Category Archives: News

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

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

‘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

Transition St Albans is now on Facebook too!

Posted on June 16, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Thanks to Catherine we now have a page on Facebook too.

Everybody can view our page, even if you are not on Facebook. So please do go and have a look.

If you have a Facebook account, then you can do more: comment on individual posts or simply click “Like” if a post resonates with you, or write something new on our “wall” to let others know. And if you “Like” our page then our posts will automatically show up in the News Feed on your Facebook Home page, making it easy for you to keep up to date with what is happening in Transition St Albans.

Alternatively, you can access our Facebook page, or any of our other internet presences, on Twitter and YouTube, by clicking on the small logo for each, located at the top of the sidebar on the right.

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Posted in News

Sharing seedlings and food growing experience

Posted on May 23, 2011 by | Leave a comment

At our Open Meeting on Weds 18th May, members of the Home Grown Food Group organised the sharing of seedlings.

As you can see on the photo (click for a larger version), there was an abundance of young plants & seedlings available, including: tomatoes, lettuce, courgettes, celery and celery leaf, globe artichokes, runner beans, sea kale, broccoli, watercress, melons and various herbs.

Many came and took some plants away. And if you wanted to experiment with growing something new, written information on care and harvesting was provided.

The evening also included a mini “Gardener’s Question Time“, a question and answer session where growers shared their experience and knowledge.

 The panel of experts consisted of Nadine G, Heather, June and Sandy, with the session skilfully moderated by Romayne.

There are some more pictures of the evening here.

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Posted in Food, News

Nadine’s Open Food Garden – Companion Planting

Posted on May 15, 2011 by | Leave a comment

On Saturday 14 May, in the afternoon, Nadine opened up her garden in Church Street, a big long family garden near the city centre, with various fruit trees, many different kinds of vegetables and herbs, an experimental edible hedge, a walk-in plastic greenhouse, a bucket pond etc.

Nadine’s guided tours were really inspiring. She has a lot of knowledge and experience, and there is something in the way she talks about it all that makes it both informative and entertaining, a winning combination.

An interesting aspect of Nadine’s vegetable garden was her frequent use of the technique of Companion Planting as a natural form of pest control and to increase yields. Basically, planting different types of plants together that are known to help each other to grow or to deter or distract pests!

Apart from explaining it on her guided tours, Nadine also put up a poster describing how the concept had been applied to her garden. There is a copy of the Companion Planting in Nadine’s Garden poster here.

Everybody thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, as you can tell from the pictures. There are a few more pictures here.

Bonus: the last couple of photos in the album linked to above show Nadine’s “Raised Bed Community Garden” project. When a large publicity board on the corner of her street was removed, and it became clear that there were no plans to replace it, Nadine and several neighbours decided to give the corner a green make-over. Both help and feedback from fellow residents have been amazing!

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Posted in Community, Food, News

Environment Matters on Radio Verulam

Posted on May 14, 2011 by | Leave a comment

“Environment Matters” is a new programme on Radio Verulam, St Albans’ local radio station.

It’s on the air on the second Thursday of each month, from 9pm till 9.30pm.

If you live in St Albans, tune your radio to 92.6 FM. Alternatively, you can  listen live on the internet on www.radioverulam.com.

Jack Easton, Claire Sherman and Amanda Yorwerth will be covering all sorts of environment-related issues:  from cycling to solar power, from Green Ambassadors to Green holidays, from what’s in your bin to what’s on your plate.

Both the wider issues and the local perspective will investigated, with plenty of information and advice relevant to everyone.

And listeners will also be kept up to date with local environment-related events.

If you want to propose an item or even a theme for one of the programmes, have an environment-related event to be advertised, or want to give feedback, then you can contact them by email to  environmentonrv@gmail.com or by telephone on  01727 839 926.

The first episode aired on Thursday 12 May 2011 and was devoted to cycling, including an update on the government’s Cycling Demonstration Towns project with a report from nearby Aylesbury, and an interview with Stephen Wragg of the St Albans Cycle Campaign (STACC).  You can listen to it here.

The next programme in the series will be aired on Thursday 9 June, at 9pm.

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Posted in Environment, News, Transport

Free compost on Sunday 8th May

Posted on May 2, 2011 by | Leave a comment

St Albans City and District Council (SADC) is giving away 10 tonnes of free compost to mark International Compost Awareness Week (1st – 7th May) which is aimed at encouraging people to recycle their waste for composting.

Residents will be entitled to take away up to three bags full of peat-free compost on Sunday 8th May from the Enterprise depot at Ronsons Way, St Albans, between 12 noon and 4pm.

Shovels will be provided, but residents are asked to bring their own bags to load compost into their cars. Council staff will be on hand to provide useful tips on composting.

The compost is supplied for free by Agrivert, an organic waste management company which takes green waste collected by the Council from households in the District.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Food, News, Waste