Sunday 18 March 2012

March 2012 Taunton Transition Town Newsletter





"Imagination is the beginning creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will"
  
George Bernard Shaw

Events



Sourdough Classes:  March 20th, April 17th

Venue: The Space and Bakery, Tracebridge, Somerset
Time: 11.30 – 4.30pm
Gordon takes small groups (up to four people) through the sourdough process from ‘starter’ to finished loaf using the Blue Peter principle of ‘one I prepared earlier.’  This means you get to practice each stage of the process without the waiting. He has adapted the sourdough method to suit home kitchens and routines, so that what you learn you will be able to apply when you get home.
£69 per person.
Sourdough 2
Sourdough  by Andy Ciordia, on Flickr (Flickr Creative Commons)

“It was a magical day. I really enjoyed Gordon's teaching and it was brilliant to come home with warm bread, dough and mother. The lunch was also wonderful.” Sarah Burns Cox

To book and for more info, email  kvenner@btinternet.com or call 01823 672301


Get Your Wellies On - Thurs 22nd March

Another opportunity to get your wellies on and get stuck into replanting hazel at Childrens' Wood, just off Winkworth Road at 2pm. Bring some sturdy footwear, some gloves and plenty of welly!


Tone Conservation - Thurs 22nd March


Tone Conservation have organised a further training day to learn how to hedge lay on Longrun Meadow.  It is on Thursday 22nd March 10am -4pm - there are 10 places only and Pete Grainger who is running the day will bring the tools which are needed.  This type of course would normally cost £45 but SCC are paying so it is free.


If you are interested in lending a hand then contact Helen Lawy -  helenlawy@gmail.com


Beacon of Sound and Light - Thurs 22nd March

Location: Somerset Square, Taunton TA1
Time: 6pm - 8pm Free

From Brewhouse Website

A floating beacon lighting up the Taunton to Bridgwater Canal and collecting sounds, songs and stories about the canal and Somerset Waterways. There will be opening and closing events at Somerset Square, Taunton and Bridgwater Marina. These sounds will be woven together to create a ’waterlog’, a musical sounds cape to be played on the floating beacon and an oral and aural archive about the canal and other Somerset waterways. The opening and closing events will also feature live music sung and played from the water, illuminated boats and illuminations and projections on land.











Groundswell - Sat 24th March

Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.
Milton Friedman
Places limited – book now!



The “perfect storm” of climate change, peak oil and an unstable global economy mean we are living in extraordinary times. 

  • What must change next in our locality if we are to weather the “perfect storm”?
  • What are our own “ideas lying around” that we urgently need to have front-of-mind for a sustainable future?
  • Which ideas are we already acting on, and which ones might we discover we have the energy and ability to act on next?

Join 99 other like-minded people from Taunton and its surrounding area to create Groundswell.  Join up the dots of where we are already rising to the low carbon challenge.  See where our collective potential might take us.  Using the Open Space process, you can have the conversations you really want to have, make new connections, add to a melting pot of ideas, and go away knowing what your next step might be.

The Genesis Centre is on the campus of Somerset College, Wellington Road, has ample parking for bikes and cars, and level access.  It is on bus routes 22, 22A and 92 from the bus station.

Cost:  £10 to include a light vegetarian lunch, tea and coffee
To book, contact Vicky Matthews vickym@uk2.net,or by post to 1 Obridge Lane, Taunton, TA2 7QN.

Cheques payable to Taunton Transition Town.

Places limited – book now!




Somerset Co-operative Community Land Trust - Sat 24th March


Somerset Co-operative Community Land Trust is proposing to renovate a derelict property in the heart of Taunton for social housing and a business centre for community enterprise. A Community Land Trust is open to anyone in the locality to join - its shares are an investment not for profit, but for the common good.

Come along to a drop-in exhibition about Taunton's first Community Land Trust.

Taunton Library Meeting Room
9.30 - 12.30






Transition Drop-in Café - Sat 31st March



In The Neighbourhood

  • results of the energy efficiency mapping research from the Centre for Sustainable Energy
  • on the spot advice about making your home more energy efficent
  • some groovy models of different kinds of wall insulation (they really are groovy)
  • hands-on demonstration of our thermal imaging camera.
  • Deane Energy Savers offering people home energy audits.

Venue: Friends' Meeting House, Bath Place, Taunton
Time: 10.30-12.30




Looking for Land in Taunton Deane - Mon 23rd April

  • Is there a long waiting list for allotments where you live?
  • Want to create new growing space in your parish?

Then join Somerset Community Food for an Information Evening for Town & Parish Clerks, Councillors and Residents to explore, enable & support access to land for new and existing food growers.

Places are free but booking is ESSENTIAL.

Please book your place through the form - http://www.somersetcommunityfood.org.uk/index.php?page=incredible-edible-taunton-deane

When: 7 – 9pm, Monday 23rd April

Where: Creech St Michael Baptist Church Centre, Creech St Michael,TA3 5QQ.

Who should attend?

    Parish clerks & councillors with responsibilities for allotments
    Allotment associations
    People on allotment waiting lists
    Anyone seeking land to grow food on
    Landowners willing to lease land for community growing
    People interested in starting community food projects


For more information contact Linda Hull on 01749 678770, email linda.hull@somersetcommunityfood.org.uk


Chagfood - 8th-16th May


Reclaim the Fields are delighted to invite you to volunteer at Chagfood and Steward Wood from 8-16 May.

A four-year-old Welsh cob cross Dartmoor pony is revolutionising farming. Samson is the heart of a project that keeps time-tested skills alive and proves that resilient low impact farming in the UK can be profitable. This is a taste of the the future of British farms amid peak oil: Chagfood.

Steward Wood, four miles away, is a pioneering permaculture project which fought the planning system and won permission for their community to integrate conservation woodland management techniques with organic growing, traditional skills and crafts and low-impact sustainable living.

http://wwolfing.wordpress.com/



Taunton Green Doors - 25th-27th May

Following in the footsteps of Bristol, Oxford, Frome and many others, Green Doors comes to Taunton!  We are looking for people living in the town or the surrounding area who are willing to open up their homes to show others how they have managed to make them more eco friendly.  If you are connected to a community building (e.g. church, school) you are welcome to show that too.

Over the weekend of 25-27 May 2012, we want to give people the opportunity to learn first-hand what different types of eco-improvements can be like and what benefits they have brought.   This could be anything from insulation to renewable energy generation, low impact water systems to full on retrofitting, brilliant composting or vegetable gardening.

If it’s eco, it’s in!

If you think you may be interested in participating, please contact Cara Naden by email – greendoorstaunton@gmail.com, or by calling her on 07771 561398.

Find out more on our website...  http://tauntontransition.wordpress.com/projects/local-energy-assesment-fund/green-doors/




The Sustainability Show - Sunday 17th June

Something for your calendars to book in now.  After the great success last year we are back at the Sustainability Show this June.

http://www.sustainabilityshow.org.uk   
              


   News



Somerset Co-operative Community Land Trust


Somerset Co-operative Community Land Trust
The Somerset Co-operative Community Land Trust are working to address the chronic shortage of affordable sustainable housing in Somerset.  At the same time they would also like to use the properties to provide managed workspace for new and growing community enterprises especially those using sustainable technologies.


Their first property will be Hertford House in Taunton where the purchase will shortly be completed.  The building has been neglected for many years and they will need a lot of help getting it ready for occupation. 


Please contact them if:


  • You are interested in being a tenant of the co-operative. You must be in housing need currently, or at risk of homelessness in the near future.
  • You wish to join as member. Somerset residents can join with a minimum investment of £25; however, it will be often be possible to make this investment 'in kind' if you are able to volunteer some time. Member including tenants democratically control the co-op, and can join the management committee.
  • You are able to make a larger investment. Anyone can buy shares in the project if they are able to invest a minimum of £500. You will have the reassurance of knowing that the money has been put into a durable asset, and that the financial projections are based on fixed price contracts.
  •  You can help as a volunteer with the renovation of Hertford House. We are in need of a wide range of skills, not least simple labour.


Find out on www.somerset.coop/landtrust


or by post: The Hot House, Wellington Road, Taunton, TA1 5AX




Foraging


It is that time of year when wild food foraging comes into it's own.  Walk around any damp woodland this time of year and you will come across the heady scent of wild garlic.  Nettles are flinging off the ravages of winter and the lesser celandines are blooming in the spring thaw.  So pick up your food foraging books or take an experienced food forager with you and go and seek out the abundance on your doorstep.
Wild Garlic from Flickr Commons - Char


A great book to start out with is Miles Irving's The Forager Handbook - http://www.forager.org.uk/forager_handbook.html .

Or go digital with the new iphone app from the Ashburton Cookery School - http://www.ashburtoncookeryschool.co.uk/media/pressreleases/2012/feb/Foraging-Iphone_app.php ..

Wondering what to do with these edible delights then check out the website Eat Weeds - http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/ .


Portas Pilot

Anyone looking at Taunton's High Street and town centre will not be in any doubt that it has suffered; empty shops and premises, big chains taking over. Competition from out-of-town shopping centres, supermarkets and the internet and the economic down-turn have plunged our town centres into decline. Between 2000 and 2009 the number of town stores fell by almost 15,000, and there have been many further losses over the last couple of years.

High streets are recognised as important hubs of social interaction and cohesion, as well as providers of local jobs. They're a visible indicator of how well, or how badly, a local economy is doing.

The government commissioned Mary Portas to conduct an independent review of the high street's future. She came back with some recommendations, one of which was to pilot a scheme in a dozen chosen towns to breathe life back into our high streets.  That review is available for download from : http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/regeneration/portasreview....

So why is her report so important to Transition... she resoundingly advocates local business creation with large retailers mentoring smaller business, cuts in business rates for start-up businesses,  “local people as co-creators not simply consumers”, new street markets with cheap rates amongst a whole host of other initiatives. Read Transition's own slant on the argument in Rob Hopkins' blog - http://transitionculture.org/2011/12/14/another-world-is-not-only-possible-shes-opening-a-bakery-round-the-corner-reflections-on-the-portas-review/

“A pound spent in a retailer with a localised supply chain that employs local people has far greater domestic impact than a pound spent in a supermarket or national chain.  What’s more, out-of-town developments are often presented as major new sources of employment, but we need to recognise that this ‘job creation’ is often just job displacement”.
Mary Portas - The Portas Review



So the Somerset’s County Town ‘team’ would welcome your support for its campaign by ‘liking’ and ‘sharing’ the Taunton High Street facebook page (if you’re a facebook user),or by making a comment on Taunton’s high street blog .

The ‘town team’ is determined to revive Taunton’s High Street, whether we’re one of the dozen chosen Portas Pilots or not.  This is just the beginning...