Green Christmas, Everyone!

Posted on December 9, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Back in December 2010, many of you came along to our “How to Green Your Christmas” Open Meeting event, facilitated by Catherine.

At the meeting, we collected your ideas for how we can make Christmas a little more sustainable, how we can buy a little less, waste a little less, and Catherine kindly compiled them all into a nice Green Christmas Guide.

There is no Open Meeting this month, because it fell too close to Christmas. See you all in 2012; our first open meeting is on Weds, 18th January.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from everyone at TSA!

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Posted in Consumption, News

The African Climate Connection

Posted on November 15, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Local members of Friends of the Earth, the Oxfam Campaigns Group, and World Development Movement are organising an informal evening of short films, friendly discussion, and African-inspired refreshments on the eve of the next round of UN Climate Talks, this year in Durban, South Africa.

The evening will be a chance to learn more about the issues around climate change, in particular about its effect on the developing world, and an opportunity to put your concerns on climate change to local politicians.

Everyone is welcome!

Tuesday 29th November 2011, 8pm at Fleetville Community Centre on Royal Road, off Hatfield Road, AL1 4LQ (opposite the Morrisons supermarket car park entrance) [map].

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Posted in Climate change, News

Winning hearts and minds

Posted on November 10, 2011 by | 1 Comment

The theme for our Open Meeting on Weds 16th November is “Winning hearts and minds“, focusing on how we can raise awareness and mobilise support for Transition aims within the local community.

After an initial overview presentation by a Change Management specialist on the dynamics of personal change and techniques to impact individual behaviours in relation to Transition, there will be group breakout sessions to help define and develop our Communications Plan, looking at:-

  • Communications and Change objectives: What are the ultimate aims of our communications? What changes are we trying to drive?
  • How we can raise awareness of TSA, its aims and objectives, within the local community?
  • Who are our key stakeholders and how can we best engage with them?
  • What resistance might we encounter along the way?
  • What resources do we have and how can we maximise their potential?

The session will be facilitated by Faye Brook, a professional Project and Change Management consultant.

As usual, there will also be updates on projects ongoing and planned, and time for announcements.

Everybody welcome!   Suggested voluntary donation of £2 to cover costs.

Time and place:  Weds 16 Nov, 7.30pm at Fleetville Community Centre on Royal Road, off Hatfield Road, near Morrisons [map].

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Posted in Awareness raising, Communications

The MAN with the PLAN

Posted on November 9, 2011 by | Leave a comment

STACC, the St Albans Cycle Campaign, is inviting all to a public meeting on Monday 28th November, 7.30pm at St Albans Council Offices, St Peters Street.

Jonny Rotheram (Steer Davies Gleave) has been commissioned by Herts County Council to produce a plan for cycling in St Albans and he will present initial proposals at the meeting.

This follows on from the ‘Wish List’ STACC prepared at last December’s meeting – now the ideas are being taken forward into a formal cycling study, hopefully to be implemented in the next 5 years.

The meeting will be interactive, to help develop the plan further.

There will also be an update on other local cycling news – and refreshments will be provided.

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Posted in Transport

Consumerism and the importance of values

Posted on November 2, 2011 by | 1 Comment

October’s Open Meeting was about “Consumerism”: Why do we consume so much? And is it really all that bad?

We started with a Think-and-Listen exercise to reflect on how we each see the consumerist society we live in. At the end, everybody was asked to write down on a post-it something negative and something positive we associate with consumerism. The word cloud below shows what was written (positives have a plus sign in front).

The answers seem to reveal our dilemma: we know well what’s not good about consumerism but the problem is big and we are worried about our economy (mentioned equally as positive an negative) and, most of all, about employment. Continue reading →

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Posted in Air quality, Climate change, Consumption, Economy, Energy, Environment, Food, Health, Waste

The Story of Stuff

Posted on October 16, 2011 by | Leave a comment

The theme for our Open Meeting on Weds 19th Oct is “Consumerism“.

We will be showing the film “The Story of Stuff” by Annie Leonard.

The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled, humorous look at the underside of production and consumption. It explores the connections between a vast array of environmental and social issues, and points the way toward a more sustainable and just world.

Afterwards we’ll have a friendly discussion, thinking about how we can transform our culture of consumption and waste into a culture that prioritizes social and ecological well-being.

You’ll learn something, you’ll laugh, and you just may never look at stuff the same way again. [UPDATE: you can read how it went here]

As usual, there will also be updates on projects ongoing and planned.

Everybody welcome! Suggested voluntary donation of £2 to cover costs.

Time and place: Weds 19 Oct, 7.30pm at Fleetville Community Centre on Royal Road, off Hatfield Road, near Morrisons [map].

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Posted in Air quality, Consumption, Economy, Environment, Health, Waste

Vote to support the Watercress Wildlife Association!

Posted on October 6, 2011 by | Leave a comment

The Watercress Wildlife Association, a local nature reserve in Sopwell in St Albans, has entered the 2011 NatWest Community Force Award competition.

NatWest CommunityForce is an initiative which sees NatWest working with local communities to support the people, projects and charities who are making a real difference where they live.

Communities are important to all of us. At the heart of each and every one you’ll find great people doing great things to make them better places.

Up to £6000 is available for individual projects with awards dependent on the demonstration of support from the community for each project.

You can vote for the Watercress Wildlife Association here. You have to register to vote but it only takes a minute.  Voting closes midday on 24th October.

If you can, please also ask your friends, family and colleagues as every vote counts!

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Posted in Community, Environment, News

Green Drinks Harvest – Grow it, Cook it, Eat it!

Posted on October 5, 2011 by | 1 Comment

On Tuesday, 4th October 2011, 8pm to 11pm, the Home Grown Food Group shared and celebrated their harvest at the Green Drinks at the Farmer’s Boy on London Road [map].

Exceptionally, our monthly Green Drinks social evening at the same pub – normally on the second Tuesday of the month – had been brought forward by a week, to make it a part of the ten day local food scene celebration that is the St Albans Food & Drink Festival.

“Grow it, Cook it, Eat it! – Green Drinks Harvest” programme

8.25pm – Opening speech by Peter Bloomfield of TSA

8.30pm – Kevin Yelland, the Chief Brewer of the Award winning Verulam Brewery, which is based at the Farmer’s Boy, gave a “Talk and Brewery Tour”. So many people were interested that there wasn’t enough space for all of them inside the small brewery building…

9 pm – Roselyne Masselin, Chef and owner of the local Vegetarian cookery school “La Cuisine Imaginaire“ and BBC Cookery author, did a Vegetarian cookery demonstration, complete with tastings. The soup and veggie burgers were truly delicious!

We also had:

  • an Open Gardens photo display by Romayne
  • our Pallet Garden in the pub’s courtyard, replanted by Peter B
  • home grown produce to take away, grown by members of the food group, coordinated by Heather
  • seeds and seedlings, complete with instructions, also from the food group
  • lovely homemade cakes by Amanda Y
  • vegetarian nibbles kindly provided by the Farmer’s Boy

The evening went very well, with a really nice atmosphere throughout. In all, some 25-30 people came, so there were many interesting conversations and contacts made. And always good to see some new people too!

Thanks to everybody who helped make it such a good evening!

You can see a few photos here.

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Posted in Community, Food

‘Down with energy bills’ – Meeting Report

Posted on September 26, 2011 by | Leave a comment

We were swamped (pleasantly I hasten to add) with ideas by everyone present at our Energy meeting this week on Wednesday 21st September. The topic was Open Energy Houses (known also as Eco Open Houses) and the meeting started with the following questions:

  • What would you like to learn about energy in the home?
  • What would you expect to find out when you visit a house?
  • In what form would you like this information?

Three groups were formed and a brainstorming session began. There was then a talk by Andrew Allen on his experience of Brighton Eco Open Houses 2011. A great deal of ideas were generated which have all been recorded and will contribute to a follow up session at the next Energy meeting on the 17th October.

If you did not attend this meeting or for those present who would like a recap on the issues raised in the presentation on Brighton, a copy can be downloaded here: TSA Open House Brighton Talk (PDF – 6.9MB).

Results from the brainstorming session will follow. If you would like to know more about this exiting new project, email energy at transitionstalbans.org or for further information on what we are trying to achieve at Transition St Albans go to the contacts page or tap on this link http://transitionstalbans.org/contact/.

We look forward to seeing you at the next Open Energy Meeting or at Green Drinks if you can make it. See events for more information or tap on this link http://transitionstalbans.org/events/.

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Posted in Community, Energy, Environment, News

Down with Energy Bills!

Posted on September 20, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Come and help Transition St Albans shape the future of our exciting new energy project at our Open Meeting on Weds 20th September.

Our Home Energy Group intend to launch an Open Energy Houses project next year and are seeking your ideas to help put this project together.

We are planning a friendly and sociable evening, so do come along.

As usual, we meet at 7.30pm in Fleetville Community Centre on Royal Road, off Hatfield Road, near Morrisons [map].

Everybody welcome!

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Posted in Energy, News