It’s October already. The second wave of the coronavirus dominates the news, and is a huge concern for everyone. As I write this, we are in self-isolation. We’re waiting for a test result for my son. It’s almost certainly going to be negative…the cough going round the nursery being just that. Oh well, I guess this won’t be the last time this winter!

Still, we’re lucky – being shut in is just an inconvenience. And I am feeling hopeful at the moment. October is the start of a new Water Year (for everyone in the world of hydrology). It’s time for change. And for the whole world, I am trying to remain optimistic about the US presidential election. Hopefully sanity will prevail. With the climate on a tipping point, as well as the influence on politics in this country, we really need a good result!

There is hope closer to home as well. In the second week of November we will be launching the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy. It was a big part of my tenure as chair of the RCCP, helping to guide its creation. As well as pushing for the new ReadingCAN (Climate Action Network) to grow, become active, and write the core of it. It’s going to be a proud moment seeing officially adopted. And I’m pleased that the new chairs – Tim and Tracey – are in a good place to keep things moving forward. Recently I hear that the strategy has been short listed for a prestigious award – fingers-crossed because that will be a great result for everyone. 

I was keen that the launch of the strategy would be well marked. Better than I’d hoped then that we’re having a week long festival! I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be hosting a couple of events: one with my Water theme group, called the Rivers of Reading, which will be good. The second is called ’How does it make you feel…?’. I’ll be working on this with Fiona Talkington (BBC Radio 3), who I first met through an event for the Reading Fringe Festival in 2018. It’s been on my mind since then that musicians have an important role in communicating the emotions behind climate change. So I’m really excited about it! Please follow this link to a micro site that I have set up for the event. 

I’ve been using the Reading Climate Festival as a personal deadline to get bits of online stuff finished. There’s been lots of tinkering with my website, to lift all the old pages into this new format. It puts me in a good place to update the content now. It is going to be interesting to reflect on how things have (and haven’t!) changed over the last 10 years. 

In addition to reworking these climate pages, I have also much improved the band’s website. And – at last – got the rest of the new album up online. I had to burn some more midnight oil getting the album cover together but I think it’s looking pretty cool. Hope you enjoy!

And hope you can join us on the 14th November. 

Take care,

Chris