Health & Climate Conference 2022

Following a tasty plant-based lunch, the team hosted breakout sessions around different health-climate themes, inviting the audience to explore the issues further, share ideas and tackle challenges together. From this came new connections and inspiration with people of all different backgrounds joining in. 

The day ended with ‘out and about’ sessions around the town and a reception at Frome Town Hall where people could meet up and reflect. The event was rich in knowledge-sharing and connection-building at all levels from curious local individuals to impassioned community groups and regional health and government organisations looking to make change in their own towns.

After the limitations of the last couple of years, we were delighted to welcome so many people from Frome and beyond to the event. Our Green Health Connector (probably the first role of it’s kind in the UK), Charlotte said “it was so lovely to have everyone in the room together” whilst Cycle Together lead Emma added “it was wonderful to make so many  connections and share our work with people from all across the South West”. 

Project Manager, Sue Palmer shared “we wanted the conference to bring people together from Frome and across the region and we were delighted that people came from as far afield as Cornwall. More locally we had people joining from towns in Somerset, including councillors and advocates and we felt a really healthy crossover of people being inspired to take action.”

Despite the global challenges we face as a result of climate change, the conference highlighted why taking action on a community level is such an important part of the solution and invited people to get involved. From free e-bike hire and energy advice to a meet up space for cooking up ideas together, the project offers lots of ways for people in Frome to make a difference. Take a look around our website for more information.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at our Health & Climate Conference. We hope you came away feeling inspired with new connections and optimism for the future. We hope you also gained:

• The story of our project and, if you live in Frome or its surrounds, information about how you can get involved going forward
• Ideas for how you can build a green and healthy town or city
• A recipe for creating productive cross-sector projects
• Toolkits of Frome’s prototypes to tailor and scale in your community/town
• New contacts and connections to a network of community-focused climate activists
• Collective insights on making climate action stick 

Please get in touch if you have any comments or queries from the event.

 About the hosts

This event was hosted by the Green & Healthy Future for Frome programme.

A Green & Healthy Future for Frome wants to achieve a health and climate win-win. How? By exploring how we can help local people to live in ways which are good for their health and the planet. This community-led initiative is based on the fact that these issues are firmly linked – if we improve one, we’ll also improve the other, enabling everyone to share in a better future.

The programme is a partnership between Edventure: Frome, Frome Medical Practice, Frome Town Council and our local community. Our programme is made possible by the Climate Action Fund through The National Lottery Community Fund.

This event was funded through The National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund. Thanks to additional sponsorship from Cheese & Grain.

Grace Maddrell is a 16-year-old writer and climate/social justice advocate from Frome. Since the age of 13, they have worked with a variety of groups and campaigns and are the editor of Tomorrow Is Too Late, a collection of essays by youth climate activists from around the world.