Following encouragement and inspiration from our Youth Conference last November, we started 2026 with the plan of setting up a Youth Group or Youth Advisory Council for MCA. This aims to give younger people a voice and to enable their involvement in Moorlands Climate Action and other climate/nature based activities in the Moorlands and beyond.  Our definition of ‘youth’ is somewhat flexible at 18-30 years and it is evolving all the time.  It can become what the group wants it to be.

By the end of March, we had held our 3^rd successive Youth Group meeting with an average of six young 18-30 year-olds. We’ve had discussions, visitor talks, shared examples of climate or biodiversity awareness raising games and looked at examples of various nature based ID Apps, such as i-Naturalist.  Some of the group are helping with Wild Week this year and also with @21 in Leek; others at our HuG Green Festival, as well as helping to plan and be involved in a future film showing. 

At each meeting, a calendar is distributed featuring events and activities organised by MCA, Moorlands and other organisations focusing on climate, nature, and the arts. This calendar serves as a resource for the group, providing members with the opportunity to discover upcoming events and participate in a diverse range of activities.

We are currently meeting about every three weeks in the evening and hope the group will take off.  If you are in that age group, or know of someone who is, you or they are very welcome to join us!

Contact Moira or Harry on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more info.

For the past five years, Moorlands Climate Action has joined with over 25 Staffordshire Moorlands schools as part of our various activities and events.  Our most popular has been our annual Moorlands Wild Week.

Wild Week is a time when professional artists, storytellers and experts, plus knowledgeable volunteers from within and outside of MCA, come together to help children discover more about our Staffordshire Moorlands ‘At Risk’ wildlife and habitats.  We hope to help children appreciate the natural world on their doorstep, encourage  them to know what lives or grows there and to understand how much wildlife and the environment matter. 

This nature-based week aims to raise awareness via workshops both inside and outside the classroom in a fun and accessible way.  Workshops include storytelling and making, hands on art activities, music making, poetry and nature hunts - in fact all sorts of activities!  In the past we have looked at wildflower meadows, curlews, swifts, butterflies, pollinators, reptiles, bugs and much more.

This year our theme is  water - rain, rivers, streams, puddles and water capture, including what lives in, on or around water.  Ten schools from across the moorlands want to be involved in our Wild Week this time. We are very lucky this year to have the wonderful professional artist and storyteller Gordon Maclellan (aka Creeping Toad) to share water based stories and the making of amazing river- or pondscapes.   Lorna Stoddart, our long-standing friend and colleague, will share a tale of ‘The Rhythm of the Rain’ and use music with rainmakers; our other fantastic workshop leaders include Harvey Tweats, of Celtic Rewilding, who will share his knowledge of amphibians and maybe beavers too. 

Read more: Wild Week 2026 - 15-19 June

As promised, here’s the detail about our Mini COP that took place in November at the same time as the International COP 30 event in Brazil. This was an event for students from across the Moorlands aged 11 – 16 and held at Moorlands House (SMDC) in Leek. Teachers from eight schools were asked to bring students who were concerned about or involved in climate and nature issues. However, conscious that climate change can cause anxiety, particularly with young people, we planned the event to be positive, fun and solution-focused to give students hope for their future.

We invited 14 organisations and businesses from the Staffordshire Moorlands and beyond to provide information and activities on climate, biodiversity, and decarbonisation issues, as well as on green careers.  At the start, students were set up in their own base, fortified with organic bananas and English apples, a Morsbag each full of goodies and things to read, plus a few climate-related games. 

Chairman of the Council, Adam Parkes, opened the conference, then Emma Baines from Climate Ambassadors led the participants into the Churnet Room where the separate school groups circulated to visit each stall during the morning. Here they were able to explore solutions and learn how to mitigate against climate change/biodiversity loss, all while participating in fun, hands-on activities. They also discovered ways of contributing via activities at home, in school or in the community.  

Read more: Student Climate and Biodiversity Conference (Mini COP)

What a day and what wonderful people! On Tuesday, 11 November, we held our first mini-COP Youth Conference at Moorlands House.

Over 50 students from across the Moorlands met with organisations representing aspects of work relating to biodiversity, climate adaptation, decarbonisation and green jobs. In the afternoon, we had a Q&A in the Council Chamber.

What a team! Thanks to the committee and 25 MCA Volunteer helpers, 14 stallholders, seven schools + staff, 50+ students, SMDC/HPBC and Keele Climate Ambassadors plus photographer, Jamie, OUTSIDE Arts and Support Staffordshire who all made it happen.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED OR TOOK PART 😊

Watch this space in the next newsletter to see how it all went.  It really does make a difference when we know we can have support from our volunteers at MCA events.

Here’s a wild scenario from leader Lorna Stoddart - “I am an urban explorer, my name is Lorna, and I’ve just come back from an adventure. Whilst out searching for creatures [on Birchall / The Waste / along the canal] I became trapped, my leg wrapped by a writhing, creeping thing covered in sharp claws. I called for help and a wise woman told me to stay exactly still whilst she carefully unwrapped the thing from my leg, freeing me. Together we wrestled the creature into [a laundry basket, bag for life, rucksack] and brought it straight here. I hope you can help me identify it”… “on closer examination I noticed the white frothy flowers and Bees, Butterflies, day flying moths landing on the flowers again and again and I realised the plant wasn’t fearsome at all, it was generous sharing its sweet nectar with beautiful animals”.

This led to guessing what might be in the bag, resulting in Bramble, then describing the Bramble with any words, e.g. colour, movement, observed characteristics, feelings. Depending on the engagement, extending this through excitement, questions, memories. Movement was searching for Bramble on the school grounds, then using our bodies to make bramble shapes: yoga poses and joining into the shapes of flowers, arching stems, leaves.

Once energy was burnt off, we began to make bees, butterflies and other wondrous pollinators using wool, pinecones, and tracing paper wings. These puppets encouraged play and focused exploration into further understanding of their environment. Some children enjoyed drawing Brambles together on long sheets of paper; others enjoyed collaborating on a word hoard, creating a record of words that are real and words that were made up in response to Bramble. Interestingly, around half of the children I saw had never picked a Blackberry much to their teacher’s horror. I’d like to think that when they come back to school in September there might be some left behind for them to enjoy.

Read more: Wild Week - Overview of a Workshop Session

The Wild Week coming up in June (Monday 9 - Friday 13) will be the fourth run by our Youth Action group, when our team goes into schools with fun activities for children to take part in.  The aim is to help them re-connect with, learn about and appreciate aspects of Nature; for example, the wildlife, flowers and plants found on their Moorlands doorstep.

Research shows that in this digital age children are losing touch with Nature.  Our theme this year is the ‘Lost Words’.  These are the ‘Nature’ words that have been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary, as they are considered to be ‘no longer used by children’!

Our workshop leaders include Anthony Hammond (artist, wood and willow sculptor), Lorna Stoddart, Greenwood Growth (CIC) Forest Schools and Louise Taylor, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust ‘Wild Child’ Officer, plus another four volunteer workshop leaders from MCA. They aim to provide enjoyable and engaging activities to help children become familiar with some of the missing ‘Nature’ words and to help them recognise, name and value the flora and fauna they discover.  (All 20 words chosen from the ‘Lost Words’ book represent wildlife and aspects of nature found in the Moorlands.)

Read more: Wild Week - The Lost Words