HEART Community Group’s End-of-2021 Newsletter

As 2021 draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on some of the stand-out moments from this year.

It’s certainly been a tough year from the perspective of climate and ecological bad news. Do get in touch if you’d like a summary of the major climate news of 2021.

We’ve had some fabulous conversations with all sorts of interesting people, which you can access on our YouTube channel, including Professor Jem Bendell, Nando Garcia and Kat Soares from the Deep Adaptation Community.

We’ve taken a stand at various events around Hertfordshire, engaging with local groups and residents. Here are some pics from Letchworth Garden Festival, Baldock Eco-Fest and the Sustainable Hertfordshire Eco-Fair.

We’ve hosted monthly two-hour webinars on Community Resilience, Adaptation and Deep Adaptation. We get excellent feedback on these and the next one is happening on 8^th January 2022. Feel free to come along and tell your friends and colleagues too. Email us for an invitation and zoom link.

We also facilitated gatherings for the global Deep Adaptation community on topics such as the 4R’s of Deep Adaptation, and Finding your Thread (“What’s mine to do?”)

We supported 50+ individuals struggling with eco-anxiety or climate grief.

Over the course of 2021, we engaged with Local Authority councillors and sustainability officers from across the county, and we’re pleased to see that Hertfordshire County Council have added Adaptation as a new topic subgroup in the Hertfordshire Climate Change and Sustainability Partnership.

We created a report that responds to local Adaptation and Resilience Strategies which was sent to all Councils across Hertfordshire.  You can read the report here.

Following our report, we were invited to present to Stevenage Borough Council, and we’re looking forward to working with them again in early 2022 – facilitating conversations and workshops for staff and other community leaders.

In November, we hosted a magical 4-day “Edge” Retreat…