Transition Walthamstow

We kept a formal record of our public meetings up to August 2012, at which point we changed the format to focus on 60-90 minute long skillshares, most of which have been documented here.

If you want to receive a monthly email listing forthcoming events, let us know at transitionwalthamstow@gmail.com.

 

Report from meeting 13 Aug 2012

The theme this month was food and Laura led an inspiring yoghurt making skillshare. We explored how we could localise & decarbonise our food production & consumption, and discussed next steps to engage with, and support, key local organisations who already have great projects running which epitomise local low carbon resilient living. Notes from the meeting are here.

Report from meeting 9th July 2012

The month’s theme was mindfulness*, which led to some valuable discussions about what we each did to be more mindful, and what we might do differently in Transition Walthamstow.  For our skillshare Alexandra took us through a calming guided meditation, which we hope will soon be available on this website for all to hear & experience.

There was some discussion on our many events in the pipeline, with public film screenings at the end of September, October & November, the coordination of Apple Day (12-4pm Sat 13th Oct at Vestry House Museum), and the creation of the new Heart & Soul Group ((1st Weds of each month).

Notes from the meeting are here.

* Mindfulness: paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.

Report from meeting 11th June 2012

We kicked off with film shorts from eco-poet Danny Chivers, “Peak oil & transition in 2 minutes“ and a trailer for “In Transition 2.0” (we plan a public screening of the full film later this year). We also had a lookahead of upcoming (mainly local) events & a summary of useful information sources.

We then brainstormed on our vision for a resilient low carbon Walthamstow that we’d like to see in 2030, and the skills that we’d need to get there, in the process generating a wonderfully diverse & imaginative perspective on several sheets of densely packed flipchart paper. The output from our meeting plus the news disseminated at the start is here.

We wrapped up with a sprouting skillshare, with attendees taking home a homemade sprouting kit and some mung beans to experiment on. The sprouting briefing sheet is on our new skillshare webpage.

Report from meeting on 14th May 2012

A discussion on living for less (low cost & low impact on the planet) yielded a wealth of suggestions ranging from eating less meat, not flying, avoiding the use of fertilisers or pesticides, to doing more walking and cycling. Challenges identified included finding ethical dairy products, and the difficulties for those who rent accomodation due to their lack of control over living space (eg lowering energy bills via the installation of loft insulation)

A salad growing skillshare resulted in participants each leaving with a large pot planted with oriental and spicy salad leaf seeds, and hopefully enough knowledge to be able start harvesting the leaves once the plants reach maturity in a few weeks.

A more detailed report is here.

Report from meeting on 27th April 2012

We decided on public screenings for the following 3 films over the next 3 months:

1. Power of the community
2. In Transition 2.0
3. Farm for the future

We agreed the Steering Group should focus at its next meeting on the public film screening organisation  & promotion, progress the publicity flyers & get them printed, and decide how to take our ‘Living for less’ plans forward.

But best of all we had a lot of fun over a wonderfully creative brainstorm on how we can (and do) live for less.  All the outputs from this meeting are here.

Report from meeting on 23rd March 2012

A mapping exercise on the type of changes we wanted to see for Transition Walthamstow generated considerable useful feedback from participants. Paul & Fran then presented a set of proposals which included a reduction in public meetings to 1 per month, a public film screening once per month, and the establishment of a steering group; these proposals were accepted and will be detailed further in a post on the front page of this website shortly.

We then reviewed a long list of potential workshops, and prioritised them by 1. what we personally wanted to attend, and 2. what we thought would be popular with the general public. Finally, we reviewed progress on some of our projects, and agreed next steps.

For more details on the meeting’s outputs see here.

Report from meeting on 12th March 2012

Targets to be completed before next meeting on 23 Mar 12

• Publicity
  • All to review text for flyer & feedback to Keir
  • Paul to discuss environmentally friendly inks and recycled paper with Abbey Litho
• Community Garden – Jack to create an archive document
• Diversity review (approx WF breakdown: White British 60%, Black African 10%, Caribbean 10%, European 10%). Amy to collate wisdom from feedback received
• Core group – Mike, Jack, Paul to deliver presentation to Hoe St Community Ward Forum on 19/3/12
• Apple Day
  • Tom to investigate potential for WF street fruit tree map
  • Paul to get spreadsheet of known locations
• Other – Fran to research ‘food from the sky’ to establish its potential

Report from meeting on 24th Feb 2012

Actions and Outputs

• A) The Wellbeing/Happiness project will have a meeting of interested Transitioners at the Rose and Crown, with Simon to arrange a date by the end of March.
• B) David agreed to start collecting information (e.g. organisations and their (contact) details) relevant to a Transition-vetted local Resource Directory
• C) The Core Group agreed:

• A draft flyer design will be circulated by Thu 8 Mar for discussion at  the next TW meeting.
• Amy, Mike & Paul will meet within the next week to plan the Community Ward Forum presentation, and deliver it for feedback at the next TW meeting
• Amy will research the brorough’s diversity demographic and conduct some preparation for a brainstorm at the next TW meeting
• The core group will produce a list of skillshare/workshop topics for the next TW meeting to prioritise to a top 10

• D) Everyone to brainstorm more relevant short films for next pre-meeting viewing?
• E) Jack to contact Annaelle and create an archive document to coordinate and update Community Garden project by Friday 2nd

Next Meeting : Monday 12 March

• a) Fran and Paul to co-facilitate
• b) Items up for discussion:

• i) Green Olympics
• ii) Apple Day
• iii) World’s Largest ratatouille (world’s first carbon-neutral ratatouille since industrialisation?)

This report is also available as a document.

Report from meeting on 13th Feb 2012

At the last meeting we reinforced the overall purpose of the group:

Our group’s purpose is ‘a happy, healthy Walthamstow, where through working together as a community we can reduce our energy use and increase our resilience’. The Transition approach is about forging a positive future that inspires, instead of dwelling on problems – harnessing hope instead of fear. By developing a constructive response to the pressures of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and economic contraction, we can help create a vibrant and sustainable future for local people.

We offered the group 7 projects (which will be relatively fixed for the next few meetings) to choose from, and determined contact people for some of these projects:

• Garden share
• Community Garden – Jack
• Core Group & Public awareness raising – Paul
• Walthamstow’s Wellbeing Quest – Jack
• Local sourcing and repairs directory – Nicole
• Staging a Green Olympics
• Apple Day – Fran

Each group had to set themselves targets for the next meeting and share them with the rest of the group, here they are:

Local sourcing and repairs directory targets

• Write project proposal and pitch this initiative to the group at the next meeting
• Talk to OrganicLea about local food sourcing before the next meeting
• Following the next meeting, approach Transition Walthamstow members in the first instance to obtain knowledge of places to include in directory (survey? 3 weeks response time?)

Walthamstow’s Wellbeing Quest

• set a workshop date
• know how many people and who is interested in a workshop

Community Garden

• ask everyone to look out for empty land
• contact existing schemes
• contact council about ‘orphan land’
• decide whether teaming up with other schemes or starting our own

Core Group & Public Awareness Raising

• have a small transition workshop next Tuesday at Paul’s
• draft a text/design for a flyer
• produce a list of places we could advertise

Report on Fri 27th Jan 2012 progress

We used open space technology to explore & develop some of our projects, which have been summarised by each of the facilitators here:

• Garden share
• Happiness quest
• Community Garden

Those reviewing the potential for a local currency decided that this was too big a project for the the group just now, and to do it well we needed to wait until Transition Walthamstow has established closer links with key stakeholders.

We also discussed and voted on what was most important for us to work on to ensure Transition Walthamstow was as effective as possible: Development Priorities

Tom Bloor showed us a design he had produced based on a William Morris tapestry depicting Pomona, the goddess of fruits and harvests, and which we agreed had great potential for promoting October’s Apple Day event.

Report on 16th Jan meeting 2012

We made progress on several projects… click on the links below:

• Happiness manifesto
• Garden share
• Community Garden
• Local currency

Outputs from Fri 16th Dec 2011 meeting

Due to its proximity to Xmas this was a shorter than usual meeting, but we managed to make valuable progress developing two of our planned projects:

• Draught Busting Action Plan – creation of a draughtbusting team with the skills to help people insulate their homes.
• Raising awareness – increasing public awareness of Transition and what we are trying to acheive

Outputs from Tue 6 Dec 2011 meeting

• Ground mission & ground rules which all newcomers will be introduced to
• Walthamstow’s problem space – how we know what’s wrong
• Desired outcomes – what we’d like instead
• Project priorities – which projects we want to run next year
• Development priorities – what we need to do to strengthen our group

We agreed that we would cut this Friday’s meeting (16th Dec at the Hornbeam) down to 1 hour finishing at 8pm, leaving us more time for some seasonal socialising.

Outputs from meeting on Fri 18th Nov 2011

• Our Reflections on the Transition Principles session run by Mayatte
• Mapping the problem space
• Potential Solutions & projects
• What do we want to do next?

I have also included the Mayatte’s Transition Principles slideshow.

Outputs from meeting on Fri 4th Nov 2011

• Ground rules for meetings (*see below): Ground rules
• Existing local projects fitting transition concept:Local projects
• Potential projects for us to start: Potential projects
• What we’d like Walthamstow to be like in 2026: Visioning 4 Nov 2011
• What’s important to us, what we want to cover in the next meeting: Whats important, next meeting 4 Nov 11

We agreed meetings would take place on the 1st Tuesday and 3rd Friday of each month, so the next few would be on Fri 18 Nov 2011, Tue 6 Dec, Fri 16 Dec, Tue 3 Jan 2012, Fri 20 Jan, Tue 7 Feb, Fri 17 Feb.

*Paul has attempted to add some detail to the ground rule bullet points collected, and will be delighted to amend on the basis of any feedback received from meeting participants.

Outputs from meeting on Fri 21st October 2011

• What we wanted to share after the mapping exercise : What’s important 21 Oct 11
• What we’d like Walthamstow to look like in 2026:  Visioning 21 Oct 2011
• What we’d like to cover next time: Future meeting topics

… and …

• the Transition presentation given at the start of the meeting:  Transition talk Oct 11