Care for Our Common Home

St Teresa’s Estate Update – April 2026:

I know the actual day was in May, but this was the April event. As always, a fair amount was achieved: During the initial estate inspection, it was noted a tree had fallen across the woodland path in the Orchard. This took a priority, sawing and clearing the area. Also in the Orchard, the vegetable bed was cleared of bind weed – the potatoes are making an appearance. A little time was spent cultivating St Teresa’s compost – yes! we have our own compost produced from years of vegetation. Finnegan’s Corner got some T.L.C. with the removal of some significant weeds and some of the bushes got a prune. The feature Wheelbarrow was filled with St T’s excellent compost and strawberries were planted.

The next St Teresa’s Volunteer Day will be on Saturday 30th May from 10am to around midday. Please bring your own tools.

From the newsletter:

Care for our Common Home:

The Big Green Week and the Festival of Nature both start on Saturday 6 June so look out for a wonderful selection of activities for enjoyment, learning and ideas for keeping climate change in check and caring for our Common Home. Festival of Nature Bristol will take you to the full programme of events and nearest to home is the Lockleaze Climate and Nature Festival. This is on 6 June from 1.30pm to 5pm in and around Gainsborough Square with music and dancing and stalls with environmental content. Enjoy yourselves and keep cool!

Previous week's newsletter entry:

Laudato Si week starts this Sunday and we can mark it by praying for Our Common Home and taking actions which will promote the common good. We could have mainly vegetarian meals and buy fair trade products when we shop; most supermarkets now offer these at comparable cost to other brands. Contributing to the food bank will help those most in need.

Friday 15 May is Nakba day, commemorating the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from their land after the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. As Gazans suffer acute deprivation and expulsions in the West Bank continue, let us pray for the victims of war and if possible contribute to organisations such as Medical Aid for Palestinians or Aid to the Church in Need.

National

Emergency

Briefing

On 27th November, 2025, ten of the UK’s leading experts briefed an invited audience of over 1,200 politicians and leaders from business, culture, faith, sport and the media with the latest implications for health, food, national security and the economy.

You can watch each of the nine talks
[each talk is about 15 mins] on
Nature
Climate
Tipping Points
Weather Extremes
Food Security
Health
National Security
Economics
Energy Transition
at https://www.nebriefing.org/

And here you can read a summary of the key points from each briefing:

"That's our home, it's the only one we've got. It’s where all of our species has lived and died, everyone, every single human. It's where we breathe, it's where we eat, we laugh, we cry, we love, we hate and as far as we know, together with all the other wonderful life on Earth we are the only known life forms in the universe and we've got nowhere else to go." Chris Packham - CBE

The People's Emergency Briefing

Coming to [your town] this April! A new film featuring Chris Packham, leading scientists, a former general and Jennifer Saunders - all being far too frank about where things are heading and what can be done about it.

What we have been doing

Making a difference in 2026

We started the year with

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

fOR THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF POPE fRANCIS' ENCYCLICAL LETTER, WE OFFERED:

6 weeks of LENT

6 chapters of LAUDATO SI’

or ‘CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME’

This has now (obviously) finished, but you can follow this material any time you like. Therefore, we have left it here for you to access and use at any time.

Planting trees

We have made a Woodland Trust urban tree pack available to all free of charge. Trees in the Urban Tree Pack for the Wales and West of England are:

• Crab Apple

• Rowan

• Silver birch

The Season of Creation

We celebrated the Season of Creation from 1st September, Creation Day, through to 4th October, the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.

• We gave a short talk at each Mass on 31sth August / !st September.

• There was a Prayer each week during the Season.

• There was a Coffee Morning on 15th September with displays on our work.

• Our desire for an Ecumenical Prayer Service did not materialise (this year).

Clean Green Energy (Octopus Energy)

We offered people the chance to get a no-obligation quote from a major renewable supplier Octopus.

• Check if you are on a green energy tariff with your current supplier.

• If not, switch to your supplier's green energy tariff.

• If you're willing to switch supplier, we can give you a quote from Octopus Energy (clean and green) here.

Fitting Solar Panels

South Gloucester Council are trying to help enable homeowners to fit solar panels through a bulk buying scheme. Interested?

Register for free with no obligation.

Plastic-free July

We joined millions of people reducing their plastic waste. We chose to refuse single-use plastic when shopping as much as possible.

Plastic Free July® is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. Will you be part of Plastic Free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastics?

In March, some of us took part and counted our plastic waste for a whole week, uncovering that UK households are discarding a staggering 1.7 billion pieces of plastic each week. This collective effort highlighted the alarming scale of the plastic waste crisis in the UK.

The Results are in:

https://thebigplasticcount.com/results

We started with recycling by promoting Recycling for Good Causes for our chosen charity CAFOD, to give people an opportunity to recycle their unwanted mobiles and gadgets, cameras, jewellery and watches, currencies and stamps.

https://thebigplasticcount.com/results

Volunteer Days

Each month during the summer, there is a Volunteering Day at St Teresa's on the last Saturday of each month to care for the church gardens and surroundings. Come and join us.

The wonderful external estate of St Teresa’s, comprises 6 main areas plus some additional associated areas: The Memorial Garden, Courtyard, Path and Side Steps; The Orchard, Fernery, Bank and Woodland Path; The Main Car Park, Rear Tree Line and Drive;The front of the Church – Front hedges, the Courtyard, Paths and Planters; Small Car Park and Pavement area; The Old Church Hall, Small Car Park and Pavement area; Finnegan’s Corner and the front & rear footpaths of the Social Centre, plus the rear steps and waste area behind the Church Hall;

Let's care for our own patch as well as we can!

Where we are : our churches

St Vincent de Paul

Glencoyne Square
Southmead
Bristol
BS10 6DS

UK

St Teresa of the Child Jesus

71 Gloucester Road North
Filton
S. Gloucestershire
BS34 7PL

UK

PLEASE CONTACT US HERE

© 2024. All rights reserved.

Care for our common home group
at St. Teresa's, Filton and St Vincent's, Southmead, Bristol UK

We are a small group trying to help everyone in our parishes, including ourselves, to do something about our environment for the benefit of our world, ourselves, our children's children and beyond.

We are inspired by Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical letter 'Laudato Si'' on Care for Our Common Home (hence our name).

"As Christians we are inspired to be good stewards of the earth, to conserve and protect God’s creation and the earth’s resource." [Catholic Bishops of England and Wales]