a first hand account from Kenya at this special event in partnership with Calne Fairtrade.

Date: Wednesday 11th September at 7pm
Place: Calne Library

Cost: Free
Speaker: Patrick Kaberia Muthaura a farmer from Kenya.

We often think about Climate Change as affecting the future but many parts of the world are already experiencing the effects. Patrick will tell us about some of the problems farmers are already facing. Please come along to hear our visiting speaker and encourage other interested groups or individuals.

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General meetings Meetings

AGM 2024

Marden House Wednesday 22nd May 2024 7.30pm

Refreshments served from 7.00.

As well as reviewing the year and electing officers we will hear an update from our two members who are doing accredited retrofit training. We have been awarded significant funds to hold events to share this knowledge and would welcome your ideas.

Presentation

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Champion greener energy use General meetings Meetings Retrofitting

Meet Retro Duck!

On Saturday 11th May 2024, Sustainable Calne launched its new Retrofit project by launching Retro Duck at the annual Duck Race, organised by Calne Lions.

We are very excited to have secured funding from the Centre for Sustainable Energy for a new project on retrofitting our homes to make them more energy efficient – good for the planet and good for our pockets. Two of our volunteers have completed accredited training and will be looking for ways to share their knowledge to householders about the starting points for any work you may think would help you.

Sara and Denis will be at our AGM on Wednesday 22nd May 2024 to explain about:

  • what Retrofitting is
  • some key things to think about when starting to make your home more energy efficient
  • some pointers for where grants might be available

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Enhance our local ecology Wildflower Planting

Wild Flower Gardens

On Tuesday 23rd April Paul Jupp from ‘Meadow in My Garden’, will be joining us at Hillcroft Gardens to do some work and plant some additional seeds in the wildflower beds. We’ll be there from 10.00 until 1.00 – if you can help for an hour or so we’d really appreciate it – especially the first couple of hours. If you have a scarifier or rake (not a leaf rake) you could bring that would be great.