Newsletter20121105

Hi Everyone,

This Saturday, why not visit Warm Homes in Trumpington? It's an all-day event designed to help you cut your home energy bills, organised by Cambridge Carbon Footprint and the Transition Cambridge Energy Group. It's not limited to Trumpington residents, and it's completely free. Also, there are not one, not two but THREE exciting Transition meetings for you to attend including the Permaculture Group meeting on Wednesday, who'd love to hear your views about where the group should go next in their survey . And don't miss Cambake's meeting tomorrow (Tuesday). 

CONTENTS

Transition News and Events

  • Tuesday 06 November: Food Group meeting + Cambake meeting
  • Wednesday 07 November: Permaculture Group Meeting: The Way Forward.
  • Thursday 08 November: Energy Group Meeting
  • Saturday 10 November: Warm Homes in Trumpington
  • Sunday 11 November: Chance to pick sloes and rose hips for making beverages
  • Thursday 15 November: Cafe night- woodland management
  • Energy group teams with Switch
  • Transition Cambridge Permaculture Group survey
  • Events for your calendar

Community News

  • Co Housing Project gets Green Light
  • Mill Road Winter Fair needs your help

Other News and Events

  • Saturday 10 November: Cambridge Wood Works - Open Saturday
  • Thursday 15 November: The Bioregional Economy - A talk by Molly Scott Cato
  • Saturday 17 November: Christmas Craft and Gift Fair
  • Saturday 17 November: Hedge Laying at Coton Countryside Reserve
  • Saturday 17 November: Girton Village Energy Day
  • Tuesday 20 November: Starting a community garden
  • Open Participatory Planning Meetings for "Poverty & Sustainability Year"
  • Events for your calendar

Transition News and Events

Tuesday 06 November: Food Group meeting + Cambake meeting

18:30-20:00, The Emperor pub, 21 Hills Road, CB2 1NW (upstairs room)

The Food Group's regular fortnightly meeting - we'll be reviewing our projects. At 8pm, there is a meeting of Cambake (Cambridge's community bakery project) - with updates on new (and exciting!) developments...see here on their website More details here.

Wednesday 07 November: Permaculture Group Meeting: The Way Forward.

19:00-21:00, Claire's House Trumpington. Contact Ceri & Dave for more details.

The focus of this evening will be to discuss how we would like the group to proceed over the next year. The hope is to have a few larger group meetings that may include visits to permaculture sites, workshops, skill sharing events, and work party dates. This would be combined with a more regular, informal meeting group to focus on particular parts of permaculture practice and design. This is more specifically for people who want to meet for support and discussion regarding permaculture practice and its role in our everyday lives. It would be great to see lots of people there for some tea and cake and all contributions and ideas are welcome. We will also talk about the proposed Eastern Region Convergence next year, probably @ Ringfield 19th-21st July. More details here.

Thursday 08 November: Energy Group Meeting

19:30-21:00, Margaret's house on Oxford Road

Note change of date, time and venue. There will probably be some activity with Switch-off to review and plans for our next event in January. We should have a new FAQ on wall insulation too. Contact Nicola for details of venue.

Saturday 10 November: Warm Homes in Trumpington

10:00-16:00, Trumpington Pavillion, Paget Road, Cb2 9JF

CCF and Transition Cambridge in collaboration invite you to Warm Homes in Trumpington, an all-day energy saving event! There will be stalls, displays, DIY workshops, talks and home visits to help you learn how to make your home more energy-efficient, comfortable to live in and cheaper to run. A schedule of talks and more information is available on the Cambridge Carbon Footprint website.

Sunday 11 November: Chance to pick sloes and rose hips for making beverages

11:00-13:00, Trumpington Community Orchard Project

This Sunday is a bi-monthly Sunday maintenance day at the Trumpington Orchard - please do come and help. Right now there are lots of sloes and rose hips great for making sloe gin and rose hip syrup or adding to hedgerow jams so you could collect some to take home as well. There is a recipe for rosehips on our site and we can provide Ceri's mum's slow gin recipe on the day. Here is how to find us - See you there. More details here.

Thursday 15 November: Cafe night- woodland management

19:30-21:00, CB1 Cafe, 32 Mill Road, Cambridge

Vince and Louise, volunteer wardens at Hardwick Wood owned by the Wildlife Trust will come and tell us about their experience. They manage the wood to encourage wildlife and also produce a large amount of sustainable wood products. The aim is to replicate the traditional coppice management in parts of the wood, which makes it better for wildflowers, lots of insects, and a greater variety of birds and bats etc. They produce firewood, some charcoal, garden sticks and structures etc. and deliver to customers around the area to raise funds for the Wildlife Trust. There has also been some much larger tree-felling work by professionals to supply timber for buildings etc. Vince and Liz will also invite you to join them on one of their work days to get some practical experience. After the talk the next work days are 17th November and 1st December.

Energy group teams with Switch

Switch is a group of 4 students with an unusual strategy to raise awareness of climate change issues. They have a booklet on the subject illustrated by children and an energy calculator which uses human effort instead of kWh. On Friday 2nd November the Transition Cambridge Energy group shared the stage with them at the Grafton Centre and the Mayor came to visit. She even tried out the exercise bike and pedalled long enough to make a couple of slices of toast!

Transition Cambridge Permaculture Group survey

Transition Cambridge Permaculture Group will have been meeting for 3 years next spring and over that time, we’ve been pretty busy. In the spirit of the permaculture we have put together a survey using design principles to help us plan our way forward into 2013. If you have participated in the group in the past or hope to join us in the future it would be great if you could take a few moments to answer these questions and let us know what you'd like the group to be doing in the future. Download the questionnaire here (rtf file). Please email your responses to Ceri and Dave by 5th November or bring them along to the meeting on the 7th (see Events section). Thanks! For more information about the Permaculture group's activities, see their web-site here.

Events for your calendar

Community News

Co Housing Project gets Green Light

Cambridge City Council have given approval for the co-housing project at k1, Orchard Park to proceed. This is excellent news. A series of meetings will be called to progress the project. Anyone interested in the project should contact Adam Broadway, Project Manager, via email. There is a briefing meeting taking place 5.30 -7pm on Thursday 1st November at CAR's Office off Gwydir Street. More details here.

Mill Road Winter Fair needs your help

The Fair is on Saturday 1st December this year - it's a wonderful vibrant community event which is made possible by many volunteers! They are appealing for people to help out during the day (any time from 8am till 6pm) with various things - setting out tables, putting up banners and posters, overseeing venues. If you can help, contact Adeline Douard If you can help out by stewarding for an hour or two, contact Jonathan Goodacre (Tel: 07774 907 099). More details here.

Other News and Events

Saturday 10 November: Cambridge Wood Works - Open Saturday

10:00-16:00, Cambridge Wood Works Unit 9, Penn Farm Studios, Harston Road, Haslingfield, Cambridge CB23 1JZ.

Our Wood Store is open Tuesday - Friday 10am - 1pm, and every second Saturday of the month. The next Open Saturday is 10 November, and this month we've extended our opening hours from 10am - 4pm, to give you more time to fit in a visit to Penn Farm. We've good stocks of reclaimed timber, sheet materials and scaffold boards - well worth a visit if your planning any projects over the next few months. We're also making Cambridge Hotlogs, briquettes made from clean reclaimed timber collected, sorted and graded by us. They are clean-burning, affordable and very popular - don't leave it too late to place your order as we can only just about keep up with demand at present! More details here.

Thursday 15 November: The Bioregional Economy - A talk by Molly Scott Cato

19:30, St. Phillips Church Centre, 185 Mill Road Cambridge, CB1 3AN

What happens when ecology meets economics? Join Cambridge Carbon Footprint and leading Green Economist Molly Scott Cato as she sets out a visionary account of what a bioregional approach to the economy would mean — and how to get there from here. Full event details are available on our website.

Saturday 17 November: Christmas Craft and Gift Fair

10:00-13:00, Arbury Community Centre

Recycling champions will he here showing you how to make christmas decorations, cards and gifts from old paper, card and material scraps, plus alternative wrapping techniques. There will be lots of other stalls too offering a wide range of gifts including terracota pots, jewellery, cosmetics, cards, personalised wooden tags and more.

Saturday 17 November: Hedge Laying at Coton Countryside Reserve

11:00-15:00,

Help the Rangers restore some of the old hedges the traditional way and work on the hedges along the concrete track to open up the views. Bring a picnic and suitable clothing and shoes. Tools etc provided. Free event, donations welcome. Booking essential. Contact Head Ranger 07833 598155 or email More details here.

Saturday 17 November: Girton Village Energy Day

13:00-16:00, Girton Baptist Church, 103 High Street, Girton, CB3 0QQ

Stalls talks and displays - save energy, save money - refreshments available - Free entry. Speakers: Professor David Mackay and Peter Thom More details here.

Tuesday 20 November: Starting a community garden

19:30-21:30, Wesley Methodist Church, Victoria Avenue, Cambridge

Community gardens are definitely good news! There are many benefits - bringing neighbours together, making neglected areas beautiful and productive, growing food close to home. But how to start one? How to find land, and get permission to use it? How to bring together a group of people who want to work in the garden? What's good to grow? How do you integrate nature and wildlife? The evening's panel of experts include Stephanie Ferguson, coordinator of Transition Cambridge's Growing Spaces project; Anna McIvor, co-founder of Romsey Town Community Garden and Keith Jordan, Community Worker for Abbey Action and Grow-your-own guru. Reserve your place by booking ahead. Please email the CCF office or call 01223 301842. More details here.

Open Participatory Planning Meetings for "Poverty & Sustainability Year"

The Humanitarian Centre is launching a year-long programme of events and activities that focus on poverty and sustainability. We are a Cambridge-based charity that connects academia, business, policy-makers and charities to more effectively work together to address global poverty and inequality. The programme for the year will be designed through open participatory planning meetings, to ensure that the events and activities add value to pre-existing work, and are current and influential. If you have an interest in issues of environmental sustainability, sustainable development or international development, please join us for the participatory planning meetings and share your ideas on what the Humanitarian Centre could do that would be interesting and important on this theme. Please register to attend here. Please contact Anne Radl with any questions.

Events for your calendar

Have a warm and cosy week,

Hannah

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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