Click here to view in your browser - for a much better view

Newsletter 19 - September 2026

Hi <<First Name>>

Whilst September has brought us the much needed relief of cooler and wetter weather, it is not without mixed feelings. It stands in stark contrast to the 5 or so periods of extreme heat of the summer and surely reminds us that something is not quite right with the weather (and the planet?).

The climate is without a doubt changing and the changes are serious, disruptive and even deadly. We might not all agree on exactly what is happening, what we can do about it, and what caused it, but it is definitely getting to the point where how to cope with it is becoming a salient question.

In item 2 below, PACE Trustee Jonathan Wise looks at the challenges he thinks we may face over the next few months as El Niño disrupts food production in the southern hemisphere and puts pressure on our own food security.

Jonathan argues that our vulnerability as individuals, and as a community, may also be the secret to our survival …..

Elsewhere in this issue, we cover:

Local Councils’ Recent Climate Related News
PACE Annual Meeting - 6th October 2026
PACE Bi-Monthly Trustee Meeting - 17th September 2026

As usual, in this Newsletter, you can either scroll through the whole Newsletter, or jump to the bits that interest you by clicking on the blue links. The Dark red links take you to external sites.

1. Supporters’ Monthly Events

The September Monthly Supporters’ Event on 8th September was a Bat Walk.
Neil Bedford (Essex Wildlife Trust) guided 32 PACE supporters around Parrington’s Farm and Shirburn Mill, with the help of bat detector devices, which allow their high frequency sounds to be heard by humans. Full write-up and pictures can be found here.

The October Monthly Supporters’ Event, on 6th October 7.30pm upstairs at the Red Lion, will be the PACE Annual Meeting.
As we have previously explained, PACE is changing its charity status from being a Foundation CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation) to being an Association CIO, where all supporters can become Members, and Members will have full voting rights at Annual General Meetings.

We do not know when we will achieve this change of status, but this meeting will present the PACE Annual Report and Accounts for 2025, plus a showing of one element in full from the National Emergency Briefing, and a workshop type session on writing letters to MPs.
Full details can be found here, but please do come along to have your say and to help us to shape the next stage of PACE’s development.
November Monthly Supporters’ Event on Tuesday 3rd November at 7.30pm.
A talk and discussion on Global Biodiversity with Louise McRae, Research Fellow at the Zoological Society of London. Louise, a local PACE supporter, will be speaking about Global Biodiversity, how changes in wildlife are measured and the role of citizen science.
Back to index

2. From ‘Climate Change’ to ‘Climate Changed’.

This summer’s rolling heatwaves and insufferable nights, on top of 2022, 2023 and 2025 being the hottest years on record in the UK, have moved us from being ‘what could be’ into ‘we are here’.

However, the largest climate impacts this year have yet to unfold. The effects of the ‘Super El Niño’ will hit the UK this winter and they are worrying enough for the UK government to ask us to be prepared. On September 4th, Environment Secretary Angela Eagle said:

“If you’ve got a store of a bit of food that can keep you going for a while before the emergency services can get to you, you’re going to be a lot better off than if you haven’t. So some of it is that kind of preparation for just being a bit more resilient.”

So what’s going on?

El Niño is a natural climate pattern that occurs in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, altering the surface temperature of the sea water. A standard El Niño is triggered by a small anomaly - +0.5°C - above the long-term average. For 2026, forecasts estimate that the anomaly will be much, much higher - between +3.0°C and +3.6°C.

What does this mean for the UK?

Professor Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasts at the Met Office said: "I have not seen an event like this developing in our forecasts before". Expect storms, heavy rainfall and flash flooding in the UK. If power lines are taken out and fallen trees block roads for a few days, being prepared with enough supplies to be comfortable seems like the prudent thing to do. The effects could start as early as November.

The impact of El Niño will not be an isolated event. The effects of reduced crop yields in the UK this summer, combined with countries affected by Super El Niño potentially limiting their food exports, may well limit food supply and dramatically increase prices in the UK.

Preparing for the impacts of El Niño is a way to prepare and practice for these longer term climate impacts.

What can you, and PACE, do about it?

The first step is accepting that this is likely to happen. There can be a big gap between reading about something that is likely to happen and actually believing it will happen and affect you personally.

The second step is to take action. Once you are over the hump of acceptance, begin to compile what you need to be comfortable for 72 hours. Food, water, medical kit, wind-up radio. What will you add to your weekly shop in order to begin building your own stock of food and supplies?

Most importantly, can we see the challenges we face as an opportunity for community building, connection and mutual support, rather than individual response and community breaking? It could be the making of us.

As PACE, at our recent Trustee meeting we discussed what we can do and will be raising the issue at our Supporters’ Meeting and Annual Meeting, on Tuesday 6th October 19.30, upstairs at The Red Lion.

If you want to learn more and help us to work out how PACE should respond, then please join us in the Red Lion.

Back to index

3. Significant Climate News from the Local Councils

Tendring District Council (TDC) opposes County Council’s change of direction.
On 1st September, Tendring District Council passed a motion expressing “opposition to any move by Essex County Council to retreat from its commitments on climate action, biodiversity, environmental protection or nature recovery”.

The motion was proposed by Terry Barrett, a Lawford Parish Councillor, and included unequivocal support for “robust climate action across Essex”. This is in the context of the Reform-led council’s recent move to “dismantle and walk away from its commitments on climate action”

The full motion can be seen at Item 43 in these Minutes of the Council Meeting.
TDC Local Plan.
The consultation period ends on 19 October, so you are able to comment on the Plan until then, before it is submitted to the Government. The Plan sets out where new homes, jobs, infrastructure and community facilities should go across Tendring between 2026 and 2043. There is an in-person event at the Venture Centre 2000 in Lawford on Friday 2nd October 3.00-7.00pm, and some other locations before that. More information here.
New recycling arrangements start soon.
Don’t forget, from Monday 5 October, you will be able to recycle glass at the kerbside in your green recycling boxes. It will also be possible to recycle a wider range of plastics, cartons and other materials. New recycling boxes are being delivered currently. More here.
Community Energy Conundrum.
Last Wednesday, PACE Trustee John Hall was informed that, under the recent cuts announced by the new ECC Reform administration, “the Community energy programme, and most of the Energy and Low Carbon team along with several other teams/officers have been identified in the first round of cuts.”

This would be the nail in the coffin of the Solar Scheme that PACE was trying to get under way, which was already on the back burner due to delayed funding. Ironically, the next day (17th September) the government announced funding worth almost £30 million for community-led renewable energy projects!
Back to index

If you liked this Newsletter, please do pass it on to friends. They can then always sign up here to get sent their very own copy each month.

If there is something you want included or that you want to contribute to future Newsletters, please email here and let us know.

Best wishes from

The PACE Newsletter Team

www.pacemanningtree.org.uk

Facebook

Instagram

PACE News/Events

1. The September PACE Field Trip - Going Batty.

Thirty-two bat watchers turned out at sunset for the PACE Bat Walk on 8 September (apologies to those on the waiting list). We met at Parrington’s Farm just outside Lawford, by a range of old farm buildings. A skein of geese and gulls flew overhead heading to the Estuary, and a Barn Owl took off from one of the Barn Owl boxes where 4 owlets have been raised this year.

Neil Bedford was our batman for the evening – an experienced ecologist and long-time bat enthusiast from Essex Wildlife Trust. At dusk, we familiarised ourselves with the range of different bat detectors which convert the ultrasonic echo-location calls of bats to audible levels, and we studied the superb Field Studies Council Guide to Bats which decodes the different frequencies to the signatures of particular bat species. Around 46kHz for Common Pipistrelles, 55 for Soprano Pipistrelles, around 20 for the large Noctule and so forth through the 16 species of bats which are found in the UK – about 10 species in the Manningtree area. Moths are the main food for bats – we had a look through the 280 moths which had been caught in a moth trap on the previous night.

Around the old barns and nearby woodland, we picked up the calls of the two ‘Pip’ species and a Natterer’s Bat. The walk across the meadow to Shirburn Mill was pretty much bat free, but nice to be walking in the cool air under the stars. At the Mill, which is being carefully restored by the owners, the detectors were chattering away with the calls of both ‘Pips’ but we were a little disappointed not to hear from the colony of Brown Long-eared Bats which inhabit the top storey, nor from Daubenton’s Bat which regularly skim the Mill Pond. We did, however, hear a Noctule on the return trip.

To be fair it was not the best evening for bats – not as many as on our recce the previous week. That’s nature for you - perhaps it was a bit too cool. But we all enjoyed the walk with friends under the stars, the unpredictability by torchlight, and the mass of detail provided by Neil on bat biology; their winter hibernation; their maternity roosts and that Mum can carry their single pup to a new roost; that all bats and their roosts are protected in law due to their serious decline; if you can get your finger behind a roof tile or in a tree hole then a ‘Pip’ can roost in there; bats are long-lived for such a small mammal – 5 to 10 years; and that they are not as ‘blind as a bat’.

Thanks to batman Neil, to Jenny, Ben and Chris at Parrington’s, to Alex and Claire at Shirburn Mill and to everyone for coming out.

Checking Bat Detectors and Moths as Bat Food

Back to index

2. October Monthly Supporters’ Event and Annual Meeting: 6th October 7.30pm at The Red Lion, Manningtree.

The October Supporters’ event this year will include the PACE Manningtree Annual Meeting, with Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ending 31 December 2025.

This will be the programme for the evening (maybe not as light-hearted as suggested originally, actually quite substantial):

1. Annual Meeting of PACE.

In addition to the presentation of the reports referred to above, and time for questions about those, this meeting will include items explaining the current position of PACE Manningtree’s change of status to an Association Charitable Incorporated Organisation, and how we will therefore be switching to a wider membership model. There will then be an opportunity for questions about these changes.

2. Possible PACE initiative.

We are proposing to screen some of the National Emergency Briefing that was held in Westminster on 27th November 2025. This is NOT the same People’s Emergency Briefing film that has been screened recently in East Bergholt, Colchester, and other locations.

Instead, we will be showing one of the full presentations from the original event - the one about Food Security. After that Jonathan Wise (Trustee), will be introducing some ideas about a local Food Resilience initiative. This links in with his article elsewhere in this newsletter.

3. Writing to MPs.

How many of us feel from time to time that we need to try and bend the ears of our politicians? And maybe we try but get an unsatisfactory response, if any at all. How about if we were to coordinate a mass mailing to our MP with individual hand written letters, all arriving separately but over a set period of time?

That is what we are aiming to do here. Paper, envelopes, pens, stamps and suggestions will be supplied if you wish to use them. The main ask will be for our MP(s) to support a live, government-led televised emergency briefing on the climate and nature crisis, although you are of course free to make other points too.

Back to index

3. PACE Manningtree Bi-Monthly Trustees Meeting on 17th September

Some of the main items covered were:

· Association CIO charity status - We are STILL awaiting a response from the Charity Commission, having applied in April and expected a response in August.

· The Trustees’ Annual Report and Financial Review for year ending 31 December 2025 had been sent out to all Trustees beforehand by Chair John Hall and Treasurer Stephen Marr and both were approved. They will be made available on the PACE Manningtree website and at the Supporters’ Event on 6th October.

· Trustee news - Three of the existing Trustees come to the end of their 3-year term at the end of this month. Bonny Williams and Halford Hewitt stood for re-election and both were unanimously voted in for a further 3-year term. Bekki Bibko has sadly decided not to stand for a further term. She was warmly thanked for her valuable service since being one of the founder members of PACE, and we all wish her well with her further studies, career and family life.

· The PACE Supporters’ Meeting 6th October is also the PACE Annual Meeting - The timetable for this event was agreed - and is announced elsewhere in the Newsletter. There was a lengthy discussion about what the role of PACE can most usefully be in relation to the current advice from the government about preparing for food shortages, and other concerns about local community and individual resilience in the face of climate and political unpredictability. Ideas relating to this will be introduced at the October Supporters’ Event.

· Other items - The Agenda for this meeting was over-ambitious, and some items were not dealt with. Some of these, such as the PACE Privacy Policy, and improving the PACE Website, can be progressed electronically, but an additional meeting will probably be needed to discuss other items, such as final details of the PACE membership scheme, and future plans for the Manningtree Earth Festival. Date to be arranged.

Back to index

Getting Involved with PACE

Apart from our Manningtree Earth Festival, PACE runs a number of other projects which are always looking for more people to be involved. If you would like to hear more about a specific project or to offer to be part of it, then you can use this form to let us know and we will then get in touch.

Back to index

Our mailing address is:

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe