Our Mission:
A community group committed to returning the River Cale to a self-sustaining ecosystem that is rich in bio-diversity and to be enjoyed by all.
News
Elements
- By Chris
- May 17, 2023
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Wincanton Climate Fair 27th May 2023
From 10am – 2pm, The Balsam Centre in Wincanton is hosting a climate fair to promote wellbeing and offer practical information, advice, workshops, idea sharing and group start-ups to offer solutions to allow everyone to engage and make a difference to the environment and climate emergency. We believe through community action we can all do our bit to change our future.
There will be information and advice stands, films, art, workshops for adults and children, networking opportunities, start-up & sign up boards, toolkits and more…. WHAT’S ON | elementsclimate
Recognition for C.A.T.C.H at national conference
- By Chris
- March 28, 2023
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CATCH was recently recognised for our motivation and diligent monitoring of the River Cale. Our robust dataset and observations have now caught the attention of both the water company and the environmental regulator and we’re looking forward to working hard with both to keep on transforming Cale habitat for the better! Some slides and pictures from the presentation are below.

As a group, we monitor the population of ‘macroinvertebrates’ (bugs) in the River Cale in Wincanton. The variation in the types, diversity and relative abundances of these bugs gives us a very accurate picture of the health of our river … ...read the rest
CO-OP funding local groups
- By Matt Bishop
- October 29, 2021
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CATCH have been selected by the CO-OP out of tens of thousands of applicants to be supported by local funding. It’s easy to do, all you have to do is become a member of the CO-OP (like a rewards card in other supermarkets) and for every £1 spent in any store, if you have selected CATCH as your cause to support, we will receive £0.01p – NOTE: You will need to select CATCH as your chosen group, and scan your card on each visit.
This doesn’t seem like a lot of money but this runs from now until October … ...read the rest
Schools litter pick at the Recreation ground – Sunday 4th July
- By Matt Bishop
- June 29, 2021
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A local school child has borne an idea of litter picking the park adjacent to the River Cale in Wincanton. If you have children, or in fact are children from our local schools and want to take part, please follow the instructions on this particularly well drawn advert.… ...read the rest
Litter Pick
- By Matt Bishop
- June 29, 2021
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On Saturday June 12th CATCH completed another litter pick sweep of the town stretch of the River Cale. As usual, we found some items that you wouldn’t want to find in a small river.
Education is the way forward with tackling the problem.



Donation page
- By Matt Bishop
- May 23, 2021
- No Comments
Hi everyone, we now have a donation page where you can give as little or as much as you would like to see put back towards our quest of being a Community group aiming to return the Cale to a self-sustaining ecosystem that is rich in biodiversity, and to be enjoyed by all.
Any contributions are gratefully received, and we can assure you will be channelled back into projects for the town.
Please see our Just Giving page:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/catch?utm_term=RjV7JmRNK
Emergency litter pick
- By Matt Bishop
- May 7, 2021
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One of the things we really rely upon from the community is for anyone seeing anything untoward in the river to report it to us by the various ways of contacting. On this occasion someone had clearly missed their dustbin and accidentally placed their rubbish into the river by ‘Batch Bridge’.
Janice from our Committee and other eagle-eyed people in the town spotted an accumulation of rubbish and CATCH decided to deal with it.… ...read the rest
Kick Sampling for all – 2nd sampling exercise of the year.
- By Janice Blackwell
- April 27, 2021
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Second kick sample of the year carried out on Sunday and getting the next generation involved – Leaving a legacy!
This is such an important part of our river health monitoring. Anyone who is interested in getting involved, please contact us on email via: [email protected]
We sample at three locations in the town, with results reported to the EA (Environment Agency) for a national register.

Hedgehog Highways!
- By Matt Bishop
- April 26, 2021
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A few conversations regarding hedgehogs recently. Don’t forget to set up the ‘hedgehog highways’ through your garden so that our friendly hogs can freely roam and feed….here’s one of ours……
Oh, and feel free to send us pictures of your set up and we will post on here!

Pollarding the River Cale
- By Matt Bishop
- April 11, 2021
- No Comments
We spent a Saturday morning having fun and doing some good for the River Cale by pollarding some Willow that had become unmanageable. This is to enhance the required 60/40 light/shade ratio for a healthy river. The willow had been left too long before dealing with it (about 10 years) so we are having to be brutal in order to bring it all back under control.
With a bit of work done, a breakfast roll and a coffee from the ‘Cale Cafe’ in the recreation ground the volunteers were firing on all cylinders, and what a great achievement for the … ...read the rest