Newsletter20081208

Hello everyone,

Here's this week's Transition bulletin:

  • Cambridge Garden Share Scheme about to launch!
  • Allotment Petition Update
  • Sociable sewing afternoon making reusable shopping bags this Sunday
  • Cambridge Bike Library
  • 'Fruits of Conversation' art exhibition using local apples
  • Sustainability Walk – trial groups wanted
  • Great day at Mill Road Winter Fair
  • Events for next year – let us know your ideas!
  • Cambridge Garden Share Scheme about to launch!

The Food Group is about to launch the garden share scheme - a way to match up people who want to grow their own food with people who have gardens or land which is under utilised. We're starting with a pilot group of 4 or so garden owner and garden volunteer pairs in CB4 and CB1 areas, helping to partner up people in the coming weeks and monitoring how they get on. It promises to be a great way of making friends, developing your fruit and veg growing experience and skills and most importantly, helping the people of Cambridge to meet more of their food needs in a local, resilient, sustainable way.

You can get involved by registering your interest as a garden volunteer or someone with a garden or land you'd like to share, please e-mail Jacky Sutton-Adam with your name, and your street or road name and postcode, and whether you want to be a volunteer gardener or are someone with land to share. We've also got a garden owner in Orwell village who is looking for a volunteer gardener - please get in touch if you live that way and would like to help. Please forward this item to your friends, family and networks!

  • Allotment Petition Update

Dave Fox, Carl Myhill and Martin Roach of the Transition Food Group and Cambridge Allotments Network presented their petition to a full meeting of Cambridge City Council last Thursday. The petition contained over 700 signatures asking for more allotments in Cambridge. Dave made a 5-minute presentation on allotments, and a labour councillor put forward a motion about allotments that was discussed for a further 30 minutes before being overwhelmingly carried. Many thanks to Dave for organising and presenting this (and to the Food Group folks who helped review the pitch during our Wednesday meeting). You can see the wording of the motion here: http://tinyurl.com/Cam-allotments-petition

  • Sociable sewing afternoon making reusable shopping bags for Christmas presents!

Organised by Nic (contact details below) Stuck for Christmas present ideas? Want to help build a sustainable community but not sure where to start? Combine the two: join me and make reusable shopping bags our of recycled material. Claire Morsman wanted to make a difference to the number of plastic bags used and thrown away each year; she started www.morsbags.com. One cotton shopping bag can eliminate 100's of plastic ones over its life time. I want to extend Claire's bag-making in Cambridge. Bags are easy to make; I'll provide sewing machines, help and instructions, thread, material and cups of tea - you bring yourself, a sense of fun, old material (if you have some) and some biscuits to share. Together we'll make lots of bags! Date: Sunday 14th December; Time: 1-5pm (arrive before 4 so you have time to make a bag); Address: 2a Brackyn Rd, CB1 3PL; Donation: £2 each

  • Cambridge Bike Library sent in by Andy

I'm starting to collect and repair old bikes to set up a bike library. The basic idea is a very cheap and easy way to borrow a bike if you've got friends visiting town or your bike's been nicked or your bike is out of action for some reason. At the moment I just want to get a feeling of how it will work. I've already got a few bikes to lend out, so get in touch if you need one short term. There's a suggested donation of £5 when you first borrow a bike from the library, this could be considered a 'life-time membership fee'. If you want a bike long term, then any further donations would be appreciated (suggested £1/week). All the money raised will go towards buying locks, lights and fixing up old bikes ready for use.

If you've got any ideas on how to run the library, or any old bikes to give away (particularly ladies and kids), or if you want to help out on the organisation side of things, do let me know. If you're interested in learning how to fix up bikes, drop me a line, I'm down the workshop pretty often and could do with some help. All good hands-on experience! Any old lights or locks also much appreciated. Email Andy There's a Facebook group for it: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46597959973

  • The Fruits of Conversation from Alan Warburton

Art exhibition, 8-20 Dec., free, at The Shop, 18 Jesus Lane. Funded by Arts Council East. This is a community collaboration in which residents of Cambridge worked together to dissect local issues, while harvesting and sculpting local apples. Issues included sustainability, traffic, planning and development, and community cohesion amongst many others. A big part of the project was raising awareness of orchards and apples, and getting people to seek out local, organic and, importantly, *free* sources of healthy food. There are some amazing images! Website: www.alanwarburton.co.uk

  • Sustainability Walk – trial groups wanted

Shape East is producing a Climate Change Walk around central Cambridge, which will be downloadable from the Shape website. The walk will focus attention on design, landscape and engineering details which function to ameliorate climatic 'events' along with interesting facts about how the climate has shaped Cambridge. It will look at examples from the past and consider how they might inform the present. We're looking for groups to help us trial the walk to make sure that it is relevant to the intended audience before it's published. Please get in touch if you'd like to be involved. We're particularly interested in hearing from: cyclists, eco-groups, walking groups, local history groups and disability groups - admin@shape-east.org.uk

  • Great day at Mill Road Winter Fair

We had a really good day at Mill Road Winter Fair, with lots of interest from passers-by. We talked to well over a hundred people, and our e-mail list has grown yet again. So welcome if you are new to this bulletin! We hope you will find here something for everyone, and we would love to hear your ideas for future directions for Transition in Cambridge. Have a look at our web-site https://www.transitioncambridge.org to see some of the things we have done so far.

  • Events for next year – let us know your ideas!

We are putting together our calendar of events for next year. If you have ideas for events, or would like to show a transition film in your local area, let us know! We can help with publicity and/or organisation, and we hope to have a few DVD's to lend out soon. And if you are interested in starting a group to look at a particular issue, such as energy, transport, housing, business etc, we'd love to hear from you!

So I think that's all for this week folks! Thanks for continuing to send in all these items, and please feel free to pass this bulletin on to anyone who you think might be interested. Happy transitioning!

Anna

Our Mission

Transition Cambridge aims to help Cambridge make the transition to ways of life that are more resilient in the face of rising energy prices and a changing climate.

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