Transition City Lancaster News

(Click here for Non-TCL News Items and Events)

Please send your news and info to info@transitioncitylancaster.org.

Transition Local Food Fortnight

Click here for a brilliant poster of whats on!

Here's a job opportunity . . . .

New Job Opportunity at LESS

Energy Officer

LESS (Lancaster district) CIC seeks a part time Energy Officer to provide expertise on home energy efficiency and carbon footprinting to new Home Energy Service project and LESS more generally.

Salary NJC scale 20 (currently £18,453 p.a.) pro-rata to March 2012. 30 hours/week (4 days). Based in Lancaster.


For further information, including an application pack, please see www.lessuk.org

The closing date is Monday 13th September 2010 at 10am with interviews taking place on Friday 17th September 2010.

Energy descent . . .

this is what Transition is all about.

 

Local, collective, practical action to create a resilient future here in Lancaster and district. It's a big job - but there are helpful resources out there. The brand new Energy Descent Action Plan - just produced by local people in Totnes Transition Town is now available in the web. It's free. You can also get the book if you want. Click here for the link. This is a truly inspirational community produced plan created by a truly insrirational local community process. It has much to offer us in Lancaster by way of ideas on plans and on process.

Essential reading for anyone involved in TCL - especially those of us active in the groups and projects.

Gulf of Mexico etc

Ten handy hints from greenpeace . . . . . In the wake of the ongoing catastrophe of the Gulf oil spill, lots of people have been asking us how they can reduce their oil consumption in their daily lives. Here's our top ten:

1. Carpool, cycle or use public transport to go to work.

2. Choose when possible products packaged without plastic and recycle or re-use containers.
3. Buy organic fruits and vegetables (fertilisers and pesticides are based on oil more often than not).

4. Buy beauty products (shampoo, soap, make-up) based on natural ingredients, not oil.

5. Choose when possible locally produced products (less transport involved).

6. Buy clothes made out of organic cotton or hemp - not from oil derivatives.

7. Use non-disposable items in picnics and summer festivals.

8. Quit bottled water.

9. Fly less.

10. Demand that your government encourage renewable energy instead of oil.

 

Energy meters available for loan in Lancaster library

From Stephen Allen - 'Finding out how you're using energy in your home is a great starting point to lowering your use and saving money. To help you figure out where you can cut your energy consumption Lancaster Library, located on Market Square in the city centre, has several of the latest energy meters which you can borrow for free. Just ask the Librarians at the information desk and they'll help you out. Each meter comes with a full set of instructions about how these neat little devices simply attach and quickly tell you where all your Watts are going.'

An Opportunity to be involved in a Community Land Ownership Project

A Fairfield Community Association Not a TCL project but very much in the spririt of transition and embracing the community in taking up the challenge of community ownership of green field sites for its future protection from development. For full details of this project and how to get involved click here

Achievements So Far this Year

A bunch of us met up recently and just tried to recall everything we’ve done so far this year as TCL – it’s a huge list – for just six moths - and still we will have missed stuff – please e mail us at info@transitioncitylancaster.org with any additions. So give yourselves a huge pat on the back tak a big breath and read on:

Three Fruity Corner sites have been planted with edible trees and bushes; we had a day workshop with Shaun Chamberlin author of ‘Transition Timelines’; we held two Café Scientifique events at The Storey; we spent several Saturdays in the market square with an empty oil drum and a polar bear talking with shoppers and handing out info; jam and chutney was made at Rhubarb Day and lots of preserves were swapped at other events; we started using the TCL facebook site more actively; Rob Hopkins joined us for the unleashing event at St Thomas church with about 150 of us and spent that afternoon giving a transition workshop with the City Council; our first Transition Times newspaper was created by a hugely talented team of folk – 20,000 copies were printed – and very few delivered; a court case against the distribution company has been initiated; we delivered many newspapers by hand; six network meetings happened connecting us all across TCL; Steve and Paul went to Hebden Bridge to help with their launch event; we responded to transition groups all over the country wanting to know about our launch event; our launch day at the Storey was hugely successful and lots of fun - we reckon about 500 people came on the day; two TCL film series have happened comprising 12 films; a press and publicity pack has been created for all the groups to use to publicise their events; a car club survey has collected over 100 responses and has put in a funding bid; there have been somewhere in the region of 30/40 meetings of the various TCL groups and about 12 meetings of the steering group; we’ve also now established a ‘Tuesday Team’ that meets in the mornings and works thru practical jobs – like getting this info out; all that we do is done thru generously given energy – we have no paid people in TCL; we’ve kept the TCL website up to date and sent out six e newsletters; we’re also on the case with developing new interactive website options; around the launch time we did various radio interviews and made some good connections with local press; we’re set up for a great workshop on July 3rd with Chris Johnstone; we’ve created a summer programme with loads of good stuff including walks and picnics; TCL also supported LESS in a bid for a Home Energy service and is working with the Halton Hydro project; Gail gave a talk at Lancaster and Morecambe college; Steve gave a couple of talks at Lancaster University and the students have now started a Transition University group up there; we had a great launch party with the Howard Haig band; the deep ecology group offered an afternoon workshop; we made TCL points at the planning hearing on the University wind turbines; Chris continued as TCL member on the Lancaster Sustainability Partnership; there was a forage walk along the river collecting edibl e and medicinal plants . . . and . . . please tell us what we forgot .

Keep up the good work!

BIG LAUNCH DAY at The Storey - Sat 17th April

The day seemed to go really well - upstairs in the 'Music Room' there was an amazing collection of stalls all day with a constant flow of folk chatting, making things, trying local chutney, getting veggie plants, making wallets from tetrapacks or whatever . . . a very good buzz and the stallholders seemed to enjoy it as well! Downstairs there were kiddies dressed in wacky costumes made from scrap - and O YES - there were some very substantial presentations and discussions on peak oil and climate change issues.

Full reports and pictures see our home page, launch report page and more photos on our facebook

Thank you everyone who came along or helped make all this happen in any way at all. Thank you to the fabulous staff at The Storey and to the musicians who came and played in the bar. Thank you also to Howard Haigh and Lava for brilliant music in the evening. TCL is now well into the launching process

 

Rob Hopkins the co-founder of the rapidly growing International Transition Town Initiative and author of "The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience" helped us celebrate the 'unleashing' of Transition Lancaster with a public presentation on the evening of 20th April at St Thomas' Church, Penny Street, Click here for the full report.

Rob Hopkins in full flow

National Transition Conference

This year’s conference will feature a dazzling smorgasbord of open space and inspiring workshops, including some longer in-depth sessions, skill shares, project shares, networking, entertainment, all your meals, lots of meaningful fun and frivolity Checkwww.transitionnetwork.org/conference-2010-uk for more info and full booking details.

Car Club Survey

The Travel and Transport group are undertaking a survey to gauge interest in setting up a local car club in Lancaster(see the car club page). Car Clubs allow you to have a pay as you go car available when you need it. For full details of how car clubs help to save you money and save the planet see the national charity website CarPlus Car Clubs web site. Please fill in our online form here.

Next Meeting monday 22 March at 7:30pm 1 Ashfield Avenue, Lancaster

TCL mailing lists . . .

Hi there - every time we send out an e update or a newsletter - quite a few get bounced back - so if you've signed up to get stuff and it's not arriving - then please drop us a line at info@transitioncitylancaster.org and give us a very carefully written e address for you - dots and dashes etc . . and we'll sort it out.

Thanks!

 

Food Security

Locally produced low carbon food is essential to building our future food security in Lancaster. Happily there are already a small number of local farmers and producers in the area - we have started compiling a list of local organic suppliers . . . please click here - and please send in any further info . . .

It's frighteningly simple . . . we can choose to support local and organic businesses . . . . or we can choose to support globalised food industries with huge carbon footprints. The choice is ours . . . . .

 

 

Ecotricity Donations

The Renewable energy company, Ecotricity will donate £20 for every domestic customer and £40 for every commercial/business customer who switches to their supply using the links provided by our web site. Click here to find out more. If you contact them direct please remember to mention Transition City Lancaster to make sure we get a donation.Thank you.

Webpage

Now that we have our webpage up and running the pages will grow as transition takes off here in Lancaster. Please get in touch with any web ideas you may have or local links and resources to add. Contact Samagita or Steve at info@transitioncitylancaster.org