Monday,20th September September Transition"If we try and do it on our own it will be too little, if we wait for government to do it, it will be too late, but if wecan gather together those around us - our street, our neighbourhood,our community - it might just be enough, and it might just be in time." Transition Movement (from The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century's Sustainability Crises ) Welcome to the September newsletter.
Remember you can always catch up on the website - http://transitiontowns.org/Taunton/.
I always need input, news and events to update this newletter. If you know of any events or have news about Transition please email me, Vicky Briggs on shuunyanet@gmail.com by the 19th of the month for publication on the 20th or there abouts.
There are some new ways to follow what we are doing. Join our Facebook Group , find out what we are up to on the blog, or follow us on Twitter.
EventsIt's harvest season and Taunton Transition Town will be celebrating with 'Abundant Taunton' on Saturday 2nd October. Come and sign up to help out on the day or gather the harvest - details later.
Look out for events, and workshops in the next month organised by our own volunteers or our fellow Transitioners in the area - Wellington and Minehead and Alcombe, topped off with the super 'Abundant Taunton' event in October.
NewsFind out what happened when the Transition Bard came wandering into Taunton and the fun that was had at Longrun Meadow.
Let Reaction Electric know your opinions about electronic vehicles and sign-up to join Taunton's car club.
Transition Drop-in Cafe - 25th September
Venue:Friends Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton
Time: 10.30am-12.30pm
The Transition Cafe is back in it's old haunt this month; the Friends' Meeting House.
In preparation for our 'Abundant Taunton' event on the 2nd October Taunton Transition Town will be previewing the 'Free Food Map' of Taunton. Come and map your local fruit or nut tree, point out where those wild salads grow, or find your nearest nettle patch (yes, you can eat nettles!). Come and join us for tea, cake and sharing of those free food secrets.
We will also be organising picking parties to harvest all of that fruit. If you have a fruit tree heaving with fruit that you cannot deal with invite the 'picking party' along. Please come along on the 25th or let Vicky Briggs (shuunyanet@gmail.com) know.
If you would like to help out with the 'Abundant Taunton' event please come along to the drop-in or indeed throughout the day to sign up for specific jobs; this could be as simple as manning one of our stalls for an hour or two, to chairing the Gardeners' Question Time panel. If you cannot make it on the day but would still like to be involved with the big food event please contact Vicky Briggs on shuunyanet@gmail.com.
Make, Do and Mend - 25th SeptemberMake, Do and Mend also returns this month to the Friends' Meeting House - 2-5pm.
Come along and learn a new skill or help make the 'Taunton Transition Town Abundant Taunton' banner.
Big Energy Event- 25th September
If you cannot be in Taunton this weekend mosey on over to Wellington for their 'Big Energy Event'.
Expect:
- Information on renewables
- Free home energy assessment
- How to save money on fuel bills
- Children's activities
- Talks
10am to 1pm
Baptist Church Hall, South Street
For more information phone 01823 666564
Picking Parties- 26th SeptemberMeet at the Childrens Wood, Winckworth Way at 2.00pm to go picking the local fruit trees. Remember you can always go online and check out the on-line free food map.
Later in the week we might organise more picking parties depending on the amount of apples/fruit/nuts that need to be picked. Please have a look on the Taunton Transition blog for updates.
Permaculture Evening- 27th SeptemberFriends' Meeting House - 7.30pm.
Find out about permaculture and how it can transform a garden. The plan is to look at the Friends' Meeting House garden and think how it could be redesigned with permaculture in mind.
Puzzled as to what permaculture is: it is about living lightly on the planet, and making sure that we can sustain human activities for many generations to come, in harmony with nature.
Expect a walk around the garden and a few films illustrating permaculture led by Oli Handscomb.
Abundant Taunton - 2nd October Taunton Transition Town will be holding a special food event to celebrate the abundance of this time of year.
The event is being hosted by the wonderful Brewhouse, in the Green Room.
10am-4pm
We are proud to announce that Taunton Farmers Market will launch their gift voucher scheme at this event.
Sample some local food, press your own apples and have fun!
- Bring your surplus seeds, jams, chutneys, fruit and garden produce
to our Big Food Swap and Giveaway
- Add your local knowledge to our Free Food Map of Taunton
- Meet local food suppliers and browse their goodies
- Take the kids on our Edible Trees Trail
- Find out what a hay box can do
- Brew a cuppa with a Kelly kettle
- Discover the secrets of homebrew wines
- Take a guided stroll to discover what food grows wild and free
- And join us for our Vegetable Gardener’s Question Time
Come and join in to celebrate the harvest.
To find out more please go to http://transitiontowns.org/Taunton/AbundantTaunton
LIVING SIMPLY CELEBRATION - 2nd OctoberAt Minehead Methodist Church Hall, The Avenue 10-3PM
DEMONSTRATIONS: learn how to live more simply – make bread, weave a rug, generate your own electricity, make apple juice, sew a shopping bag, make and play your own musical instruments ….
PRODUCE SWAP: bring your spare plants, veg, seeds etc to swap
STALLS Buy very local produce – cakes, jams, crafts etc.
To book a stall contact Maureen on 01643 709478
FREE HARVEST LUNCH 12 – 2
Launch of the ‘Fruit Trees for All’ scheme and plastic bags campaigns
'Community Matters' Days - 8th, 9th OctoberSomerset College invites anyone interested to the Award Winning Genesis Centre; the sustainable construction resource and learning centre for the South West.
Join them to celebrate the launch of a new Environmental Training Centre. They want local residents to connect with the celebration and to become involved in the exciting changes taking place.
Friday 8th October and Saturday 9th October - 10am - 4pm (dropin anytime)
- Learn about solar energy and feed-in tariffs
- Building a plastic bottle greenhouse with Learning from the
Land
- Project Taunton - have your say and put your thoughts on the
message board
- Pizza making - using the earth oven
- Composting activities with Carymoor Environmental Centre
- The Bodyshop with demonstrations
- Have a go at forging
- Help create the map of community food production with the online
resource Food Mapper
- Willow Weaving
Transition Taunton will also be there on the Saturday with information on all the latest Transition events.
LETS Jumble Sale and Flea market - Saturday October 9th 10 – 12am Minehead Methodist Church Hall
To book a Flea market stall contact Liz on 01643 821442
To donate jumble contact Hester on 01643 821768
Somerset West Affordable Warmth Multi Agency Conference - 20th October
The Auditorium, Taunton Conference Centre, Somerset College 9.00am– 2.30pm
Lunch and networking from 1.30pm
Key speakers include:
Katherine Wiltshire - Renewable energy through Wessex Home Improvement Loans
Lorna Scott - The role of the Voluntary Sector
Sarah Davies - Centre for Sustainable Energy
Mark Scott - The Warm Front Scheme
Penny Guppy – Health and Fuel Poverty
The Director of the Bristol Debt Advice Centre
The aim of the morning is to gain a better understanding of what each agency can offer and how best to signpost clients to the relevant group for advice. This event is free but places are limited.
To secure your place, please complete the booking form and return to j.comer@tauntondeane.gov.uk by 30 September 2010.
Giving a Talk on Home Energy - 21st October
As lots of you were really good at getting referrals to Warm Streets over the winter we "earned" a free half day's training from the Centre of Sustainable Energy.
The training will be on 'giving a talk on home energy'. If you are interested in knowing a little more about home energy please sign up. As yet we do not know whether it is am or pm but we will keep you posted.
If you are interested please contact Chrissie Godfrey - chrissie@visionjuice.com
Transition
Tales
And it came to pass in the summer of 2010 that storyteller Wynn Alice walked the highways and byways collecting and telling Transition Tales with people up and down our green land. One sunny August day, Wynn Alice followed a canal towards a town that wasn't too big,
nor too small, that named itself Tone Town for the river that ran through it. And the people of Tone Town met Wynn Alice on her journey and took her to the Meeting House of the Friends where a gathering sat by the light of candles to hear her tales. She spoke of many
wonderous things that she had encountered on her journey: of carnivals and lacey knickers, of giant tomatoes and tiny tomatoes, of tiddlywinks
and collapsing pianos. She spoke of gifts that she took from one town to another, of welcomes and feasts, of flipflops in mud andsun and most importantly of all, she spoke of Having Fun.
 And once her tale was done, the people of Tone Town - and a couple of their friends from further afield - took it in their turn to tell tales of their own Transition lives. They spoke of doubting Thomases and hot water, of the Council that could have been a mean lion but was instead a cuddly bear, of vegetables and values, and how groups up and down the town were now Transitioning Together. And Wynn Alice gave a gift of a cloth bag and book, made in the town of Bradford on Avon and carried by her to Tone Town. And the people of Tone Town gave her a sock doll made by someone Pixieish to take to her next town. Then everyone ate and ate of good food grown in our gardens and gathered from our hedgerows and all in all a wondrous, happy and very lovely time was had. The storyteller's visit will stay with the people of Tone Town for no one who can walk so far, in flipflops, Having Fun, could ever, ever be forgotten!
Find out more about Steph's travels on http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/node/2251.
Catch up with Steph at Hay-on-wye - http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/node/2415
and follow her travels in her blog.... http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/steph-bradley
Longrun Meadow Event
 The Transition Cafe decamped to Longrun Meadow in August. Project Taunton opened the new footbridge over the Tone to Longrun Meadow. We were there with information on Transition and having lots of fun making
of some community art. Kids; adults and even the Town Cryer all made clay figures to make a procession from the bridge into the meadow.
Kids and adults alike had the chance to paddle along the Tone, watch the incredibly crafted oak timber specialist at work and add their wish to the new footbridge that now wanders over the tone from French Weir park to the Longrun Meadow.
  
Reaction Electric
Reaction Electric have constructed a very quick (7 questions) easy to click survey to help them find out more about people’s interest in and knowledge of electric vehicles. Please help them by completing
it or by sending it on to anyone you know who might be interested.
Click here to start:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7NJ79XR
Taunton has a car club!
Taunton Transition Town are really proud to have helped start up a car club in Taunton. With our help, Co-cars, a not for profit social enterprise, currently operating in and around Exeter has managed to set up a car club in Taunton.
Car clubs are a way of saving money by using a car without having to own one. They might also be a way of getting rid of your second car.
You can use the car for an hour, hours or a day and pay for what you use. All bookings are through their web site.
As their flyer says, “WE buy it, insure it, tax it, maintain it, repair and clean it.... YOU drive it!”
The first car will be based at Taunton Deane Borough Council’s offices at Deane House any day now. It will then be available to members for 24 hour booking.
For more information on Co-cars and membership see their website at: www.co-cars.co.uk or come to the Genesis Centre, at Somerset College, for their community sustainability day on the 9th October.
Somerset Land for FoodWondering what you can do to support local food groups in local area. Somerset Community Food and Wessex Community Assets have got together to raise funds to make land available to communities across Somerset for food growing. The land will be permanently dedicated to this purpose, and will be available for use as community managed allotments., market gardens and orchards.
This is a chance to contribute to all our futures, and leave a positive endowment to our children and grandchildren. Please pass this on to anyone who might wish to support the offer.
Weblink for documents: http://www.wessexca.co.uk/publications.php
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