Synod Churches News

Rayleigh United Reformed Church 

On the 2nd October 2016, Christ Church United Reformed Church Rayleigh unveiled a plaque commemorating its having received the Eco Congregation award in recognition of their work to care for the environment and protect the world around us. The church has been working hard to think about and promote these areas in their worship, in the way they look after their buildings, how they work with their local community and through their support for global issues and projects.

Becoming an Eco-Church is a process, and the fist step is not huge, but it is a first step. If you are interested, have a look at the Rayleigh Christ Church website, and see how easy it is to get started. 

Download: Rayleigh URC Article for more Information 

---

Emmanuel Church Bungay Going Green Environmental Project Awards

With the aim of trying to encourage others to follow our lead, we have entered ourselves for a few awards and the heating engineers, R A Browns, have done likewise as we were their first Community based project. 

This year we entered the Eco-church Award which has recently replaced Eco-congregation and not only have we received a Silver but we are the first Church to achieve this level. As the remit of Eco-Church covers Service content and church and individual lifestyle in addition to the buildings, this is the first award which recognises our overall commitment to the issues of Climate change and our responsibilities as stewards of God’s creation. An important aspect of this award for us at Emmanuel is that we have committed ourselves to strive for Gold. RA Browns entered our project for the East of England Energy Efficiency and Retrofit Awards in April 2016 and at a lovely ceremony and lunch at The Hilton Hotel at Stanstead, we won the Community Project Award. Again, we were the only Church represented at these awards.

An award-winning Suffolk congregation has just added Eco Church to its growing list of accolades. Emmanuel Church, Bungay, has snatched the first ever Silver Award in A Rocha UK’s environmental scheme.  On Tuesday 3rd May, the award was presented to Revd Jacquie Evans by Mr Alex Verwater, a long standing member and friend from our Dutch Exchange. This was closely followed by another award, The East of England Energy Efficiency & Retrofit Award in the category of ‘Regional Small Scale Project Of The Year’. R A Brown’s Heating Services earned this award for its innovative work on our project. This second award was presented to Revd Jacquie by Mrs Margaret Shepherd, a founder member of Sustainable Bungay.

Download: ECO Church A Rocha UK's Award Scheme Bungay Report     Download:  Going Green Environmental Project Awards Newsletter

Other Environmental Project Awards

With the aim of trying to encourage others to follow our lead:-

• March 24th 2011 Came second in the Suffolk Greenest County Awards
• March 21st 2012 Came second in the Suffolk Greenest County Awards
• March 28th 2014 Won the Suffolk Greenest County Award - Greenest building category
• November 6th 2014 Second in the EDP Business Awards 2015 H&V National News Awards – RA Browns Won the Retrofit Project of the Year – judges comment was "This project has set the greenest possible standard for others to follow"
• However, this year we entered the Eco-church Award and not only have we received a Silver but we are the first Church to achieve this level