November 7th 2021
During half-term I was briefly in central Glasgow en route to play some of Ayrshire’s finest golf courses. The excitement, anticipation and energy in the city surrounding the imminent arrival of the delegates for COP26 was palpable, and world and business leaders have a huge responsibility resting on their shoulders to ensure that the outcome of the conference results in firm, decisive and clear climate enhancing actions rather than “blah, blah, blah”, to quote Greta Thunberg.
Moulsford is delighted and extremely excited to have connections with COP26, through both parents and pupils. Luisa Baldini, (both a Year 7 parent and a Moulsford Governor) played a very prominent role yesterday hosting/MC’ing the whole of Energy Day, on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on the main stage in the Blue Zone. Luisa’s background as a BBC journalist for twenty years, and her subsequent work through her business Composure Media made her an obvious choice to host this key COP26 event on behalf of the British Government.
Lisa Ashford (a Year 3 parent) is the CEO of two crowdfunding investment platforms Ethex and Energise Africa. Both platforms have raised over £100m and are backed by many large charitable foundations including UKAID and Virgin Unite. Lisa’s platforms have a focus on mobilising finance to get to net zero as well as aiming to achieve sustainable development goals. Over the coming week Lisa will be hosting debates/workshops, participating on panels and next week will be receiving a UN Climate Action Award for Energise Africa on behalf of the platforms. Lisa should be on the BBC at around 10am on Thursday 11th November.
It is fantastic that Alfie J (Year 7) will also be going to COP26 next week with his mother. Alfie has tickets for the Green Zone in which he will be able to explore a wide range of stands and exhibits. Specifically, Alfie will be attending the following sessions: WWF - 'Walrus's from space';
National Geographic Society - 'Climate science at the top of the world'; The Great Green Wall documentary; Helping everyone eat better; Salt in our waters – a film about Bangladesh; Technology and data and our environment. Alfie’s mother, Katrina, is the driving force behind Young Climate Warriors, and provides the regular challenges which we post in the Week Ahead.
We so look forward to hearing first hand of Luisa’s, Lisa’s, Katrina’s and Alfie’s experiences from COP26 and it is so good that they are involved in this pivotal world event.
Parents will know that Moulsford launched its new Sustainability Policy shortly before half-term, and there has been a great deal of action, interest and excitement at school surrounding this. As part of the launch programme, we would really like to give parents further information about Moulsford and sustainability. We will be holding a thirty minute Zoom call at 7.00pm on Thursday 11th November, and do hope that many of you will be able to join us for this event – your boys are also very welcome to join the call. Please click for the Zoom link for the meeting, which is also in the Week Ahead, sent earlier today.
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