Billy & Nicky's Story
Get Thinking
The Sea Pool is a truly inspiring example of Bude’s committed community spirit and shows what we are capable of when we care about something. The Sea Pool could have been condemned to Bude’s past, instead the community rallied to save and maintain it, and so it remains a thrumming heart of our town.
Nicky and Billy talk passionately about why the Sea Pool is important to them (in fact we’d have needed a feature length documentary to cover all the reasons!) and one of the things that kept coming up was community.
Climate change presents a complex set of challenges, to our environment, our health systems, our food and energy security, and in the future our culture and heritage. These challenges are amplified by other factors such as poverty, poor health, inadequate infrastructure, and social isolation. As Nicky notes, the more aware and clued up we are on the challenges that climate change poses, the more likely we are to pull together and act. We each bring different skills, knowledge, and care to contribute to our communities. Whether it’s sweeping up pebbles, supporting fundraising events or simply lending a wheelbarrow to a cause. Small or big, these all contribute to a healthy and resilient community.
Resilience is our ability to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to significant threats, like flooding, whilst also maintaining essential services, such as food distribution and caring for our most vulnerable. Communities that demonstrate the greatest resilience, are also the most socially equal and connected. Bude’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrates that we have great capacity to adapt, organise and look after each other. Over 3000 people and local businesses joined an online quarantine support group in our area, the Post Office stepped up and offered a home collection service, and food bundles were dropped to those most in need. We should be proud of these actions, as it is exactly this kind of camaraderie that will see our community thrive in the face of a changing climate.
Get Inspired
Every community has a unique set of challenges, therefore we are best placed to tackle them. Building resilience in our community starts with listening to one another, including the quietest voices amongst us. For this is how we gain deeper understanding of the issues we face and uncover our wealth of community wisdom, experience and skills. It means bringing together a diverse range of community members (residents, business owners, emergency planners, health workers etc) to make decisions, plan and act.
With this in mind, we have compiled a few suggestions on how we can get involved in our community and build on Bude’s growing resilience, as well as a short list of individual actions we can take that have the biggest single impact, keeping our community and communities across the globe safe.
Get Sharing
Stories trigger more stories, so we hope this has sparked some of your own memories and provided an opportunity to reflect.
What does community mean to you and how does it feel to belong to one?
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Can you remember a time when your community pulled together in a crisis?
Did you play a part in this?
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Which areas locally do you feel it is important to protect and why?
Get Together
If you’re part of a local group and would like to explore this theme more through additional activities, then you might like to use our Hands On toolkits. Contact Us to find out more.

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Get Involved
Bude is already bursting at the seams with enthusiastic environmental groups and great initiatives
if you want to get involved with. Here’s a few:
Thank You
We hope our suggestions and advice leave you feeling inspired. Climate change can be challenging to think and talk about, so if any of your questions haven’t been answered or you need support or you have an idea you want to pursue, then please get in touch with the Bude Climate Partnership. We’re here to help you.
This Toolkit has been developed by Storylines.
Storylines is a Community Interest Company who use the common language of story to bring people together to share, celebrate, learn and connect. Storylines supports organisations and communities to unearth and share their own stories through bespoke story projects, digital storytelling, education, oral history, workshops, interpretation,