Newhaven Green Centre

The Newhaven Green Centre is a new organisation in Newhaven, East Sussex. We run pop-up stalls at local community events offering information and advice about recycling and reuse, collecting some difficult to recycle items, and running a 'Sharing Shop' to help people share any unwanted ‘waste’ items.

We are also in the process of setting up a sharing library, to lend items that we all need sometimes but don’t need all the time: things like tents, tea urns, extra plates & cutlery for family parties, travel cots for visitors with children. Library members will be able to borrow items on short-term loans, just like you can with books from a town library, so you don't need to buy new things (which costs you money & uses lots of resources) & find storage space at home (which fills up your living space).

By sharing what we have and being clever with our waste, we can greatly reduce the amount we need to buy or throw away. That way, we can all reduce our environmental impact while also saving money.

WHAT IS THIS CROWDFUNDER CAMPAIGN ALL ABOUT?

We want to have a shop premises in Newhaven town centre as a home for our activities. Having our own permanent space would allow us to do so much more than we do now, and would help us to reach many more people.

Once the shop opens, we will be working towards opening the sharing library as soon as possible, gathering items for our lending stock, setting up our library systems and publicising it to potential members

And from the very beginning the premises will house:

• A ‘Sharing Shop’: an area where visitors can leave any unwanted items for other people to collect. We encourage visitors to donate saleable items to local charity shops, but we’ll take anything else, from books with torn covers to half-finished bottles of shampoo.
• Information about recycling: what can and can’t go in the council-run kerbside recycling schemes, how to recycle other items
• Collection of some difficult-to-recycle items: we’ll collect hard plastics, corks, rags and some other items for recycling.
• A list of local people & organsations who can use 'waste': even better than recycling your waste, give it to someone who can reuse it - food scraps can go to community composting, jam jars to arts & crafts groups, mobile phones can be donated to developing world projects. We'll try to match up your 'waste' with someone else's 'raw materials'.
• A library of environmental books: a collection of books on environmental subjects, from solar energy to compost toilets, all available to read on-site.
• Information on household grants: we’ll maintain a database of grants available to householders for environmental purposes, ie the Renewable Heat Incentive for installing heat pumps.

And after we've got going, we will use the space to:

• Run skills-sharing workshops: learn from the experts how to saw in a straight line, use open source software on your computer, or other skills offered by members of our local community
• Run a repair café: an informal setting where you can bring your broken toaster, torn shirt or other rescue-able things and see if our resident experts can help you to fix it.

WHAT DO WE NEED TO MAKE IT HAPPEN?

This campaign will help us to cover the costs of rent and insurance for 6 months – approximately £6,000. This will allow us to get set up and open our doors to the public, start sharing information, and give us the opportunity to get the sharing library up and running.

We are already in touch with some town-centre property owners, and are confident that we will be able to secure a suitable premises quickly after getting funding.

WHAT MORE CAN WE DO? OUR STRETCH TARGET

Our stretch target is a simple one - if we can raise another £4000, we will be able to afford rent and insurance for another six months! So please pledge what you can, and it will secure our premises for longer.

PROJECTS THAT MATTER

We’re grateful to have been included in the Projects That Matter scheme. This means that East Sussex County Council will match donations made to this project, so long as we receive at least 30 pledges in the first week of the campaign, and they total at least £1000.

This is a wonderful opportunity to raise significantly more money for the Green Centre, so please pledge what you can, and please pledge soon!

Details can be found here:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/projects-that-matter-east-sussex

WHO RUNS THE NEWHAVEN GREEN CENTRE?

Newhaven Green Centre was started by Adam Bushell, Rachel Fryer & Hannah Reynolds, who have since been joined by Paul Keene and Becca Tann. All of us are residents of Newhaven, and passionate about helping our local community as well as reducing our impact on the environment.

As well as this group of core trustees, we have an ever expanding team of friends and volunteers.