LiveSimply Project at St John Fisher RC Parish, Rochester
Our LiveSimply Group
The elements of our project are as follows:
(a) Charity at home (living in solidarity): Supporting Medway Food Bank as a parish (I would need
some input here from other group members who are involved with collecting the donated
goods and transporting them to the collection centre at St Justus Church and those helping to
volunteer at the centre; visiting of Rochester prisoners to be arranged; Weekly care of Parish
grounds including Meditation Garden;
(b) Charity overseas (living in solidarity): Supporting disadvantaged school children in Shisong,
Bamenda, Cameroon at Sr. Annette’s school – donations are sent via motherhouse in Rome and
we have worked a way so that all money donated reaches Sr. Annette; an enquiry before the
end of the summer term for a Shisong school link with St John Fisher RC School to be made; an
enquiry for a school link to be made for Shisong school children with their local green charity
‘Green Care’, just a five minute walk away: I shall be visiting the project in November when I
hope to initiate this link. I have already discussed the possibility of involving the pupils in
reafforesting their water catchment area with Green Care’s project director.
(c) Parish events (living in solidarity): ‘bring and share’ parish lunches held every couple of months
including raffle, free-cycle table, a plant stall and craft tables including pottery items and
religious cards, produced by the Live Simply group, play corner for young children and most
recently a Traidcraft stall. Funds raised from everything except Traidcraft are put in the
Cameroon fund as are coffee and tea money from weekly Sunday coffee mornings. We will
shortly be having a potato weigh-in ‘bring and share’ lunch which has been a new ‘live simply’
idea to raise additional funds. These events are becoming increasingly popular and, together
with the parish walks that we arrange on a regular basis, are helping to knit our parish
community closer together. The parish walks are planned so that easier walks are mixed in with
more challenging ones and are organised so that we use as few cars as possible to get to the
starting point, unless we walk directly from the church up onto the North Downs Way. We
generally focus on the ‘Medway Gap’ countryside area as it is called in conservation circles and
we usually have an annual pilgrimage walk to Aylesford. We either have a picnic or include a
pub-lunch, usually at the end of the walk. We are trying to encourage more families and young
people to take part in these parish events.
(d) Environmental: Link with Gardening Club primary school children of St William of Perth (next to
our Parish – living simply, sustainably and in solidarity): This lunch-time club is a group of 18
children, consisting of 3 girls and 3 boys from each class, ie. Years 4, 5 and 6. They are aged
between 8 and 11 years. They have weekly gardening sessions with a Volunteer Gardener who
owns an allotment in Watts Meadow. I have teamed up with a local Watts Meadow (Council-
owned green-space) resident who is a keen nature photographer, to accompany the gardening
club children on seasonal visits to the Meadow which includes an area of woodland and an area
of scrub and open land, set in a valley. It is a 5 minute walk from the school. The Science
Coordinator for the school usually comes along and we invite the Medway Urban Parks and
Green Spaces Partnership Officer to join us if he is free. Activities have included autumn fruits
and berries, making bird feeders, summer nature trail quizzes and general observation walks.
Last autumn the children had fund making their own school bug-hotel. This activity has been
shared with Galapagos Conservation Trust who are encouraging school children in Ecuador to do
something similar. An article was published in Kent Wildlife Trust’s ‘Wild Kent’ Spring 2015
issue.
(e) Environmental: Litter picks in Watts Meadow (Live simply, sustainably and in solidarity): We
attempt to keep our local green-space of Watts Meadow, as free of litter as possible and liaise
with Medway Urban Parks and Green Spaces, reporting the number of sacks of general and
recycleable rubbish collected and the volunteer hours. We generally work for an hour on a
Saturday morning followed with a coffee break at our chairman’s house overlooking the
meadow. We enjoy a social chat and home-made cake around the kitchen table. I’m thinking
maybe we could take turns in providing a simple cake recipe, made with local/Fairtrade and
organic ingredients wherever possible. It would be a useful exercise and encourage us all to
shop wisely.
(f) Environmental: Living simply (Taking Live Simply Home): A live simply tip is posted in our Parish
newsletter each week eg. ways in which we might try to minimise our carbon footprint or to
ways to help protect and encourage more wildlife to our gardens, how to conserve water and
reduce our consumerist tendencies. Also it might include a Franciscan-style reflection, slowing
ourselves to the pace of life, simply being etc. As we continue our live simply journeys we find
that there is indeed Joy to be found in enough! Simplifying our lives brings a greater awareness
of God’s Providence, that we are, indeed, living purposeful lives and contributing in small but
connected, grace-filled ways to the building of God’s Kingdom, which is everywhere and in
everything if only we had eyes to see. I am hoping that we will study Pope Francis’ encyclical
‘Laudate Si’ together as a group in the months ahead.