Newsletters20100525

Hi everyone,

If you’re looking for things to do this bank holiday weekend, then there’s a visit to a local organic farm, a tour of Swaffham Ecotech Centre, and a walk along Wimpole Way - so lots to choose from! There’s also an opportunity to find out what the food group are up to at their newcomers’ evening this Wednesday, and lots of other events coming up, both before and during the Environment Festival...

CONTENTS:

Transition News and Events

  • Wednesday 26th May: Food Group Newcomers' Evening
  • Thursday 27th May: Transition Cafe Night
  • Saturday 29th May: Fen End Farm Visit
  • Sunday 30th May: Swaffham Ecotech Centre visit
  • Bank holiday Monday 31st May: Walk along Wimpole Way to Wendy Wood
  • Tuesday 1st June: Energy Group meeting
  • Wednesday 2nd June: Food Group Meeting - please note venue change!
  • Saturday 5th June: Permaculture visit to Trumpington
  • Tuesday 8th June: Peak Oil, the Financial Crisis and Preparing for the Future
  • Transition needs your help!
  • Environment Festival Events in June

Related News and Events

  • Friday 28th May: Hats off to Bats
  • Wednesday 7th June: Sustainable Shelford workshop on water conservation in the home
  • Tuesday 8th June: Visions of Romsey
  • Sun 20th and Sat 26th June: Open Eco Houses with Cambridge Carbon Footprint
  • Thursday 24th June: Launch of the Cambridgeshire Third Sector Assembly
  • 21st - 25th August: Cambfair
  • A new City Farm for Cambridge?
  • Can being green make you happier?
  • And lastly, a little film about permaculture and preventing climate change

Transition News and Events

  • Wednesday 26th May: Food Group Newcomers’ Meeting

The Food Group members have decided to offer a regular meeting aimed at (but not limited to) newcomers who would like to find out more about the Food Group’s many activities and projects. Come and find out about their projects, such as the garden-share scheme, the ‘grow your own vegetables’ course, community supported agriculture, growzones, foodshare, permaculture and lots more! The meeting itself will be kept short, and there’ll be plenty of time afterwards for questions, discussion and suggestions, plus the all-important social afterwards. All welcome! From 7.30 to 9.30pm at The Geldart Pub, Ainsworth Street, Cambridge. More info about the Food Group.

  • Thursday 27th May: Transition Cafe Night

Come along to meet other interested in the great transition to a lower carbon way of life! All welcome, 7:30-10ish in the Cafe Project, 22 Jesus Lane.

  • Saturday 29th May: Fen End Farm Visit (near Cottenham)

Join TC’s food group in a farm visit and collaborative weeding effort at Fen End Farm! ‘Weed to you. Food to me.’ Organic farmer Ken Kelso says ‘there’s charlock in my organic field.’ We can help him get it out. Join us for a morning of weeding/foraging, a farm tour, and a talk. We’ll finish the morning with a potluck picnic lunch and we may even be able to eat some of the wild food we’ve weeded.

Meet at 9:30am at Fen End Farm. We’ll be done before 2:00 pm. Bring gloves, sunscreen, hat, water, and a potluck lunch item. Please let us know if you’d like to join and if you are interested in car-pooling. Getting there: Bus Citi7 leaves town every 10 minutes. Get off in Cottenham and walk 1.5 miles. The address is Fen End Farm, Oxholme Drove, Cottenham, Cambs, CB4 8UP and here’s a map.

  • Sunday 30th May: Swaffham Ecotech Centre visit

A small group will be driving up to Swaffham to visit the Swaffham ecotech centre and climb the turbine tower (not compulsory!). Please contact Nicola if you would like to join us. The drive is about 1 hour 15 minutes and we will be sharing cars/using public transport.

  • Bank holiday Monday 31st May: Walk along Wimpole Way to Wendy Wood

Following a lovely walk last year with Gareth and the well-being group, we thought we’d do another walk to see Gareth’s wood, where he’s planted hundreds of trees, built a shelter and even made a compost loo. We’ll walk along Wimpole Way, an ancient route trodden long before the age of oil, and perhaps long after... Come along and help to celebrate the season, the land and to meet others interested in Transition, and/or just to enjoy the walk!

It’s about 15 miles and will take us most of the day. Please bring a picnic lunch, drinks, and suitable clothes for the weather (e.g. sunhats/sunscreen and/or waterproofs etc). We’ll meet at 10am (please aim to be there by 9:45 as we’ll start promptly) at the beginning of the Coton footpath at the junction between Adams Road (off Grange Road) and Wilberforce Road (map here). For the return journey, we can either walk a few more miles to Royston train station or Gareth has offered to give people lifts to the station. We should be back at Cambridge train station by 6-8ish. We’ll go ahead unless it’s raining a lot. For more info, see here, or contact us or call Anna on 07811 069561 on the day.

  • Tuesday 1st June: Energy Group meeting

This will be at 8pm at Nicola’s house in Chesterton Road - amongst other things we will be able to report on the visit to the Ecotech Centre at Swaffham and we will have draft posters and leaflets for the energy forum to show. All are welcome. Contact Nicola for venue details.

  • Wednesday 2nd June: Food Group Meeting - Please note venue change!

6.30-8.30pm at the Corner House pub on Newmarket Rd (on the corner of River Lane.)

This is the regular fortnightly meeting of the Food Group, where we gather to progress all the exciting projects we’ve got on the go. We’re trying a different venue and time. We’ve really enjoyed meeting at the Geldart for the last year or so, but our group is getting too big, and that venue too noisy for effective meetings there. The Corner House offers us a great room all to ourselves, and has good food with lots of veggie and gluten free options. Come along and get involved!

  • Saturday 5th June: Permaculture visit to Trumpington

Following the success of our Open Meeting on 4 May, the next meeting will be a visit to Trumpington to see Ceri and Dave’s place, including the chicken co-op, the Community Orchard, Hazel Platt and the allotments. Also, we’ll start planning the calendar of events for the year ahead - based on visits, practical tasks and speakers... bring your ideas. Saturday 5 June, 1pm for a shared lunch - email Ceri and Dave for more info.

  • Tuesday 8th June: Peak Oil, the Financial Crisis and Preparing for the Future

Talk by Nicole Foss. 7:30-9:30pm, the Friends Meeting House on Jesus Lane. Free, by donation.

Peak oil and the collapse of global finance are a "perfect storm" of converging phenomena that threaten to sink our age of prosperity. Nicole will discuss the many converging factors that are contributing to the multi-faceted predicament that we face, and how to prepare for the future. Nicole Foss is a former contributing editor to the Oil Drum, and now blogs under the name Stoneleigh at The Automatic Earth. More info here.

  • Transition needs your help!

If you could help with up-dating the web-site or putting together parts of the bulletin, we’d really appreciate it - this can be as little or as much as you have time for, and you don’t need to be computer-savvy (but if are, that will be great!). Please get in touch - thank you!

We’d also love to hear from you if you’ve got some time to help over the next few weeks, as we’ve got lots of events and stalls coming up - just reply to this e-mail!

  • Environment Festival Events in June

- Sat/Sunday 12/13th: TC stalls at the Town and Country Fair

- Sunday 13th: TC stall at the fair on Lammas Land

- Sunday 13th: Foraged Lunch

- Monday 14th: Talk: Nature in Transition

- Wednesday 16th: Talk: "The World Needs Your Passion"

- Wednesday 16th: Film: "The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil"

- Thursday 17th: Story-Telling - "2020 Visions of the Cambridge of the Future"

- Sunday 20th: Story-telling trail in Milton Country Park

- Tuesday 22nd: Film: "In Transition"

- Wednesday 23rd: Story Competition Awards

- Thursday 24th: Guided Walk: "Wild food forage walk"

There are lots of other events too - see the Council’s Sustainable City web-site.

Related News and Events

  • Friday 28th May: Hats off to Bats

8pm, the Leper Chapel, Newmarket Road, Cambridge.

Bats are fascinating mammals and are a sign of a healthy environment. A healthy and diverse environment is essential for a sustainable future. There are at least 6 species found in Cambridge. Unfortunately bat populations are declining nationally and we need to learn how to protect them. The Cambridge City Greenways Project is launching the Hats off to Bats Project with a talk by local bat expert Antony Mould at 8pm. This will be followed by a guided bat walk around Coldhams Common, heading off at 9.15pm.

The project wants to encourage Cambridge residents to go outside and look for bats and send in records of any they find. This will help to understand the distribution of bats in the city and from that encourage better management of existing sites. The project will also provide advice for gardeners to make their gardens more bat-friendly. There will be further bat walks and bat ‘punts’ throughout the summer. For details of the project and to book a place on the first guided walk please contact Iain Webb or phone 01954 713531.

  • Wednesday 7th June: A practical workshop on water conservation and sustainable drainage in the home

7:30pm, Great Shelford Free Church Hall, 29 High Street Great Shelford, CB22 5EH

Simon Bunn, a Cambridge City Council Sustainable Drainage specialist will talk about the best ways of making our homes water-efficient. Rainwater harvesting, water butts, rain gardens and the law about paving over front gardens will all be covered. There will be opportunities for discussion and questions.

Sustainable Shelford have organised this event. Please do come along and meet us all. We are a lively and friendly group with a good mix of ages. This event is free to all.

  • Tuesday 8th June: Visions of Romsey...

7.30pm to 9.30pm, Ross Street Community Centre.

With short talks, stalls, displays and refreshments we will be updating local residents on the issues raised at the last event and providing an opportunity to meet and talk to other people from the local area. Subjects and speakers will include:

- Developments in local education – Siobhan Rouse, St Philips Primary School and Andrew Hutchinson from the Parkside Federation

- Coldhams Common’s nature reserve status – Guy Belcher, Nature Conservation Projects Officer

- Changes to Mill Road – Kilian Bourke

- Conservation area status for Romsey – John Preston, Historic Environment Manager

- History of Romsey with Allan Brigham

and more...

We hope you are able to come along on the evening and if you are able to help with distributing leaflets and/or helping out on the night, then please let Anne Prince know.

Organised by East Mill Road Action Group.

  • Sun 20th and Sat 26th June: Open Eco Houses with Cambridge Carbon Footprint

As part of the Environment Festival, Cambridge Carbon Footprint is organising Open Eco Houses days. 15 remarkable houses in and around Cambridge will be opening their doors to show best examples of how you can renovate your home for low carbon living. You can see inspiring and practical ideas - from simple-to-fit DIY measures to major total refurbishments - including super-insulation, draught exclusion, photovoltaics, solar hot water, ground-source heat pumps, low water use and rainwater storage, double and triple glazing and more! There will be half-hour guided tours at 11am, 12 noon, 2pm and 3pm. The suggested donation is £2 per adult per tour. You can book a tour by calling the bookings hotline 07837 183271 between 9 and 5. There’ll also be a launch event taking the form of ‘Eco Renovation Question Time’ on June 15th, when you can quiz the panel of experts, find information and chat over refreshments in St Luke’s Church Centre, Victoria Road, CB4 3DZ. Full info here.

  • Thursday 24th June: Celebratory launch of the Cambridgeshire Third Sector Assembly

“CS3A – Our Voice, Our Cambridgeshire”

5:30-8pm, Burgess Hall, St Ivo Leisure Centre, Westwood Road, St Ives, PE27 6WU

Come and enjoy the celebration and take the opportunity to talk to policy and decision makers about how we can work together for the benefit of our groups and communities. Activities will include: a meet and mingle over tea; a short film about Cambridgeshire 3rd Sector: “Shift Happens”; a talk by Lyon Hogarth: “It’s life – but not as you know it”; and “One Voice” stimulating interactive activities to get us all communicating. If you’d like to attend, please RSVP and e-mail your contact details to Jackie Rolph by 11th June or phone her on 01480 461336; she will send you travel directions and further info with your booking confirmation.

  • 21st - 25th August: Cambfair - new festival near Cambridge!

The very first Cambfair will be taking place from 21st to 25th August, with space for 500 people camping around the ancient and beautiful Ashlin Woods near Cambridge. Themes include music, wellbeing, community, Earth awareness, the arts, theatre, comedy and poetry. There will be lots of workshops including Bollywood, bellydancing, Swing, Kung Fu, yoga, 5 rhythms, Tai Chi, drumming, art forms, comedy, theatre, willow sculptures with Salixarts, green woodworking, bushcraft and more, as well as drumming, singing, hot tubs, “Night of the Troubadors”, “Shakespeare in the Wood of 1000 Lights”, “Theatre of the Unusual”, a sweat lodge, massage and meditation. Cambfair is not only about being entertained – it is equally about joining in, finding your feet, finding your rhythm, finding your song, fun, playfulness and peace. More info here www.cambfair.com or call 01379 740181.

  • A new City Farm for Cambridge?

There’s talk of having a City Farm in the grounds of Cherry Hinton Hall - here’s an article from Cambridge Evening News about it.

  • Can being green make you happier?

Here are three articles exploring the links between ecological living and positive mood, recommended or written by Chris Johnstone:

- 10 reasons that green people are happier (from the EcoHustler blog)

- How facing world problems can improve your mood (comment by Chris Johnstone in the Ecologist)

- Resilience, Recovery and the Self-Help SSRI (Strategies, Strengths, Resources, Insights) - a more academic article, also by Chris.

For more on this topic and other articles on related themes, have a look at the latest Great Turning Times, an occasional publication for people interested in Joanna Macy’s ‘Work that Reconnects’.

  • And lastly, a little film about permaculture and preventing climate change...

This well-produced and heart-warming three minute film, narrated by Stephen Fry, describes how reforestation using permaculture techniques can help us address climate change. To find out more about WeForest who produced this film see http://www.weforest.com (also from the Great Turning Times).

Have a great bank holiday weekend!

Anna

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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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