For forthcoming events see our calendar. For details of past events, and some planned ones, see our minutes and newsletters.
Welcome to Transition Bookham!
In a nutshell the Transition Movement is a world-wide grass-roots community movement responding to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and sustainability and it is starting to make waves locally. Kingston, Tolworth, Epsom, Ashtead, Dorking, Reigate & Redhill have started and now Bookham is taking the leap.
Let us face it; we have a few issues that may well interrupt the lifestyle a lot of us have become used to after WWII:
The end of cheap oil and gas and the fact that one day we will run out entirely.
Increasingly dodgy weather patterns very probably linked to our activities. As a farmers’ grand-daughter I have never forgotten just how essential the weather is for growing food.
Sustainability: I happen to immensely enjoy watching wildlife and feel that for everything we take we should leave or give something back. That is the essence of sustainability, keeping a balance.
We have with our giant footprint broken the equilibrium, so now it is time to scratch our heads and think.
Bad news often has this effect on us: it makes our minds shut down and makes us look for something fun to take our minds off it. If we think we have no hope of succeeding we sometimes feel it isn’t even worth trying, but it ain’t necessarily so and the Transition Movement can help get things moving.
What we are hoping will come out of Transition Bookham is a pool of volunteers and ideas. We all have skills, we all have particular areas of interests and we all enjoy living in a vibrant community. We will hopefully join together in groups and work towards making Bookham a more sustainable place.
The members of Transition Bookham will together decide on what to focus on. Other transition towns have looked at such things as:
Local food production – we have a village market where we have the possibility of s
elling local produce. Maybe introduce garden-sharing schemes as there are now long waiting lists for allotments.
Making and mending using reclaimed materials (arts and crafts).
Our use of energy. Yes I will say the dreaded word – REDUCING – our energy consumption. You want to stay fit: walk, cycle as much as you can. We can look at how to be smart about our energy use in the house or look at local energy production. There already is a group in Mole Valley looking at bio-mass generation.
Waste - for some strange reason we have for a while adopted an out of sight out of mind approach with our waste, but many a short-time fix is now coming back to haunt us. We throw thing away but where exactly is away? There is no away.
Youth. It will be their planet; they should be involved very much in these activities.
Bookham is your oyster, whatever YOU fancy as long as it makes sense…
We will be holding a first event soon, with a brief talk and a film. Above all we hope it will turn into a forum where people can come together, discuss things, plan and then start rolling their sleeves up!
In the hope that you too want to take part.
Food Group
Esther launched the Garden Share scheme at Village Day 2010. If you have a large garden that you could spare space in, or you're looking for space to garden in, contact Esther.
We also run a buying club, where we purchase items at wholesale prices (usually in bulk) from the Suma co-operative. Doing this not only saves money, but often reduces packaging, and brings the organic and Fairtrade items more into line with regular shop prices. For more information, contact Richard.
Energy Group
If you're interested in joining our Energy Group, contact Richard. This will look at ways to cut household energy use (we already have access to energy monitors and a thermal leak detector via the Green Mole Forum, and to Transition Ashtead’s low energy lightbulb ‘library’), the sharing of knowledge and skills, reducing the cost of installing solar panels through a solar club and, long term, the possibility of community-based energy generation.
Meetings and Socials
Our monthly open meetings, on the third Wednesday of the month from 7.30pm to 9.30pm, are held at St Nicolas church's Pastoral Centre (home of our biodiversity garden, at the rear of the churchyard, path behind the bell tower or beside 'Heads Up' barber in Church Road) or Church Hall (at the rear of the church, path behind the bell tower), in Great Bookham. Whilst our occasional social meetups are held at Ye Olde Windsor Castle pub, 25 Little Bookham Street, Little Bookham KT23 3AA.
Contact us