Keep Wales Tidy & Cilfrew Craft Group Bags of Wales project

Today January 7th 2010 at Cilfrew Community Centre the Keep Wales Tidy Bags of Wales project started. An opportunity has been given to the people of Neath Port Talbot & surrounding areas to provide 2010 bags to Keep Wales Tidy by March 31st 2010. These bags will all be manufactured locally by volunteers and various groups. The bags will all be made out of recycled materials which means the carbon footprint will be minimal. There will be no virgin material used and each bag will be printed with the logo of Keep Wales Tidy. The whole process will be carried out by ordinary people, volunteers from all walks of life and with all manner of capabilities. Should we achieve this then we can achieve more than most people thought possible. Since September 2009 the Cilfrew Resident's Association Craft Group has been making recycled cloth bags which they hand to the local shopkeeper to alleviate the number of plastic carriers being issued. We thought that cloth bags should be issued at source when the need arises and so we started our little village project. It worked and after pumping over 1000 cloth bags into a village of approximately 900 people the number of plastic bags issued dropped from 1000 a month to approximately 50 a month.

At Cilfrew we work with the Young Offenders Team and are amazed at how these young people take to sewing. They can sew a wonderfully straight seam and are not afraid of the sewing machine as many of us appear to be. I think we can learn some bravery from these young people. Tomorrow some of the Craft Group will work an extra day with the Young Offenders as the freezing weather is making it impossible for them to do any outside work.

We have a belief in our craft group that creation of anything is important to us as people. We also speak often about how the need for money surmounts everything when a lot can be made from nothing to give a sense of achievement. We have strived to make gifts for our families and friends over the last few years and to make them to a standard that makes them exceptional and superior to a lot of shop bought products. Our bags are of a very high standard and we hope to achieve our target by March 31st. It is do or die :)

Today we had a meeting with Mark and his colleagues from the National Autistic Society at Neath Abbey and they are eager to come on board with us. The meeting was excellent and gave us as a craft group much hope that we will work together on many projects to benefit many people.

This is my first time of writing a blog for a long, long time. It is good to get discipline back in my life and each day from now until March 31st I shall not rest until I have done my 'quota' of bags. My legs may not work as they should but my mind and my hands will last me a while yet. I look forward to updating this blog and hope that the people who come on board will get out of this project, a project we are so lucky to have been given the opportunity to attempt, as much as I know we at Cilfrew will attain. We shall do wrong on our journey and we shall do right, but with a bit of luck and the help of many people, like us, we shall reach our goal.