Welcome to Sandgate Environmental Action, which is a bit of a mouthful, but you’ve got to love a good acronym and as Sandgate is a seaside village on the Kent Coast (between Hythe and Folkestone) SEA seemed a good as one as any.

I’m Gemma and I’m a ‘member’ of SEA and I’ve been tasked with writing the first blog for our brand new, shiny, squeaky clean website but other members will be adding their bit. I use the word ‘member’ loosely as SEA is a community action and support group which evolved from the Sandgate Society’s sustainability working party. It’s not a membership thing so people can join in with what they want, when they want and we are always open to new ideas and projects as well as supporting all the good stuff that is going on all around us.

We generally meet on the last Thursday of every month at 7pm, in the Reading Room above the Old Fire Station on Sandgate High Street. I say generally as occasionally it changes so always good to double check first.  Sometimes we have speakers and other months we share ideas; discuss things we’ve seen or heard and raise questions and problems to solve. Discussions can be robust and people don’t have to agree but we keep it friendly, positive, objective and very importantly non-judgmental plus there’s always cake (we’re very lucky in that we have some exceptionally good bakers in the group).

One of the good things about the meetings is finding out about all the different and great things going on. Personally one of the reasons I love finding out about what other people are doing  is that it works  as a good positivity top up when my reserves are drained . An antidote to the  gloom apathy (or just apathy); the ‘what’s the point’; the  ‘what I do won’t make any difference’  and ‘why bother’  that unless you live in a fairy garden  where the lawn is grazed by unicorns and the babbling stream is crystal clear and safe to drink, we all hear  on a far too regular basis.  One of the reasons we decided  to have a website was so could create  an easy access resource bank for all things sustainable/green/eco/environmental locally plus links to national projects. Things that people can get involved in, learn from or just simply cheer themselves up by thinking just how many people care and are taking action that is making a difference.