Ecologisers

Ecologisers is a formal charity registered at the office of the Scottish Charity Regulator OSCR. Trustees are Ann Palmer, her husband Peter Lyons, and Ruth MacAlpine.. Ann is a writer, Creative Writing teacher, and eco-lyricist. Inspired by Griff Rhys-Jones who adopted the moniker Griff the Garbage, to help Rob the Rubbish clear Snowden of its trash, Ann, whose pen name is Gaia Dance, chose her own moniker - Gaia the Garbage. When Ann found an abandoned toy telephone on the beach, Peter took a picture of her with it, and they captioned it Hotline to Kids. This seeded the idea of a Childrens' Humorously Captioned Photographic Competition. Now in its third year, Litter Goes Literary brings together Ecologisers' two main aims. To tackle the litter problem, and inventing eco-lyrics to well known and favourite tunes. Ann was winner of the Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest 2009 with The Declaration of Interdependence, a finalist with her article Naturology in the 2014 EcoArts Awards. Her poem Christmas Eco-Prayer (to the rhythms of The Lord's Prayer) was listed as the Star Poem and published in Cygnus magazine. Her poem, Skylarks in Stereo, was shortlisted then highly commended in the International Yeovil Literary Prize 2014. She was commissioned by the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust (now the Durrell Trust) to write a series of animal stories about endangered species for their Education Pack. Her journalistic work around the litter issue won her an honorable mention in the Orwell Prize 2015 category for Combating Britain's Social Evils. Peter was a prize winner in The Earth Vision Nature Writing Contest 2014, with his essay The Wilderness Around Us, and in the EcoArts Award 2013 with his poem The Singing Zen Masters. Both engage in regular litter picks. They work with and share their knowledge and ideas with organisations, public and private, who are involved, centrally or peripherally, with the litter issue.