Transition Leytonstone up and running

Transition Leytonstone is now up and running, with an active group of members planning an exciting series of events and activities for the coming year. If you would like to get involved or find out more, please get in touch using the contact form.

Upcoming events include:

Sunday 21st Feb, The Power of Community screening at the Lord Rookwood, 314 Cann Hall Road. Doors open 5.45pm, film starts 6.30pm. Cuba rebuilt its quality of life following the collapse of cheap oil from the former Soviet Union. This fascinating and empowering film shows how communities pulled together, created solutions, and thrived in spite of their decreased supply of imported energy.

Saturday 27th Feb, Launch of Cann Hall CAN! (Climate Action Network) at Buxton School, Cann Hall Road (formerly Cann Hall Primary School). 11am - 3pm. Transition Leytonstone will have a stall, along with other local organisations working together with us. For more information see  www.cannhallcan.ning.com

Sunday 14th March, Taking Root - The Vision of Wangari Maathai, at the Lord Rookwood. Doors open 5.45pm, film starts 6.30pm. The dramatic story of Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai whose simple act of planting trees grew into a nationwide movement to safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and defend democracy.

Saturday 20th March, Second Cann Hall CAN! event, with a Give or Take Day, more seed sowing. 11am-3pm Cann Hall Baptist Church, Cann Hall Road.

The 11th Hour

On Sunday 29th November, we will be showing our next film at 491 Gallery, Leytonstone - The 11th Hour.

This feature length documentary by Leonardo DiCaprio documents the grave problems facing the planet’s life systems. And our most prominent thinkers and activists paint a portrait for a radically new, exciting & sustainable future.

The 491 Gallery is a relaxed space to chill out on a Sunday evening. Join us for some tasty, inexpensive homemade vegetarian food beforehand, browse the eco bookstall and then sink into the sofas to take in the film. Afterwards, there will be the opportunity for discussion and idea swapping. We had some great ideas from the discussions after the last two films, so hope to build on these.

The 491 Gallery is holding a Community Gathering Day from 10am onwards on 29th November as part of its Winter Arts Festival. So why not come along a bit earlier and take part in the activities from a metal work workshop to a knitting circle.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Details:

Date: Sunday, 29 November.

Time: Doors open at 5:30, film starts 6:30pm. Film and talk finishes at 9pm.
Venue: 491 Gallery, 491 Grove Green Rd, E11 4AA. The nearest tube is Leytonstone.
For a map, please click here.
Tickets £3 on the door. Inexpensive vegetarian food also available before 6.30.

For more information about the film: http://11thhouraction.com/seethefilm
For more information about 491 Gallery: http://www.491gallery.com/homepage.htm

Sunday evening movie - A Crude Awakening

On Sunday 25 October, we will be showing our next film at 491 Gallery, Leytonstone - A Crude Awakening.  Compelling, intelligent and highly entertaining, the film looks at how our society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and re-created.

The 491 Gallery is a relaxed space to chill out on a Sunday evening. Join us for some tasty, inexpensive homemade vegetarian food beforehand, and then sink into the sofas to take in the film. Afterwards, there will be the opportunity for discussion and idea swapping. We had some great ideas last time, so hope to build on these.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Details:

Date: Sunday, 25 October.

Time: Doors open at 5:30, film starts 6:30pm. Film and talk finishes at 9pm.
Venue: 491 Gallery, 491 Grove Green Rd, E11 4AA. The nearest tube is Leytonstone.
For a map, please click here.
Tickets £3 on the door. Inexpensive vegetarian food also available before 6.30.

For more information about the film: http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/film.html
For more information about 491 Gallery: http://www.491gallery.com/homepage.htm

A 3 film programme at 491 Gallery

This is the second in a 3 film programme of Transition Films that we are pleased to be holding in conjunction with 491 Gallery on the last Sunday of the month in the evening. The 3rd film will be:

• Sunday, 29 November - 11th Hour. This Leonardo di Caprio film looks at the challenges facing our planet – and possible solutions

Power of the Community - post film discussion

Over 30 people came to the 491 Gallery in Leytonstone to watch The Power of Community on 27^th September. The sofas and large screen made for very comfortable viewing.

The discussion after the film was very animated, and in order to capture the many ideas sparked off by the Cuban community’s response to the oil embargo, people were asked to write down their thoughts about what they would like to see change locally, and what they would like to get involved with.

The 3 main themes to emerge were:

Food
Transport
Community

Other themes were:

Energy
Waste and recycling
Population
Open spaces

People were asked to form groups around the theme they were most interested in, and to decide what their priority actions would be.

The food group (the biggest) felt that food growing should be encouraged, and many ways were suggested to do this (see below). They felt especially that children should grow food at school and learn how to do this from an early age.

The transport group wanted to:

· Expand cycle networks greatly

· Lower speed limits

· Have more timed buses, running on electric dynamo power

· See more goods (and bicycles) transported by rail

· See more road closures

· See traffic lights default to green for pedestrians

The community group wanted:

· To bring different community groups together

· To be an example in the community, show people what we’re talking about

· To find ways to meet our needs for community, identity and meaning, without using up the earth’s resources

The full list of ideas is below. There are a lot (people got very enthusiastic!) but it’s worth reading through as something might inspire you to get a group together and take some action. Even on a very small scale.

Transition Leytonstone

We were happy to meet some Leytonstone residents who were interested in starting a Transition group in Leytonstone. We hope to meet some more people who would like to join us at the next film showing on 25^th October.

What people would like to see change locally, or get involved in:

Food

· Pick apples from elderly people’s gardens (presumably with their permission!)

· Growing food in front gardens, on windowsills, just outside Leytonstone tube

· Using free land to grow food

· Get local schools to all include growing veg in the playground

· Teach food preparation to people lacking these skills

· Encourage farmers’ markets

· More locally produced food

· ‘Local food’ shops

· Bake bread for others on a rota

· Idea of forest garden

· The market to have more local food

· Moving out to farms

· Agricultural training

· Use fruit and veg (e.g blackberries) instead of letting it rot

Transport

All the points above, as well as:

· More people on bicycles

· More cycle parking

· Real bicycle facilities on London overground services

· No parking hour rather than expensive to run no parking zones

· Bike safety

· More cycle paths

· Discouragement of short car journeys

Community

· Change perspective – not fuel crisis, crisis with our society

· Less work, more time to do community stuff

· Spirit of community

· Build up relationships

· Encourage sense of sharing

· Attitude of the authorities (Council) towards people with ‘green’ initiatives

· Bringing different community groups together

· Housing co-ops

· Human relationships, not technology

· More evening like this where community comes together ‘cos that’s how we change things

Energy

· Insulate all homes

· Turn off lights

Waste and recycling

· Street recycling facilities – encourage people to use them

· Encourage people not to use plastic bags

· Refuse, reuse – greater emphasis on these and only then on recycling

· Better recycling systems (?community systems)

· Free-cycle as global as ebay!

· Teach mending clothes

· Get local shops to stop using plastic bags – gets people talking and acting together

Population

· Depopulation at all levels: local, national and global

· Less humans everywhere!

· 2 child policy

Open spaces

· More local support for threatened sites (open spaces, allotments, trees, etc)

· Increase open land space – stop building on every available piece of land

· End the concreting of front gardens

The Power of Community, 27 September

Our next film screening is ‘The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil’.

This fascinating and empowering film looks at how Cuba coped in the 1990s when imports of cheap Russian oil were stopped, and the resulting community and creativity of the Cuban people in creating solutions. The film will be followed by a discussion about what we can do as a community.

Details:

Date: Sunday, 27 September.
Time: Doors open at 5:45, film starts 6:30pm. Film and talk finishes at 9pm.
Venue: 491 Gallery, 491 Grove Green Rd, E11 4AA. The nearest tube is Leytonstone.
For a map, please click here.
Tickets £3 on the door. Inexpensive vegetarian food also available before 6.30.

For more information about the film: http://www.powerofcommunity.org/cm/index.php
For more information about 491 Gallery: http://www.491gallery.com/homepage.htm

A 3 film programme at 491 Gallery

This is the first in a 3 film programme of Transition Films that we are pleased to be holding in conjunction with 491 Gallery on the last Sunday of the month in the evening. The other films in the programme are:

• Sunday, 25 October - A Crude Awakening.  Documentary which discusses the dwindling supply of cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels and its effect on society .
• Sunday, 29 November - 11th Hour. This Leonardo di Caprio film looks at the challenges facing our planet – and possible solutions

SCRUMPING ON 12th SEPTEMBER

Our day of scrumping will be on Saturday, 12th September. Meet at 11am at the Hornbeam Centre (www.hornbeam.org) on your bike. We will then be going scrumping, and returning to the Hornbeam in the afternoon to press the apples that we pick. Bring along a picnic lunch.

Discussion following News from Nowhere talk

Thanks to the News from Nowhere Club for hosting a Transition Talk on 8 August in Leytonstone.

In his talk, Paul Gasson set out the context of climate change and peak oil, and talked about the principles of Transition Communities, and some of the local activities. The talk was followed by a discussion in which people contributed their thoughts on what is important to them and can be done. These thoughts are summarised below.

If you would like to discuss any of the points raised below, or get involved with taking action, then please do get in contact with us.

1.     Local groups and organisations to partner with/get in touch with

· Organic Lea

· Hornbeam centre and café

· Residents’ Associations

· SLADA’s Youth Programme

· Second Nature food shop

· HEET

· Abel and Cole online

· Please re-screen “Age of stupid” and “End of Suburbia”.

2.     What do you feel passionate about?

· Stopping cars

· Food

· Sustainability

· Urban food growing

· Permaculture

· Creativity and community as an alternative to consumerism

· Practice of arts and skills

· Building local sustainable communities that are connected

· The government is planning to build 2 or 3 million homes, so what is going to happen to green spaces and agriculture?

· Absolute waste, e.g. wood, furniture

· Energy saving in Victorian Houses

· Scientific thinking as part of the answer

3. What would you like to change?

· The school run

· Back-street public transport via small buses

· Have lovely front gardens everywhere

· Less food wrapping

· Less food miles

· Supermarket shopping

· The return of fresh fruit and veg stalls to this area

· Creating a local skills bank to that people can learn and teach

· More local involvement

· Community notice board

· Moving from profit as sole motivation to getting more people involved (competing choices)

· The media, press, world of advertising.

4.     What would you like to do now?

· Distribute geraniums to front gardens

· I want to engage pensioners in Transition Towns, + bringing together the skilled and the unskilled

· I want to introduce it to my local residents’ association (FORA)

· Get a bike for short local journeys

Main themes emerging:

· Food growing

· Transport

· Community

· Skills

· Energy

· Waste

Talk in August, scrumping in September

Pressing locally picked apples outside the Hornbeam

Paul Gasson will be speaking on Saturday 8 August at the News from Nowhere Club at the Epicentre in Leytonstone. For details of venue and evening please see: http://www.newsfromnowhereclub.org/

Description of talk:
Climate change, peak oil & water, economy shocks…increasingly buffeted by global crises too big to be solved by conventional thinking, we urgently need a different approach to building resilient local communities. Tonight we’ll dip into the challenges, explore the transition movement’s psychology of change, & journey around some local examples of change which offer inspiration. Paul, living in Walthamstow, has been involved in environmental campaigning for 20 years, much of it focused on improving conditions for cycling & walking. He’s actively supported many local pressure groups & chaired several, including the London Cycling Campaign. He believes there are powerful synergies from reducing our carbon footprint, increasing community engagement & exploring personal change.

And we are going to be having a day of scrumping on September. So if you fancy getting on your bike, picking some apples, and then pressing them into juice, let us know and we’ll get in touch when the date is confirmed. Hope to see you at either event or both!

July newsletter

Below is the text of our July newsletter. If you would like to be added to our mailing list to receive our monthly newsletter, or get in touch via email, please use the contact form on the contact page of this website.

CHANGES WE’D LIKE TO SEE AND MAKE

It was great to see over 30 people gather at the Hornbeam Centre on Friday 26 June to watch the film ‘End of Suburbia’. The film clearly got us all thinking about the implications of peak oil, and the discussion that we had afterwards generated many ideas about what we could do individually and as a community. These thoughts were gathered on sticky notes, and you can find them in the post below on this site.

Four clear themes emerged from the discussion: Food, Transport, Energy and Community. Please do get in touch with us if you have been inspired to take action, or would like to develop any of these ideas. Here are some further suggestions about what you can do in each of the areas:

FOOD: If you are interested in food growing, you can join a work day at OrganicLea on the 2^nd and 4^th Sunday of each month. Contact OrganicLea – info@organiclea.org.uk , www.organiclea.org.uk

TRANSPORT: Plenty of options here, ranging from the Waltham Forest Cycling Campaign (www.wfcycling.org.uk), Family Bike Club rides (the next is 13.00 Sun 19^th July), and plans to set up a local branch of Living Streets (www.livingstreets.org.uk).

Contact: Paul via the contact form

COMMUNITY: Raise awareness across the borough, by helping us organise film screenings, talks and by whatever other innovative, fun ways you can think of! Contact: Olivia via the contact form.

ENERGY: One of our Transition team runs the innovative HEET project which helps residents reduce home energy use (www.theheetproject.org.uk). Perhaps you would like to help start an Energy theme group which works with HEET and explores other possibilities such as renewable generation.

NEXT FILM SCREENING

We are just finalizing details for our next film screening, which will be ‘Power of Community’, looking at how Cuba survived Peak Oil in the 1990s, so will let you know about that very soon.

And don’t forget that you can come along to the Hornbeam Centre (http://www.hornbeam.org.uk) on Saturdays between 2.30 and 4pm to have a chat with us about anything Transition-related over a cup of a tea.

Changes we want to see and make

Over 30 people gathered at the Forest Recycling project on Friday 26^th June to watch the film End of Suburbia, followed by a five minute trailer for the film Power of Community.

At the end, everyone was invited to answer three questions:

What changes would you like to see?
What can you do to live the change?
What can we do as a community?

The answers were captured on sticky notes, and divided into four theme areas, which formed a basis for lively discussion.

The group’s thoughts are recorded below. If you are interested in discussing any of these topics, or taking action around them, please get in touch. There is clearly a lot of consensus around the changes that people would like to see and make. If you have any further thoughts, please add them via the comments box.

FOOD

Turn arcade site in Walthamstow into market garden, supplying the high street
Planning law to be changed to increase availability of urban space to grow food

Urban gardening
Help out on my friend’s allotment
More local production of food and energy
Grow your own
More time to grow my own food
Grow more food for yourself
Use more of my garden to grow veg
Grow more food
Grow my own
More people growing food locally
I would like to grow my own fruit and vegetables
Allotment share?
Locally, I’d like access to somewhere to grow some veg – a portion of an allotment, but it has to be close. Don’t want a whole allotment as it is too big.
Learning about permaculture and how to garden

More organic farming
Make cost of food realistic (ie reflect cost of production and transport)
Government support for local food producers
Pay farmers more
Large scale community gardening
Swapping food
Availability of local produce
Smaller local food outlets

TRANSPORT

Walk more, use more public transport
Streets of trees and people
More low carbon transport, quieter streets, safer streets
Less cars
Reduce car journeys
Less car usage
Reverse the emphasis on cars and road travel
Cycle path model like in Holland

ENERGY

Do not leave mobile on charging all night
Use less electricity
Reduce energy consumption (turn off electric appliances and stop wasting heat)
Less energy use and more government encouragement, eg grants to help with this
Fly less

Investigate alternatives
Affordable alternative energy for everyone
More use of renewable energy
Increase solar energy

Better recycling and less waste
See cost of energy increase to real cost
Thinking about carbon neutral house
Local energy production
Planning for this change on a national scale, eg renewable energy now!

Reduce use of plastic bags
Stop producing plastic bags

COMMUNITY

Educate everyone on the problems caused by consumerism
Attitude of people towards consumerism
More community involvement, eg LETS
More events promoting these changes
Join with others in learning skills to avoid paying commercial people
Talk to others about the subject
More talking to neighbours

Change of political consensus
Manage dense housing – Tokyo model
For my community to see the need for change
More self-sufficiency
Social change “less is more”
We can all make a difference by making small changes, eg Cuba experience
I have already started by recycling, using public transport, composting and growing my own organic food and veg

More sense of community
Do more things locally
Using products on a local level
Join local community and environmental groups to share knowledge and experience.

End of Suburbia screening, 26 June 2009

 Transition Films’ next screening is The End of Suburbia. This international award-winning documentary film looks at the dwindling supply of cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels, and its potential effect on society. It is a powerful introduction to the subject of Peak Oil.

Join us for the screening and for a discussion afterwards about how we can begin to take action as a community to prepare for a low carbon lifestyle.

For more information about the film see: www.endofsuburbia.com

Details:

Friday, 26 June 2009. Doors open at 7pm; film screening starts at 7:30pm. Tickets: £3

Venue: Forest Recycling Project, 2c Bakers Avenue, Walthamstow, London E17 9AW
(just behind the Hornbeam Cafe) 

Thank you to Forest Recycling Project for providing the venue. Find out more about Forest Recycling Project here: www.frponline.org.uk