Come to our training day to find out more about “Wind Application”, meet the experts and make connections. Let us tell you why it is important to support Wind Farms and highlight their benefits, putting any doubts at rest.
A wind packed day divided into two sessions, the morning sessions give you an insight into Wind Application and how to support your local project and how to get support, advice and resources. The afternoon session offers a range of workshops on how to communicate the message cross”.
More info & programme can be found here: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/event_background_documents/wind_training.pdf.
All is welcome. To book your free place, please just email tom.wright AT foe.co.uk

Peter Bloomfield represented the Grow Your Own Food group when Caroline Lucas, Green MP, visited the Courtyard Cafe on Wednesday 28th March. It was made quite clear that we are a non-political group working in partnership with the cafe to show how much can be grown in a small space and how fresh food doesn’t have to travel half way around the world to get to our plates. Caroline, the local Green councillor (Simon Grover), council candidates in the forthcoming election, and local reporters were amazed when they were told that this small garden produced beetroot, celery, tomatoes, broad and French beans, garlic, shallots, leeks, salads, rocket, carrots, spinach and herbs throughout the seasons. It was stressed that the 4m x 3m patch aimed to demonstrate just what can be achieved in an average ‘back garden’, and how this can help address the challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change by reducing food miles and pollution from transport. Watch the local press!

Photo credit: St Albans and Harpenden Review

The coaching model Jeff used showed us how to reframe the challenge into a positive outcome and then imagine a future where the outcome has been achieved. Looking back to today, we imagined the benefits we had achieved, the resources we had used, the obstacles we’d met and how we had overcome them. This allowed us to identify the next steps we needed to take to solve our challenges.

If you weren’t able to come, please do still email Jeff your answers to the worksheet circulated before the meeting. (He will combine our answers to create a collective and anonymous assessment.)

If you were there: please email your feedback to Jeff (1. This is my outcome …. 2. I will achieve this by …. 3. These are the resources I need … 4. This is the first step I am taking ….)

Jeff can be contacted on jeff.lewis@jefflewispartnership.co.uk .

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!

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].

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].

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.

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.

We then watched the film “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard. If you weren’t there or want to see the film again, you can view it on YouTube here (it’s a short film, only about 20 minutes)

Tracking our “stuff” from extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal, the film explains how running a linear system in a finite world, focusing on producing ever more stuff in a manner that neither respects the environment nor the majority of people, is causing a range of environmental and social issues. And ever increasing consumption sits at the heart of this system, as the engine that drives it and keeps it going.

The message was clear: we are facing a big problem, a system in crisis.

However, as Annie concluded the film: “the good thing about such an all pervasive problem is that there are so many points of intervention, and there are already many people working to reclaim and transform this linear system into something new, a system that doesn’t waste resources or people.”

“Because what we really need to chuck is this old-school throw-away mindset. There’s a new school of thinking on this stuff and it’s based on sustainability and equity: Green Chemistry, Zero Waste, Closed Loop Production, Renewable Energy, Local living Economies. It’s already happening.”

“Some people say it’s unrealistic, idealistic, that it can’t happen. But I say the ones who are unrealistic are those that want to continue on the old path. That’s dreaming.”

“Remember that old way didn’t just happen by itself. It’s not like gravity that we just gotta live with. People created it. And we’re people too. So let’s create something new.”

After the film, we had a discussion about how we can transform our culture of consumption and waste into a culture that prioritizes social and ecological wellbeing.

It’s difficult to summarise what was said in the discussion, but one of the things we seemed to agree on was the importance of values as guides for our behaviour, and the need to shift our values to create the lasting substantial behavioural change required to address peak oil and climate change.

It so happens that several NGOs (WWF, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam ea) have commissioned research on values in recent years, and several interesting reports were published on this subject last year. We didn’t discuss this in any depth at the Open Meeting, but those interested can find links to the most recent reports in the Resources section below (see Common Cause Report and Handbook).

Resources:

• Watch “The Story of Stuff” via our YouTube Channel  (ironically, Google/YouTube sometimes adds an advert before the movie)
• The website storyofstuff.com website has lots of supporting material, including:
• a referenced and annotated script of the film, i.e. the full text of the film with footnotes  with links to the journals, newspapers and websites that were used to research it
• suggestions on what to do to address the problems identified in the film
• resources for facilitating learning and action
• links to NGOs.
• The storyofstuff.com website has evolved since 2007 into “The Story of Stuff Project” and now offers further movies on more specific topics like cosmetics, bottled water etc.
• For information and research on the importance of values, see the valuesandframes.org website, especially:
• The Common Cause Report by Tom Crompton (PDF 1.1MB)
• The Common Cause Handbook (PDF 2.8MB)

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].

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!