There is a meeting in the Parish Rooms from 18:30 on Tuesday 25th October about setting up a Food Bank in Tavistock. If you are interested in joining please contact Max Laithwaite
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Wondrously Recycled … Christmas Tree Decoration Making Workshop – Sun. 13th November
‘Wondrously Recycled’ Christmas tree decoration making workshop
Sunday 13th November from 14:00 until 17:30 – Friends Meeting House, Tavistock.
Children and families welcome.
We’re holding a workshop to make decorations for this year’s tree (see below) … and will also be demonstrating … for those interested … our ‘Naturally Beautiful’ decorations from last year. Everyone welcome to come along and have a go! Please bring interesting objects … already used once … which could be made wondrous!!!
This will be at the Friends Meeting House (at Bedford car park entrance near library) on Sunday Nov. 13th from 14:00 until 17:30. Refreshments will be available. Children and families welcome.
For further information contact Kate Royston.
Wondrously Recycled … TT’s 2011 Christmas Tree Festival Theme
We are creating a sustainably decorated tree, using only recycled materials i.e. materials which have already been used at least once before! Our decorations will be simple, inexpensive and we hope, wondrously inspiring! The tree lights are pedal powered!
The tree will be on show as part of the friends of St Eustachius’ Christmas Tree Festival between the 25th November and 4th December 2011.
October Newsletter
Welcome to the October newsletter from Transition Tavistock.
Contents:
Ron Meredith and Diana Lee offer one-day courses in seed saving, rainwater harvesting, wildlife gardening, medicinal herbs, growing organic veg, raised no-dig beds, polytunnels for year-round growing, and creating and maintaining a mixed fruit orchard – and a two-day course in forest gardening. They can be contacted on 01409 2544 for the 2012 programme. Maybe it’s time to get serious about growing your own?
Good news if you plan to install solar thermal, ground source heat pump, biomass boiler or air source heat pump. ‘Premium payments’ from the government are now available if the equipment is installed by March 31 (various conditions apply). Further details from www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/RHPP
You may be aware that new LED lights offer advantages over the usual energy-saving type, including a brighter, faster light and longer-life bulbs. These are now available at the Wednesday market in Tavistock from the Pure Vision stall.
Transition Tavistock FOOD AND ENERGY GROUP: Meeting Tues 1st November at 19:30
We’ll be meeting at Mike and Jenny’s house (
49 Milton Crescent
, Tavistock) on Tuesday 1st November at 19:30.
If you’re interested in progressing community based food and energy initiatives in Tavistock and surrounding villages do come and join us!
If you can’t make it but have ideas to share please let me know, or if you’d like to have a chat please get in touch: Kate Royston at kate.royston@robbeesmole.com (01822-835819) or Mike Dennis 0n 01822-618142).
Transition Stories: Sharing ‘Knowhow’
We’re finding exchanging good ideas and experiences is a great way for us to learn and grow more confident. We’ve decided to start collecting them together. If you’d like to share your experiences of renewable energy, energy saving schemes, saving water and other resources, growing things and making things from ‘our own back yard’ … let us know!
You can put your story in our newsletter, on the website and in our growing storybook
… and we’ll be developing ‘Open House’ type events so you can show others how you did it!
Contact Kate or Mike (numbers above).
Wondrously Recycled … TT’s 2011 Christmas Tree Festival Theme
We are creating a sustainably decorated tree, using only recycled materials i.e. materials which have already been used at least once before! Our decorations will be simple, inexpensive and we hope, wondrously inspiring! The tree lights are pedal powered!
The tree will be on show as part of the friends of St Eustachius’ Christmas Tree Festival between the 25th November and 4th December 2011.
‘Wondrously Recycled’ and ‘Naturally Beautiful’ Christmas tree decoration making workshop – Sun. 13th November from 14:00 until 17:30 – Friends Meeting House. Children and families welcome.
We’re holding a workshop to make decorations for this year’s tree … and will also be demonstrating … for those interested … our ‘Naturally Beautiful’ decorations from last year. Everyone welcome to come along and have a go! Please bring interesting objects … already used once … which could be made wondrous!!!
This will be at the Friends Meeting House (at Bedford
‘The Antarctic ice is growing, not shrinking’
This is true for certain areas of Antarctica – and, intriguingly, it actually gives us more evidence for global warming. Increased evaporation caused by higher temperatures has led to more snowfall in some parts of Antarctica, and thus thicker ice cover in these areas (usually inland). Closer to the sea (which is warming faster than the air) the ice is retreating.
‘Climate change has good effects, not just bad ones!’
True – up to a point. Warmer winters in some countries will mean fewer people die from cold. Increased temperatures have made it easier to grow crops in some regions. Sadly, these small pockets of positive effects are hugely outweighed by the negative ones. We have built almost all our settlements in places that are comfortable and fertile in our current climate, and our ways of growing food are carefully adapted to the weather we’ve been used to for thousands of years. Rapid changes in the Earth’s climate are already starting to throw this out of kilter – hence increasing deaths from storms, floods and famines. Even if climate change makes some places more comfortable to humans, do we expect everyone to migrate to the limited number of places where this is so?
‘Climate change is a problem, but there are bigger problems that we need to tackle first’
This argument offers a false choice – we can (and should) tackle the problems of climate change, poverty, healthcare etc all at the same time. Many of these problems have the same root causes – the relentless pursuit of profit and economic growth over people’s real needs – so it makes sense to work on them all together.
Climate change is making many of the world’s problems much worse – Kofi Annan’s Global Humanitarian Forum found that climate change threatens all eight of the Millennium Development Goals and is making it much harder to tackle global poverty and disease. Any progress we make in these areas will be swept away by climate change, unless we act to prevent its worst effects.
‘We can’t trust the computer models’
While the ‘big picture’ climate change predictions (increased temperatures, more evaporation, melting ice caps and rising seas) are based on observed results and the prehistoric record, the more detailed projections (how much climate change, where, and by when) are based on computer models. These models are constantly checked and improved, and tested against real-life scenarios to make sure they’re as accurate as possible, but there are always going to be some uncertainties. This is why climate scientists talk in terms of probabilities and risks; no-one knows all the details of what’s going to happen as the climate changes, but these models can show us the most likely trends and give us some useful indications and warnings.
Some use this uncertainty to argue against taking action to tackle climate change and spending money on climate solutions, saying that it might not be as bad as we think. The problem with this argument is that we do know it’s going to be bad. We know because it’s already bad – people are suffering in floods and droughts, we’re losing species left, right and centre, and over 300,000 people are dying every year as a result of climate change. We don’t need the models to tell us that if we keep on pumping out the polluting gases that caused this mess, things are going to keep getting worse.
Extracts with permission from The New Internationalist, with thanks to Mike Dennis
Tuesday October 11th: Green Drinks: at the Market Inn, Whitchurch Rd, 7.30pm on. All welcome to have a drink, a chat and share sustainability talk!
Monday October 17th, 2 – 4 pm at the Wharf, Canal Rd, Tavistock PL19 8AT: TaVi Network Open Forum meeting to shape the direction of this newly formed community organisation. For more information contact Max Laithwaite on contact@westden.org.uk or 0845 345 5077.
Thursday 20th October, 7 – 9 pm at West Devon Borough Council Offices, Kilworthy Pk, Drake Rd, Tavistock PL19 0BZ: TaVi Network Open Forum meeting to shape the direction of this newly formed community organisation. For more information contact Max Laithwaite on contact@westden.org.uk or 0845 345 5077.
Saturday October 22nd: Apple Pressing and Juice Bottling at Wonnacott Farm. Following last year’s pasteurising and bottling of the most delicious apple juice in the kitchen of their organic farm, Rosie and Paul Yells have invited us back again. If you would like to come, please contact Mike Dennis on mikedennis_uk@yahoo.co.uk by 15th October. If you have bottles and stoppers from last year, please let Mike know – this apple juice keeps and Rosie will be buying in new bottles and stoppers as required. A small charge will be made to cover expenses.
Friday 4th November: Devon Renaissance Event: Bicton House, Budleigh Salterton EX9 7BY. Key speaker Michael Caines MBE. The all day event will be introduced by our key speaker the local celebrity chef; Michael Caines MBE. The jam-packed day includes a live streamed debate ‘Are we making the most of our resources?’ On the debating panel is Professor Michael Winter, the Director of the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter. Michael has carried out much work around the very current topic of food security. He will be joined by other leading figures from the renewable energy, farming and food sectors and we are presently awaiting the response of a top rural Government Minister. As well as a mouth watering local food lunch there will be several presentations and numerous displays from local renewable energy, farming and food businesses demonstrating what is happening on the ground. What promises to be a lively, informative and thought provoking day will feed into the Local Economic Partnership and will culminate with the chance of a tractor and trailer tour of the nearby Bicton EaRTH Centre a renewable energy training centre and sustainable building that is currently under construction. Contact Admin@ruraldevon.org for further details.
Saturday 10th March 2012: Treasure in the Field – Spiritual Capital and Sustainable Living. We are spending the natural capital on which our children depend – not to mention the other species in our trust. Whether oil, metal, water or nutrients, it’s time to “leave it in the ground” and become treasurers , not consumers, of the earth. That requires investing in the source of ultimate value; spiritual capital. The annual conference of Christian Ecology Link in 2010 will explore alternative, sustainable ways of living that will heal our ravaged world. Workshops will focus on economics without growth on a finite planet; consumer detox; eco-growing and more. The conference will be held at St Michaels, Stoke Gifford (by Bristol Parkway station). It will be led by Jonathon Porritt and Tim Gorringe (from Exeter University). Cost only £10.
Our growing book of community stories