We have decided to screen The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil as part of Transition Bookham's launch event. This will take place at Bookham Baptist Church on Saturday 13th March from 7.30pm. Here is the evening's agenda, do come along -
- 7.30pm Bookham Vision to introduce Transition Bookham
- Outline of programme for the evening and introduction to the film
- The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
- Briefly explore film's message and relevance
- Local Transition group members share their experiences
- Question and answer session with 'expert' panel
- Outline some possible interest groups within Transition Bookham
- Contribute to possible groups by jotting down ideas and doodling!
- 9.30pm Finish
As you can see it's quite a full schedule, so we'll have limited time to explore all aspects of Transition and will only scratch the surface. Make sure you put the follow-up meeting in your diary now - Wednesday 21st April - time and venue to be confirmed.
For more information check out our Transition Bookham page.
AGM on Thursday 25th March at 7.30pm in the Friends Meeting House.
Capel Goes Green warmly invites you to join them for their Annual General Meeting and viewing of In Transition.
They shall conduct the usual business (review of the past year, election of officers) briskly and then enjoy the screening of a film In Transition which tells the story of the rapidly growing movement across the world, in both towns and villages, to develop resilience in local communities and to cut back on energy use. The film is particularly dramatic is showing our profligate use of oil.
The film will be followed by refreshments and discussion of the film.
They shall then develop a programme of events for the coming year. So far there have been ideas for a vegetarian lunch, a visit to the Mole Valley recyling depot, a Green Gazebo at the Horticultural Show in August (instead of a separate Green Fair in September). You may have some splendid suggestions to add to these.
Meanwhile the Temple Lane Allotments Society is meeting regularly as a separate body, putting in applications for grants, completing planning permission documents and getting estimates for fencing, car parking hard-standing, and a multi-purpose shed with lockable storage, social area and even a composting or camping toilet!
February 13, 2010 16:37 by
dereksThis is my second Transition Ashtead report, this time on the Home Energy group. We have just applied for funding from Surrey County Council’s new climate change fund to carry out a programme of activities designed to reduce carbon emissions from Ashtead’s houses. The following description of our plan is copied straight from our fund application.
1. We aim to carry out a programme of planned activities over one year to promote the importance of reducing domestic energy consumption and carbon emissions to Ashtead residents. The plan is to have three events – the first in early April to initiate interest (speaker + some home energy efficiency equipment demonstrations), the second in June as a main event to have speakers and workshop/exhibitions on relevant locally available technology. The third is to have a speaker and equipment display on home renewable energy options.
2. We aim to set up a library of locally available energy efficiency equipment – some to show and some to loan e.g. draught meters, LED and low energy light bulbs, power meters so people can see and try them out.
3. Get a small number of people trained in (a) draught proofing methodologies so they can train others to create a pool of people who can do this and (b) advising people on the grants available for domestic carbon reduction work and if necessary helping people complete the grant application forms. We plan to carry this out as part of the Ashtead churches Act10n initiative in 8-12 July, and so the main beneficiaries should be needy and vulnerable people.
4. Research local suppliers of energy efficiency and renewable energy suppliers and identify those with real expertise and good reputations and create a preferred supplier list or get them added to the approved trade lists such as Checkatrade
If anyone is interested in learning more about any of these activities you can ring me on 01372-378914 or email info@ transitionashtead.org.uk
Derek Smith
February 13, 2010 15:58 by
dereksThis is the first of two reports on what Transition Ashtead is up to. We have started two action groups, one on Home Energy and one on Food. The food group is really an umbrella group for sub-groups on different aspects of the subject, and we have called our first sub-group ‘Grow Your Own’. As the name implies its aim is to encourage people in Ashtead to grow more food. This group has met three times and will soon be launching ‘Ashtead Garden Share’. This will link (a) people who have a garden but cannot manage it themselves with (b) people who want to grow fruit and vegetables but haven’t the space. When we find a match we will help them draw up a garden share agreement which will answer questions like:
- on what times and days will the gardener have access to the garden?
- what part of the garden constitutes the garden share plot?
- who decides what is grown and where?
- how will produce grown on the plot be shared?
We’re planning to start publicising the scheme in week beginning 22 February, but we’ve already had offers of gardens without really trying. There are plenty of big gardens in Ashtead!
Once the garden share is up and running we will look seriously at having a Community Garden, but whether this happens will depend on finding the right site and finding enough people who want to participate. Finally we’re planning a public event in May or June on the theme of turning Ashtead green.
If anyone is interested in learning more about any of these activities you can ring me on 01372-378914 or email foodgroup@ transitionashtead.org.uk
Derek Smith
When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil in the early 1990s, the country faced an immediate crisis — feeding the population, and an ongoing challenge: how to create a new, low-energy society. Cuba transitioned from large, fossil-fuel intensive farming to small, less energy intensive organic farms and urban gardens, and from a highly industrial society to a more sustainable one.
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil tells the story of the Cuban people’s hardship, ingenuity and triumph over sudden adversity — through cooperation, conservation and community, told in their own words. As the world approaches Peak Oil, Cuba provides a valuable example of how to successfully address the challenge of reducing our energy use.
“Everyone who is concerned about Peak Oil needs to see this film. Cuba survived an energy famine during the 1990s, and how it did so constitutes one of the most important and hopeful stories of the past few decades. It is a story not just of individual achievement, but of the collective mobilization of an entire society to meet an enormous challenge.” – Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Powerdown
Transition Bookham is intending to screen this film as part of it's launch event. Date, time and venue to be announced soon.
Once again, the Woodland Trust are offering recycling facilities for your Christmas cards throughout January. There is a poster on the Epsom Tower noticeboard giving more details - cards can either be taken to WH Smith, Marks & Spencer or TKMaxx - or you can just leave them in the box in the Tower. The scheme ends on 31 January.
This is a great way of recycling your cards. Over the 12 years that the scheme has been running, 600m cards have been recycled. This has had two readily measurable benefits: firstly, 141,000 new trees have been planted, and secondly, 12,000 tonnes of paper and card have not been landfilled, thus saving 16,000 tonnes of harmful carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
The Woodland Trust's website (www.woodlandtrust.org.uk) also has an important reminder about reducing and reusing things before we worry about recycling - these early steps in the waste process are even more effective ways of cutting down on landfill and reducing our carbon footprints. For reducing they suggest simply refusing plastic carrier bags wherever possible - something I'm sure that many of us do automatically now. For reusing we can support organisations such as Green Metropolis (an online second hand bookshop - www.greenmetropolis.com), but charity shops and high street second hand bookshops are non-online ways of doing the same thing. An "inhouse" way to reuse birthday cards is to either make "eco-cards" yourself, or pass them on to the Tots Alive! children who like cutting them up and sticking them - just leave any cards in the box in the Tower.
Another way to reduce, reuse and recycle is to learn how to knit or crochet, remodel your own clothes, or even just mend them by stitching on buttons and making repairs. If this appeals, Dorking Stitch Up could be the new group for you. They meet on the second Saturday morning each month in the Christian Centre in Dorking, see www.transitiondorking.org for more details.
On the morning of 
Saturday 16th the Green Mole Forum was present at Bookham Vision's Volunteers fair.
It was an event to enable the many people who ticked the box in the village plan survey indicating they were interested in volunteering to meet groups they might be able to help.
More than 100 people who filled in the survey also indicated they would be interested in joining a Transition Towns initiative for Bookham - Transition Bookham - an initiative which the Green Mole Forum is helping to support. Not sure what the Transition Town initiative is about? Then click here. The Green Mole Forum has already helped Transition Dorking and Transition Ashtead get going. With your help we can start Transition Bookham and make it a success.
What you can do if you are interested in taking part:
And we will let you know. For more articles on Transition initiatives click here.
We also had a great response to our Energy Monitor scheme. What's this? Simply: we can lend you whole-house energy monitors to help you easily identify where you can save money by not accidentally leaving energy-sapping appliances turned on.
Transition Ashtead has now (30 July) got an initiating group of ten people and a mailing list of 50 people. We need a lot more supporters but we feel we've made a decent start. We have organised three open meetings in the Brewery Inn, Ashtead. We are using these to educate ourselves on some of the main issues and also as a way of meeting new people and finding out their interests.
The first meeting was on 20 July with the title - Introducing the Transition Movement. For this first meeting we explained what the transition movement is all about – the issues it addresses, the way it works and what local transition initiatives do. We also described what we’ve done in Ashtead to date, and answered questions. The other two planned meetings are as follows:
Monday 24 August. 'Peak Oil'. Brewery Inn, Ashtead 8 pm.
Monday 28 September. 'Climate Change' Brewery Inn, Ashtead 8 pm.
Derek Smith
Transition Ashtead Secretary
“Ashtead Village Day was one of the best ever with more than 7000 people flocking to the recreation ground for a day of fun and festivities” ….. reported the Epsom Guardian.
I helped man the Transition Ashtead Initiating Group stall which was the group’s first go at a public event. We had various activities to attract people, ranging from the serious (helping people to calculate their person carbon footprint) to the fun (learn how to play the didgeridoo) with lots in between. Our main aim naturally was to talk to as many people as possible about Transition Ashtead, give out information and hopefully sign up potential supporters. Having to have the stand ready forced us to speed up various important jobs that might have stretched out otherwise, and so we had leaflets, a logo (see below) and a banner all ready for the day.
We were all really pleased by how it all went and we’ve now got a very healthy list of potential supporters. We are now starting to plan for our next public event which will be a public meeting in September.
Derek Smith
