Successful Histon & Impington Green Spaces Members’ afternoon

HIGS held its first AGM at the Saint Andrew’s Centre in Histon on 16th March 2024. It used this as the cornerstone of a successful Members’ Afternoon themed “Connecting with Nature”, at which it explored people’s experiences of nature within the community and their ambitions for it. A gallery of photos taken on the day is shown below.

HIGS has become a member-based charity and the AGM was the first opportunity for its Members to come together formally, to put questions to the Board and to elect new Trustees. Katharine Holliday chaired the meeting as Rob Bensted-Smith, our chair, was travelling for work. Rob has retired from the Board and Katharine thanked him for the contribution which he has made during his two years in the role. A new Chair will be elected at the next HIGS Board meeting.

The charity may have up to ten Trustees and four new Trustees were elected by the Members bringing the current total to nine. The new Trustees are Nick Bailey, Dave Dives, Ian Ellis and David Parkin. Jon Pavey was re-elected as a Trustee. There’s more information about all the Trustees here.

The Connecting with Nature workshop enabled everyone to share their knowledge about what is special about the flora and fauna of Histon & Impington (and the surrounding countryside) and to use this knowledge to help inform future action in the villages to support the diversity, quality and quantity of local wildlife and access to Nature within the two parishes.

There were four themes:

• Nature in and next to water

• Nature with wings

• Nature living on the ground

• Nature rooted in the ground

Expert facilitators were on hand to help people to articulate their opinions. At the end all the input was recorded and will be used to develop a report and a programme of response. The outputs will not just be used by HIGS but also by the Parish Council which has committed resources ‘to identify and catalogue the biodiversity within the community’ and to develop proposals to enrich it.

About 60 people engaged in Connecting with Nature sustained by refreshments including the yummy cakes that characterise HIGS events!

Connecting with Nature as a theme will continue across HIGS events and activities during the summer. It is also the theme for this year’s photo competition. It is intended that a final report be issued during autumn 2024.

Katharine reflected on the afternoon: “I really enjoyed the event and felt the enthusiasm which people brought to it. Lots of information was shared and some very interesting ideas emerged. It’s given us, and the Parish Council, a splendid platform for future activities to enhance biodiversity and to improve everyone’s understanding of and access to nature”.