Meet Nate Founder Of

Hello and welcome, my name is Nate, I’m the founder of Christchurch Eco. Please grab a coffee and let me introduce myself.

I grew up in Harlow in Essex, I lived there for well over 20 years, before moving here with my mum and dad and family in 2013. I am self-taught in IT and do a lot of work with animals and dabble in amateur photography (wildlife and animals).

Initially, when I moved in, I was not happy, the village was too small, there were no shops nearby and the internet sucked, but over the years ive fallen in love with it, not just because the internet improved (ha). I feel in love with the charm of a quiet village, and country life as a whole, and it has allowed me to grow up, and find my passion that I had pretty much lacked, the environment and animal conservation.

Now I want to confess, being an eco-warrior wasn’t natural to me, and if I’m really brutally honest, I was pretty terrible up to around 5 years ago, I was always the one saying “were an island surrounded by water why save it, or who cares about recycling it won’t make a difference” but I’m not even sure where it changed or what made me flip, but I guess like a lot of you, I got sick of seeing reports of the world “exploding” animals dying and feeling a tad helpless, so I started changing, being more conscious on my impact on the world, I didn’t do lots of changes but enough that I felt it was ok.

But this year (2019) has seen a lot of changes for me, both personally and professionally, I have struggled to secure work, mainly from my lack of qualifications, and my business has all but collapsed, but I refuse to just throw in the towel, I decided in August to change my life, and help others around me and my community, starting with this project Christchurch Eco, and applying for Open University, starting with an Access course in Science, Technology and Maths, and then moving onto a full degree in Environmental Science.

Now my idea at the time for Christchurch Eco was just to make recycling stations, find ways reduce what goes to landfills to not only protect our planet, but our animals, but this idea, has exploded, I got such an amazingly positive response from the community that it has grown at an incredable pace, not only do we have 4 stations now, but we have a very large website (this one) with lots of eco-tips and tricks and guides, but we also have Fenland Council supporting us, PECT supporting us, the Parish Council supporting us, and support from major companies selling eco products working on encouraging people to make changes, its been an incredable response.

Its kind of amazing just how an idea can spiral into something so real, and although I say it a lot, I really do appreciate the amazing support from the community.

So that really is it, I’m very proud of the work achieved, the amazing people ive met and the amazing support that is offered, and I’m really excited to see where this group and how this community will evolve over the years.