A select group of about 12 people met at At Tatnam Organic Patch at 5:30pm.
Was it the early timing, the ‘not going out on a friday night’, or meeting fatigue ? Please let us know – what would be better ?
Feedback on the Big Green Fortnight
General consensus was that it was brilliant engaging with those people who came by,
the stalls were interesting The Brigit Strawbridge talk was very interesting, over 70 people there
It was great to have the films at the Lighthouse, though a shame about technical hiccups during them
As a result of seeing the “Age of Stupid”, Amanda Hughes is putting it on at the Winchester Pub – Poole Hill, Bournemouth £3
We then talked about ‘The End of the Line’, which highlights the unsustainability of fishing, and has just been released, and “In Transition” which is a more upbeat film to show !
The Pavillion was a very poor venue, not well signed or easy to get into, and a bit out of the way. Would have been different in the rain, but poor numbers attending. Those that did were very interested. The TransitionBH area was very good, and vibrant. Well done to all.
Marks Garden was one of the highlights, and with support running teas and coffees, he was free to talk about the garden, and so apparently really enjoyed it.
The party went really well, after worries about not selling many tickets in advance.
The little green talks on the big green bus went well. Garry had 2 people sign up for a Permaculture course from his one, and Andy tempted a family to come and visit the Tatnam Patch from a comment a the end of his talk.
The BGF organisers want to have numbers of visitors to the various venues, and £ raised for charity or whatever other feedback we can muster. Will have to estimate as we weren’t counting !
The BGF is likely to happen again the year after next. It was expensive to have the Bus (which did visit a load of schools during the week). The decision depends on the councils and partnerships agreeing to do it.
Apparently 60% of the schools are signed up with Garden Organic.
We discussed having a ‘Little Green Weekend’, or may be a ‘Little Green Week’ in between, just the voluntary organisations. Â End of May is a good time, a debate around whether half term week was good or bad, and likewise the bank holiday – both means some volunteers are away, there are lots of people about, but many are not locals. 4th
June is Environment Day, so could link with that. Didn’t get to a conclusion.
Possible Venues -
- Dolphin Centre in Poole – out of the weather if foul
- Sovereign Centre in Boscombe
- Party
- Shelley Park community rooms may be operational and available
There were about 35 contacts from the yellow box on the TransitionBH stall. 21 from the bus, 14 from the Pavillion. Harriet had emailed the 21 to remind them of the party, but otherwise not progress. Andy to email them to invite to join the Google group. (Done)
Role for TransitionBH
With the advent of Transition Poole, and hope for groups springing up in both Bournemouth and Christchurch, we discussed the ongoign role for the BH hub.
- Awareness and networking
- supporting anyone who wants to set up a local group
- socially meeting – with a purpose – green drinks is probably a good way to do this
- supporting other groups – possibly bidding for funding (but we would probably need a formal structure…)
- Skills sharing board – what you want to learn, what you would be prepared to give
We talked a bit about resources that are available
- Harriet has a library of DVDs – most of the film showings have been from these
- we could have a page of skills/information exchange on the Google Group (Done, but needs contributions !)
- free school – free skool – on the web, Vancouver and lots of other places http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_school
- using the concepts of barn raising for example encouraging pond digging, communal productive gardens
- which led onto buying pond-liner in bulk, buying wholesale food etc.
We had a discussion about having a Facebook page too – some are concerned by the commercial/advertising, but it does allow one to reach out to a wider group of people, and friends of interested people.
Not clear that people are aware you can opt not to receive the emails, but just to go to http://groups.google.com/group/transition-bh?hl=en to view posts. You need to use the ‘Edit my Membership’ on this page to change your preferences (or email Andy or Dave to help you).
Andy, Harriet and Jacki fed back on the Transition Training in Dorchester
There were some useful tools that were shared by the team from Totnes, and it was great to meet Transitioners from all around Dorset who are keen to push things forwards.
- several icebreakers
- We mapped (by moving people about) where people were from, the size of their towns, their age (which was interesting !)
- we explored the concepts of peak oil, a healthy world with fair shares, awareness raising techniques
- We explored the inner world – transition and change – you need to be self-motivated to make a difference
- a cycle of change
- precontemplation – is there a problem ?
- contemplation – what needs doing ?
- preparation – what and how ?
- action
- maintenance – and probably going back round the cycle to refine or take the next step
- termination – if unsuccessful or need to start again
- We looked at the usefulness of open space to support ideas from individuals
- we did some visioning – “meet the descendants” – what will our ideal world look like ?
- we then had a canter through what Totnes are up to. They have successes and challenges
- we created an action plan – which in our case was to try and get Transition Poole started.
Next meeting
Helen is organising, a Thursday sometime in July. Possibly in Oakdale Methodist Church to include a film showing, “End of the line”, or “In Transition”
