Eco Committee Meeting Fri 5/3/10
Present: Mrs Quaile, Mrs Dowsland, Mrs Evans (minutes), Sophie Barber,
Lachlan McMillan, Reece Auld, Zakk Orr, Ben McKenzie, Hayley Rankin, Jacob
Ayre, Aoife O’Donnell, Max Wengel, Kyle Finnigan, Sam Mercer, Niamh
Breslin, Nicole Harkins, Ashley Kee, Jessica Ayre, Calum McMillan, Jodi
Keys
Mrs Quaile opened the meeting by chatting about the children’s
paintings, she said they were all beautiful but most of them didn’t have
a name on them and over half of the paper had not been used, only a small
painting in the corner. Mrs Quaile explained that made her sad as it was a
waste of paper. She asked the children where paper comes from and Niamh
Breslin shouted ‘Trees’, Mrs Quaile said that is correct and the more
paper we use then the more trees that will have to be cut down. So the
children will make sure they use all of the paper they have and both sides
and they will remind the other children too.
Mrs Carrey came into the meeting then to show the children that
unfortunately some children are not putting paper towels in the bin, but
are putting them into the recycling bin where the fruit goes. This is not
following our ECO code and we must take more care when finishing snack and
tidying up after ourselves.
Mrs Quaile then went on to say that she had some very sad news to tell
the children, our worms that we have had for 7 years have died. We had
moved them into our shed and fed them and wrapped them in special paper
but unfortunately with the very cold weather and snow, it had just been
too cold for them. (-10 and 30cm of snow)
Kyle Finnigan’s Dad, very kindly buried them in the nursery garden
for us and has sterilised the wormery for future use.
Both Mrs Quaile and Mrs Dowsland then went on to chat about plastic
bags. They asked the children if they knew where they came form and if
they used them. Most children knew that they came from the shops and that
after using them they went in the bin. Mrs Quaile told the children that
last year, a cygnet in the local dam had died because someone had thrown
the plastic bag away and the cygnet got its head caught in it. The
children all agreed that this was wrong and very sad. Mrs Quaile also
spoke about how plastic bags take such a long time to biodegrade and take
up so much space in landfill.
We then went on to discuss what Mums and Dads could use at the shops
instead of plastic bags, Mrs Quaile had a big cardboard box with her and
asked if the children thought that would help. Some said yes but most said
it was too big and Mrs Quaile agreed and said she didn’t think it would
fit into the boot of her little car.
Mrs Dowsland then told the children that she has a few special bags
that she uses just for her shopping and she brought them to show the
children. She had woven re-usable bags from Tesco and she also had a
re-usable one that had a photo of her dogs on it. She asked the children
if they liked them and they all agreed they did. Everyone had a discussion
about how much better the re-usable bags are-much better than plastic
bags. The children especially liked the bag Mrs Dowsland had with the
photo of the dogs. The children asked how this was made. Mrs Quaile talked
about how they were made at the printers. Ashley said she would like a bag
the same but she would like a flower on hers. Niamh and Dominic wanted a
house on theirs. We talked about how we could do this and it was decided
that we would look into purchasing plain cotton bags which each child
could then paint with their own design. We could sell these to parents as
part of our enterprise initiative.
Mrs Dowsland then reminded the children that last year we had an
enterprise day, where we made some things and sold them to our family and
friends. She suggested this year we decorate our bags and have a sale day
then all our family and friends will be able to buy the beautiful bags and
will also be able to stop using so many plastic bags for their shopping.
We will also donate some of the money raised to charity again, the same as
we did last year. All the children think this is a great idea and are
looking forward to decorating their bags.
The meeting finished with everyone singing the ECO song.
Date of next meeting is 11th of March
