BUNGAY: Welcome to a busy September round-up

Sustainable Bungay's autumn events start this Friday when you can join the regulars at our monthly film night, then on Sunday you can pop along to our Grow and Give produce swap in the library courtyard garden and pick up or drop off some surplus garden produce. While you're at the library you could nip upstairs to do a bit of sewing before cycling out of town to meet the Pig Club and help prepare for the first porkers.

On Monday 17th the Community Kitchen will be dishing up another of their amazing Happy Mondays - this month a Mexican Fiesta. After such a busy weekend we'll need a breather - but only until Satuday 22nd when the second 2012 Give and Take Day will be in full swing; bring things you no longer want or need - take home stuff you do. The day after Mark will be preparing Autumn Berry Tonics and Tinctures in the library.

Bungay's New Favourite Poet, Luke Wright, will be performing at the library on Friday 28th September - all part of the effort to ensure that the library we campaigned so hard to keep open stays open. And throughout September you could be taking part in the 30:30 Local Food Challenge...

There are more details about all our events and activites, plus some of the things we're keen to support below and on our website - look out for our paper newsletter later this month too.

See you soon!

Give and Take Day | 22nd Sept One of the most popular event in our calendar, Give and Take is a chance to give away stuff you don't need and pick up stuff you do. This time there will be stalls and workshops as well as refreshments from the Community Kitchen - clear out your cupboards! 10am - 1pm, Saturday 22nd September. Read more HERE Film Nights Return! | 14th Sept This coming Friday at Bacon's Barn we'll be showing a short film: Seeds of Freedom charts the story of seed from its roots at the heart of traditional, diversity rich farming systems across the world, to being transformed into a powerful commodity, used to monopolise the global food system. Read more HERE Grow and Give | 16th Sept We are holding another autumn produce exchange at the Library Courtyard on Sunday 16th September, 11am to 1pm. There is an annual sister event in the Spring: Give and Grow. Both occasions encourage use of the permanent swap area in the courtyard for free exchange of anything garden-related. Read more HERE Sewing Sunday | 16th Sept Sewing Sunday is on this Sunday 16th September 3pm at Bungay Library. A friendly group, we chat and sew and share tips and would love to learn any new skills: crochet, rag rugs, knitting, patchwork, revamping old clothes... if you have some skills to show, or just want to lear the basics with us Sewing Sunday is for you!. Read more HERE Pig Club | 16th Sept On Sunday 16th (1.30 - 5.30pm) pig fencing is going up at Lodge Farm, Ilketshall st. Lawrence in readiness for our first pigs. Please feel free to come and help, find out about the pig club and, if you like, join up. So far 9 people have commited to a £50 share in a pig - including a share in pig care, but there's room for a few more... Read more HERE Happy Monday | 17th Sept Using local ingredients and guided by Mark and Charlotte, who lived in central America for some years, this month's community meal will have a Mexican inspired menu (but no mariachi band I'm afraid...). The pudding is as unexpected as it is delicious - but you'll have to join us on the 17th to find out why! Read more and book your place HERE Plants for Life | 23rd Sept Autumn Berry Tonics and Tinctures: We'll look at 3 native plants - hawthorn, elder and sea buckthorn all of which provide berries as medicine and food - and demonstrate how to make berry tinctures. Everyone welcome regardless of experience - and if you do have some herbal tips to share do come along and join in! Read more HERE Saving Bungay Library! |28th Sept Last year we worked hard to help keep Bungay Library open - this year we need to work hard to ensure it stays that way. On Friday 28th September at 7:30pm the excellent Luke Wright will perform a selection of his funny, moving and at times scurrilous poems in aid of Bungay Community Library. Read more and find out how to buy tickets HERE 30:30 Local Food Challenge | Sept Transition Ipswich, working with Transition Woodbridge, have been gearing up to organise a 30-Mile Local Food Challenge this September. They're now in the thick of it with challenge participants only eating only food that has been produced and processed within a 30 mile radius of their homes. Read more HERE Transition Conference | 14th Sept This year quite a few from Sustainable Bungay are attending the Transition Network conference in London. The conference aims to provide a weekend of events and workshops that explore the theme of Building Resilience in Extraordinary Times; there are still a few tickets available. Read about the conference on the Transition Network site HERE

Bungay Bee Hive Day - 15 July

Apprentice beekeepers in Finsbury Park highlight the rise of grassroots and community beekeeping in Transition initiatives around the UK in response to honeybee decline. This Sunday Bungay Community Bees in Suffolk are holding an event to bring attention to the crucial role of bees and other insects in our everyday lives - and how we can help them. Josiah Meldrum reports:

Bungay Bee Hive Day is a celebration of the honeybee and other pollinating insects along with the plants they love. Unique in the region and in its second year the event is organised by Bungay Community Bees as part of the Bungay Festival and aims to promote awareness and enjoyment of the essential relationship between people, plants and bees.

After the success of last year’s event which attracted around 1000 people, Bungay Community Bees have invited Heidi Hermann, Founder Trustee of the Natural Beekeeping Trust, to talk about swarming – perhaps the most exhilarating event of a honeybee colony’s annual lifecycle. The Natural Beekeeping Trust was formed in response to the critical situation of the honeybee which has led many beekeepers to question approaches to beekeeping that rely on chemical inputs and to seek to improve the wider landscape in which bees live.

Co-Founder of Bungay Community Bees Elinor McDowall said: ‘We’re very lucky to have Heidi Hermann joining us on the 15th. It’s the first time she’s spoken in East Anglia and this is a great opportunity for local beekeepers and those interested in bees to come and hear about this growing new holistic take on bee husbandry’.

Building on the theme of this year’s Bee Hive Day, Rose Titchiner of Bungay Community Bees will explain how we can provide year-round plants and habitats for bees, pollinators and wildlife . She’ll introduce Bungay Community Bees’ Get your Garden Buzzing project – a bee-friendly plant labelling scheme that can be used by any garden centre. Meanwhile there will be a Bee and Flower Walk around Bungay’s diverse green spaces, local author (and TFP editor), Charlotte Du Cann reading from her latest book 52 Flowers That Shook My World, a screening of the highly acclaimed film Queen of the Sun and a panel discussion. Waveney Beekeeping Group and Bungay Community Bees will display hives, equipment and information to show how honeybees work and how they can be supported by beekeepers.

Information stalls and displays covering all aspects of beekeeping and pollinators will be complemented by those selling bee-friendly plants, seeds, bee-related crafts and of course honey! There will be an activities area where children and adults can make their own bug hotels, beeswax lip balm or get their faces painted and a quiet reading corner stocked with bee books and magazines. Bungay Community Kitchen will provide refreshments.

You’ll find a .pdf of the programme and details of all our speakers here

Bungay Beehive Day is at the Festival Marquee, Castle Meadow, Bungay, Suffolk, 10.30am-4.30pm. For further information contact Gemma Parker on 07540 724395 or email inquiries@humblecake.co.uk

Images: Introduction to Beekeeping Day by Jonathan Goldberg (Transition Kensal to Kilburn) ; Bee and Flower walk for Bungay Beehive Day, 2011 by Muhammad Amin.

Adopt a Herb with Dan Wheals – Plants for Life Sunday 18 March 3pm at Bungay Library

For the third of our monthly Plants for Life talks, walks and workshops, we welcome medical herbalist and Suffolk Coastal’s Community Environmental Action Advisor, Dan Wheals, who’ll show us practical and creative ways we can adopt one particular herb and find out all about it.

Active within the local and regional Transition movement, Dan will also be speaking about Transition herbalism, how everyone can increase well-being and resilience by growing and working with plants in a time of limited resources and energy constraints.

Do come and join us on Sunday 18th March at Bungay Library, Wharton Street at 3pm. We look forward to seeing you there. Read the write-ups of the first two vibrant plant talks: in January – Connecting with our Roots, and February – Growing Organic Herbs. Let’s keep planting seeds and talking plants!

For any and all enquiries about the Plants for Life events and the Plant Medicine bed 2012 at Bungay Library Community garden, call Mark Watson on 01502 722419 or email markintransition@hotmail.co.uk

BUNGAY: Plant Medicine Bed 2012, plus Talks, Walks and Workshops beginning Sunday 15th January

Each year the central flowerbed at Bungay library community garden takes a different theme. In 2011 it was Wild Plants for Bees and Butterflies, this year it will be Plants as Medicine. The intent behind the Plant Medicine Bed is to rekindle our relationship with the plants we share the earth with and to learn about making simple kitchen and garden remedies. As well as using plants physically to help maintain our health and wellbeing, having a relationship with flowers and trees is a tonic in itself.

So in addition to the flowerbed as a display for all kinds of wild weeds and healing herbs, there will be a series of vibrant plants for life talks, walks, conversations and practical workshops with fellow ‘plant people’, taking place monthly throughout the year in the library and around the town. They will follow the seasons and are open to anyone who wants to deepen their connection with and knowledge of plants.

We start on 15 January with a creative look at Medicine Roots with SB’s Charlotte Du Cann (author of the forthcoming 52 Flowers That Shook My World). On 19 February, in conversation with David Wrenn of Orchard End Organics, we’ll focus on practical tips for planting and growing herbs. And on 18 March Medical herbalist, Dan Wheals (Transition Ipswich) will introduce Adopt a Herb (part of the Norfolk and Norwich festival), and show us how to find out about one chosen plant and explore the different stories that emerge. We look forward to seeing you there!

Where: Bungay Library

When: Sundays 19 February, 18 March at 3PM

Look out in the Spring and Summer for the Spring Tonic plant walk, making teas and tinctures and the Midsummer walk and wild plant oils workshop.

For all enquiries contact Mark Watson: 01502 722419 or markintransition@hotmail.co.uk or check this website where I’ll be posting regular announcements and write-ups for both the plant medicine bed and the events.

Bungay Library Community Garden was inspired by permaculture and transition principles and designed and constructed by members of SB’s library courtyard working party. It blossomed and burgeoned throughout 2011 thanks to the attention of many people, in particular Richard Vinton, who keeps a daily eye on the plants and trees (and the watering can, trowel and compost close by). Do pay us a visit during regular library times. The plants will love the company and you’re sure to love theirs!

Photo: Talking plants and bees at the Library Community Garden, Bungay Beehive Day, July 2011

BUNGAY: Happy Mondays at the Community Kitchen - 10 October

In August we hosted the second Happy Monday at the Community Kitchen, a soon to be regular shared meal made with local ingredients and served at the Community Centre. The first Happy Monday was a pie and mash night, the second a curry night and the kitchen team did a fantastic job; coming up with a great seasonal menu then turning vegetables and fruits from local farms and gardens into a mix of spicy Indian dishes followed by a plum kulfi.

Eating together is a pleasure that seems to transcend other cultural barriers and, as I’ve experienced working with farming communities in Italy, France and Spain, it’s a chance to talk unguardedly, perhaps do a bit of business, and celebrate great cooking, local food and food producers. The benefits of eating together go beyond the social: collective cooking has a lower environmental impact with fewer pots in fewer ovens, less energy and water used to cook and clean and, if well planned, less waste is produced.

Happy Mondays at the Community Kitchen will always be a celebration: the room will be decorated; the menu will use the best local and seasonal ingredients. But it will also offer opportunities for volunteers to build their kitchen confidence, learn about local suppliers and discover new recipes and ideas.

To highlight what’s growing in and around Bungay gardens and to help make sure it all finds a home, every Happy Monday will feature an Abundance table - a chance to bring and share surplus garden produce.

In time we hope there will be a Happy Monday every week, but at the moment our aim is a monthly meal. If you’d like to get involved, perhaps supplying ingredients from your garden to the kitchen and abundance table, cooking, suggesting recipes or helping meet and greet please do contact us.

For the next meal we’re focusing on local autumn fruit and vegetables, we’re cooking for 40 – please do join us!

When: October 10th, 6:45 for 7pm
Where: Bungay Community Centre, Upper Olland Street

If you'd like to join us for a delicious meal made using mostly local, often organic and always carefully thought about ingredients then please get in touch (info@sustainablebungay.com).

The exact menu will be decided closer to the date as we get a better idea of what might be available, but we're planning a celebration of autumnal bounty. What we can tell you is that our two course meal will only cost £5 - which we will ask for when you arrive - will be cooked and served by volunteers and will taste fantastic!.

We work to a single sitting and will be cooking for around 40 people so please arrive at Bungay Community Centre in Upper Olland Street at 6.45pm for dinner at 7pm (places will go quickly so please do fill in the form if you'd like to come).

We don't have a licence to serve alcohol, but do feel free to bring a bottle if you'd like a drink with your meal. Josiah Meldrum

BUNGAY; Give and Take Day - 24 September

Give and Take is Back! Saturday 24th September 10am-1pm at the Chaucer Club, Popson Street, Bungay. Bring along unwanted, non-electrical items on the day and take something home all for free! The perfect time to clear out the cupboards and let the moth balls fly before the cold kicks in! SB can collect any large or bulky items on or before Friday 23rd September by prior arrangement.

For more information or to arrange collections, contact Eloise Wilkinson (01986 788785) 
eloise.wilkinson@gmail.com Eloise Wilkinson

Green Drinks - Zero Waste Bungay - 15 March

For this month's Green Drinks and in preparation for our Give and Take Day on Saturday we've invited Karen Atthey-Woods to talk to us about her community interest company Wombling which runs a sort of year-round give and take (augmented by training on repairing and reusing) in Norwich and Jules Shorrock of VC Cooke a Beccles based recycling company who are working towards creating a zero waste site and offer advice and incentives to encourage businesses and communities to do the same.

Give and Take
This Saturday Sustainable Bungay is holding its third Give and Take Day at the Chaucer Club. We'll be inviting people to bring along things they no longer want or need and if they see something else they want to take it home with them - all for free. So far we've seen pretty much everything except a kitchen sink come in through the door with one person and leave with another; from surf boards to sofas and books to bikes - we're never left with much more than a bit of tidying up to do at the end of the day.

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Recycle... (in that order!)
The Give and Take Days have far exceeded our expectations and so far we've ensured that almost 20 tonnes of potential landfill has found a new home. But this is a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of waste generated by Bungay and the surrounding villages - according to the Office for National Statistics every one of us generates almost half a tonne of household waste every year - around 2,500 tonnes for Bungay alone (and that doesn't include trade waste, DiY and building waste and the waste public services generate on our behalf).

Cradle to Cradle thinking
Recycling is increasing and Waveney has a good record for increasing and improving recycling rates, but it still remains low by European standards. But recycling is about the end of a product's life and before we even consider it we should think about buying less in the first place and then extending the life of the things we do buy - repairing them, reusing and them passing them on to others. There is a lot that product designers could do to help us with this by, for example, creating things that need less packaging, last longer, are easy to repair and reuse; so called cradle to cradle thinking.

Zero Waste Bungay
It's pretty clear that we are still a long way from cradle to cradle approaches to consumer goods - we probably won't ever get there but a zero waste Bungay might just be possible if we start to redefine our waste - it's not rubbish, it's resources; our resources and we should think twice before throwing them away.

As ever Green Drinks will begin with short talks from our expert conversationalists Karen and Jules, there will then be time for more general questions and discussions. Anything could come up (it usually does) but the conversations might include:

What would a Zero Waste town look like?
Would Karen's Wombling business work in Bungay - is it the next step beyond the Give and Take?

How could we work with companies like VC Cooke to reduce waste in Bungay?
How does closing the Beccles recycling site (albeit reprieved for 6 months) fit in with Suffolk County Councils recycling targets and how might the site fit in with our future plans?

As ever we look forward to seeing you tomorrow night (Josiah Meldrum)

Green Drinks: Bungay Community Bees -Tuesday 15 February

Green Drinks: Bungay Community Bees
Tuesday 15th February, 7:30pm at the Green Dragon
With Elinor McDowall, Gemma Parker and other members of Bungay Community Bees

Inspired by a desire to help everyones favourite (indispensable) pollinators, Sustainable Bungay established what is probably the first Community Supported Apiculture (CSA) scheme in the UK – possibly the world! Lauded by the Soil Association and a major influence on the Mayor of London’s Capital Bee project, Bungay’s Community Beekeepers are entering their second year with plans for exciting new education and outreach projects.

We’ve invited community beekeepers Elinor McDowall, Gemma Parker along with other members of BCB to tell us more about the plight of the honey bee, how community beekeeping works and BCBs plans for 2011 and beyond. As usual we’ll ask them to speak briefly about what they’re doing, answer questions from the room as a whole and then circulate as we break into less formal conversations.

Over the past year lots of other groups have expressed an interested in community beekeeping – some from as afar afield as Canada and the USA – but most quite local. BCB has promised to organise a weekend workshop for these groups but it won’t happen until the bees are more active; the Green Drinks evening will provide an excellent insight into the workings of the project. For those who don’t know anything about BCB there is a short precis below – there is also lots of information on the Sustainable Bungay website.

Bungay Community Bees in brief:
Bungay Community Bees (BCB) demonstrates the emphasis Transition places on raising awareness and building a sense of community through practical actions and activities. To date BCB has been funded through a subscription scheme based on the increasingly popular community supported agriculture (CSA) model. This year the group is considering adopting a more formal structure, becoming a social enterprise and moving out from the umbrella of transition initiative Sustainable Bungay.

In its first year BCB has:

•Raised £800 and bought hives, equipment, training and insurance
•Engaged 37 members who’ve bought annually renewable £20 ‘shares’ in the project (representing about 90 people)
•Established two small apiaries on the outskirts of Bungay
•Held regular meetings, opportunities to visit the hives and offered formal training Actively communicated the work of the group through: blog posts, press releases, social networking, local TV and radio
•Established two subsidiary groups, Plants for Bees and Education and Outreach. In 2011 these will work with local schools and community groups
•Inspired other groups all over the country (and internationally) to do the same. Most significantly the BCB model has been a major influence on the Mayor of London’s Capital Bee project and BCB members spoke at the recent Bee Summit held at the Royal Festival Hall – 50 similar groups are now being established in London
•Created a community of friends around the hives and a feeling of mutual support and learning – none of the BCB beekeepers were particularly experienced at the start of the project
•Engaged with other local beekeepers through the Waveney Beekeepers group.
BCB members feel confident and inspired and Sustainable Bungay plan’s to apply the CSA approach to other food and craft projects. BCB shows how Transition initiatives act as a catalyst for change, gathering people and ideas together, building trust and empowering them to act. Projects like BCB evolve at their own pace – often this can be a (frustratingly) slow process - but it’s vital to ensure community leadership and ownership. Hard work, a clear collective vision and a certain amount of trust are also required if projects like BCB are to work.

We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday!

Bungay Community Bees - Reappearance of the Bees

This May it's been a busy month in Transition. Plant swaps, carbon conversations, Strangers' circles, blogs, bulletins. And yesterday afternoon, bees.

I've recently joined the Bungay Community Bees project (Britain's first bee CSA) and twenty five of us converged at Gemma's in Flixton to help build frames for the new beehives in time for the arrival of the first queen bees in June.

There really was a buzz as Elinor and Gemma reported on the progress so far. As well as getting our three hives (one of them donated), two more people are already being trained up as beekeepers and there are more and more offers of land where the bees can be kept...and of course, there's the bee blog. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Eloise are going to map out all the local wild and garden bee-loving plants and trees throughout the coming year.

Then we all got down to some serious woodwork. Luckily enough we had an experienced carpenter present - I haven't done any woodwork since school - a very long time ago - and I was not good at it!

People feel very strongly about bees. And particularly now with the loss of so many colonies here and abroad. Our neighbour Julia, who we bought the first hive from, lost hers in London. Waveney Valley beekeepers are reporting losses of about a third. And even the most experienced beekeepers say there seems to be no single, simple explanation. Keeping bees and providing organic, pesticide-free land with plants that bees love (like White Clover, pictured - pink when young and later turning white) has to be one way forward. See Sustainable Bungay's website for excellent bee links and information.

Yesterday I brought along Anise Hyssop and Mexican Hyssop for Gemma and Elinor. These are two of my favourite bee plants. I talk and fuss about them so much that Charlotte can't bear it any longer so don't tell her I'm writing about them on the blog! Anise Hyssop is also called Licorice Mint and the whole plant has an amazing smell of anis or licorice as its names suggest. The leaves make great tea. Mexican Hyssop has a more minty smell and is an ingredient in herbal medicine for the heart in Mexico. They are closely related and cross-pollinate so it's best to grow them far apart - especially as bees love them both madly and visit them with great gusto when they flower - which is over a long period in the summer. The seedheads are attractive, long-lasting and smell amazing. Enough! Enough of this encomium!

But the plant of the month must be Lemon Balm, which Andy talked about in his Deadly Resistances post. Also in the Mint family, its Latin name Melissa means honey bee. Both the smell and the tea of Lemon Balm really revive flagging spirits and cheer the heart. And bees really do love it. (Mark Watson)

Pics: Bungay Community Bees people get to grips with hives, frames and foundations, and young white clover in a bee friendly field; Anise Hyssop or Licorice Mint on either side of Mexican Evening Primrose, July

Seedling Swaps in May - Bungay, Norwich and Wivenhoe

Seedling Swaps are the happening event this Spring! This Saturday (May 15) there will be tables overflowing with small salad and vegetables plants all over Transition East Anglia. Transition Wivenhoe will be flourishing at the local Farmer's Market and Transition Norwich (see poster) on show at the Norwich Playhouse bar terrace.

Writes TN's allotment holder, Jane Chittenden: "Growing more of our own food is a great way to start designing a better future. Very environmentally friendly, doesn't require fossil fuel and kind to our pockets too! So we're having a plant swap, where we’ll have seedling plants (tomatoes and other veggies plus herbs and flowers too) and we invite people to bring along their own plants to swap. If you haven't got anything to swap for our plants, a donation would be much appreciated. Do come along with your plants - organic for preference, labelled and with advice on growing tips if possible!"

Sustainable Bungay’s lively Give and Grow seedling and plant swap was held in Bungay library courtyard on May 2. SB's Mark Watson reports: "The place was transformed inside and out with a constant lively buzz as people gathered, swapped plants and talked about everything from beekeeping to heritage bean varieties - in spite of the rain and the cold. We'd all been patiently (very patiently this year) growing our seeds for allotment and garden in homemade newspaper pots, toilet rolls and even ordinary pots. The tables were laden with vibrant healthy lettuces, currants of all colours, tree saplings, cosmos, mints, aloe vera, grasses, lemon balm, foxgloves, snowdrop bulbs, wild flower seeds, seed potatoes, cucumbers, the list goes on. And you had to be pretty quick as plants swapped hands even before they got on the tables. Especially the sturdy tomatoes which several people said they'd been having difficulty growing so far."

Time to get our hands in the earth!

Seedling Swaps on Saturday 15 May: Transition Norwich Playhouse Bar terrace, St George's St. 11am - 3pm. For more info contact info@transitionnorwich.org.

Transition Wivenhoe @ Farmers' Market, 9am-12noon @ Congregational Hall. 9am-3pm. Contact Julia (826015). Bring your excess veg & herb plants to swap/donate, or take some away for a small donation!

Taking home: rocket, lettuce, chives, pot marigold, lemon balm, lovely black grass and a rowan sapling

Permaculture Weekend with Sustainable Bungay

Since forming in November 2007, Transition initiative Sustainable Bungay have hosted several successful community events, including a local food conference, a give and take day, two carfree days and an energy day. In 2010 the group plans to transform Bungay library courtyard into an inviting and sustainable green space and ‘living library’ with raised beds, compost bins, wormery and rainwater harvesting.

Graham Burnett teaching

With this in mind we asked permaculture teacher and author Graham Burnett http://www.spiralseed.co.uk/ from Southend in Transition to run a weekend introduction to permaculture at the library in January. 15 of us from Bungay and other local Transition initiatives immersed ourselves in two full-on days of theory and practical group exercises.

Considering the territory

The basis of the Transition movement (founder Rob Hopkins taught permaculture for many years), this approach is about “designing sustainable human communities by following nature’s patterns”. It works with the shapes of the living world (e.g. branches, waves, the spiral of snail shells, the scattering of dandelion seeds), rather than imposing artificial straight lines and boxes on it. Key before starting our project was how to take time to observe nature’s rhythms and cycles, rather than rushing for a quick fix.

Paul talks about caring for fruit trees in his allotment-type garden

During the course we also learned how this ecological design system offers low carbon and energy saving solutions to food growing, transport, waste, the economy and community spaces.

After the weekend it was my turn to write for the Transition Norwich community blog (18-22 January), and I go into more detail about the weekend there, so do have a look.

Sustainable Bungay meets on the third and fourth Tuesday of every month at The Green Dragon, and the Bungay Library. All welcome.
To get involved with the library courtyard project, email Nick: transitionnick@gmail.com
To contact Sustainable Bungay email Sustainablebungay@gmail.com or call Josiah on 01986 897097

Pics by Josiah Meldrum (top and bottom) and Mark Watson (middle)

Transition takes to the Streets

STOP PRESS! The notes of our Second Regional Gathering are up on the Transition East website and this blog has now gone officially regional! You can find notes on the day, plus individual reports of our open space and Transition Troubleshooting sessions on http://tinyurl.com/yl9ys3t. (see post and list below)

Meanwhile everything is hotting up (as it were) for the world's biggest Climate Action march, The Wave in London next Saturday. Coaches from all over the region are heading down to the city, and initatives from all over East Anglia are on board waving banners and wearing blue!

On Saturday 21 as part of the build up to Copenhagen, Transition Norwich and Sustainable Bungay took part of a lively and colourful demonstration and rally in the central streets of Norwich. Christine Way, core member of TN reports: "On Saturday 21st November several transitioners gathered in Chapelfield Gardens to join the biggest ever Norwich Climate March while Tom (Harper) set up the TN stall on Millennium Plain ready for the Climate Emergency rally. There was a buzz in the air as the organisers and police negotiated the route which had already been agreed. At last the Samba Band with its drums and colourful dancers started and we were on the move, but not for long as the traffic ahead of us came to a standstill on St Stephen’s Street. This gave us lots more time to hand out leaflets and get the message across to the fascinated shoppers that climate change is real and we need to act now. The Transition Norwich banner was up there near the front and was clearly visible on the TV News bulletins that went out over the weekend.

Then hundreds of people gathered outside the Forum for the Climate Emergency Rally where speakers including Dr Ian Gibson warned of the dangers of runaway climate change and of this being the “biggest issue of our time”. County Councillor Andrew Boswell said: "Gordon Brown should declare a National Climate Emergency and tell it like it is” and our very own Tully and Kate spoke about some of the solutions and all the positive things that are already happening in Transition Norwich and Bungay."

Meanwhile Maria Price and Mark Crutchley from Transition Norwich (Buildings and Energy) and Kate Jackson of Sustainable Bungay were interviewed by the Politics Show (East). TN were filmed conducting a light audit in various city centre shops, whilst Kate was hard at work on her allotment! The report is scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday 6th December in a programme on Climate Change which will also include an interview with Professor Kevin Anderson, head of the Tyndall Centre at UEA.

Watch this space for reports on The Wave and all other news and reviews of the region (including a report from last Sat's Greener Fram event!)