Transition St Albans

You are invited! AGM Wed 15th May 7.30 Fleetville Community Centre

gail — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:07:16 +0000

Come and join in! Transition St Albans are holding their Annual General Meeting on Wed 15th May, 7.30pm at Fleetville Community Centre.

Presentation
The chair of Transition St Albans, Jack Easton will give a short presentation about past and future highlights of the local Transition project.

Agricultural Project
Peter Bloomfield, an active member of the Transition Food Group will talk about the community supported agricultural project he is involved in developing.

Plant Sale and Swop
No need to worry about planting seeds out, or spending more money at the Garden Centre – this special event will host a plant sale/swop from Transitions’ gardeners to help you get ready for a bumper summer crop.

but I’m not involved in Transitions?
If you are not already involved you will have the chance to meet and get to know like-minded people and find out how you can get to see the award winning Clean Bin Project on World Environment Day on June 5th. You can share ideas and find out more about the Transition Streets projects happening in over six streets in St Albans, Energy Open Homes 2013, and the blooming OpenFoodGarden events this summer. Everyone is very welcome to come and share tea, coffee and cake!

The Clean Bin Project film

St Albans homes make up 40% of greenhouse emissions

gail — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:56:40 +0000

Of all properties in St Albans, our homes make up 40% of greenhouse emissions. Whether or not you choose to use the ‘Green Deal’ scheme, you can do a lot to reduce carbon emissions by making your home more energy efficient. See more about the Green Deal at ‘Green Deal or no Green Deal‘ on the TSA website or watch the Which video

St Albans City and District Council expect to reduce greenhouse emissions in the area by 5% a year. Analysing emissions by property they showed that homes made up 40% of greenhouse emissions in 2011/12, closely followed by Leisure Centres at 36%.

Find out more about reducing your carbon emissions and read the 2011/12 Greenhouse Emissions report in full on the council’s Climate Change pages.

Clean Bin Project film event

gail — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:51:01 +0000

One of those rare documentaries that make you feel like you can do something about the problems in the world…

Come and see this unique film - Wed 5th June 8pm

a film screening created by St Albans Friends of the Earth together with Transition St Albans. St Pauls Church ‘lounge room’ Blandford Road St Albans AL1 4JP Tickets on the door £5/£3 concessions.

‘The goal is zero landfill waste. For one year we avoided buying material goods and attempted to live without producing garbage. At the end of the year, we just couldn’t stop.’

We are showing ‘The Clean Bin Project’ – In this multi-award winning film, partners Jen and Grant go head to head in a competition to see who can turn away from consumerism and produce the least garbage. Their light-hearted competition is set against a darker examination of the problem of waste. We watch as they struggle to find meaning in their minuscule influence on the large-scale environmental impacts of our “throw-away society”.

The Clean Bin Project features laugh out loud moments and unforgettable imagery. The film is a fun and inspiring call to individual action that speaks to people of all ages.

The Clean Bin Project film

Waking up to a summer of food treats

Andrew — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:57:19 +0000

Becky Alexander, writing her column in the Herts Advertiser visited our OpenFoodGarden launch this April and did a lovely write-up on the project. You can find the link to the article here and a short excerpt below:

Waking up to a summer of food treats

Becky Alexander writing in the Herts Advertiser
Thursday, April 25, 2013

‘Open Food Gardens

Last week Transition St Albans launched the program for this year’s Open Food Gardens at The Courtyard Café, St Albans.

This lovely annual event is an opportunity to visit local gardens and meet like-minded gardeners and find out more about growing your own fruit and vegetables. Transition are an active local group, keen to share ideas on how we can all save money, and reduce our carbon footprints.’

Which video on Green Deal

gail — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:51:51 +0000

find out more about the steps to the Green Deal

Open Food Gardens programme 2013

heatherteare — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:33:59 +0000

Launch of Open Food Gardens 2013

The programme of OpenFoodGardens will be launched at the Courtyard Cafe, Hatfield Road, St Albans on Saturday 13th April from 11.00 a.m – 2.00 p.m. Come along and look at the Transition St Albans demonstration garden and find out more information about the open gardens.

This year three gardens will be open:

Sunday 9th June 2.00 - 5.00 – 104 Marshalwick Lane AL1 4XE

Sunday 11th August 2.00 – 4.00 - 21 Sherwood Avenue AL4 9QJ

Sunday 8th september 2.00 – 4.00 – 24 Oaklands Lane AL4 0HR

Skill sharing sessions

As part of the Open Food Gardens programme two members of the Home Grown Food Group are opening their gardens once a month from April to September at look at particular skills in growing vegetables. Heather and June are both amateur vegetable growers and want to take out some of the mystery about growing food.

For more information and dates and times go to: Skills dates

Transition Streets groups start in town and village

cathrosstsa — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 18:57:29 +0000

Our second Streets group started this week right in the historical heart of town, in Fishpool Street, our third was hot on its heels in the village of Kimpton Bottom, and our fourth started today on Riverside Road in the centre of St Albans.

Want to know more? click here.

What to run a group on your street? click here.

Our first Transition Streets group is up and running!

cathrosstsa — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:42:33 +0000

Today, the very first of our Transition Streets groups got started, in Fleetville. The next few are getting ready, in Riverside Road, Fishpool Street, The Almonds, Wheathampstead and Kimpton.

Want to know more? click here.

What to run a group on your street? click here.

Jan 13′ Open Meeting

Andrew — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:33:14 +0000

Thanks to everyone who made it out on a cold dark night to come to our open meeting last night, especially the new members. We watched two thought-provoking TED talks:

And then Jack took us through some key points about Peak Oil.

Each workgroup then outlined what it does and how people can get involved

the Home Grown Food Group
the Energy Group
Transition Streets
the Awareness-Raising Group

The open discussion at the end was wide-ranging and interesting (how TSA could engage local businesses more, whether fracking changes anything, and ideas for starting a community garden).

To find out more about fracking, check out this illuminating and engaging website that illustrates the whole fracking process: http://www.dangersoffracking.com

At our February meeting, all about planning what we want to achieve next year, these ideas and more will be fed in, including all the ideas that were raised at our November film screening.

New and local: Transition Streets

cathrosstsa — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:00:44 +0000

Our new project, Transition Streets, kicked-off yesterday with excellent training from the experts from Totnes. Our first batch of local initiators found out what it involves to run a group on their street whilst our steering group learned more about co-ordinating the project.

This new project, funded by the Big Lottery, helps groups of 6-8 neighbours to work together to cut their energy use, cut their household bills, and have fun along the way. To learn more, go to the Streets section of this website, or contact us on streets@transitionstalbans.org.