Transition Liverpool Newsletter, October 2019
Transition Liverpool
Transition Gathering – 12th October
Transition Network News
Co-housing and building
Merseyside Cohousing Meeting – 15th October
PassivHaus Meeting – 8th October
Fundraising and Liverpool SOUP – special feature
Climate Change
Plastics, recycling, zero waste
Food, Nature and Gardening
Local News and Events
Events
Workshops, Courses and Trainings
News
Transport
Politics
New Thought
Science News
Please email events and contributions for inclusion to transitionliverpoolnews@gmail.com
Transition Liverpool
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global warming leads to higher sea levels
Transition Gathering – 12th October
Taking Action against Climate Breakdown
Saturday 12th October 2019, from 9:30am – 4.30pm, at Liverpool Quaker Meeting House, School Lane
This is a Transition North West Gathering hosted by Transition Liverpool
Join the local Transition Towns community for our annual gathering, a chance to look at problems caused by climate change and encourage active participation in developing solutions.
During this day-long event we will:
- Take a look at the likely impact of fossil fuel use on our coastline as the area becomes more severely affected by sea level rises and storm surges
- Seek to support and inspire each other as we make necessary changes to our individual lifestyles
- Discuss the steps we need to take to reduce emissions
- Explore how can we work with politicians in our local region to tackle climate breakdown
Program
Annie Merry from Faiths for Change will open the day with a brief account of the environmental work of the Metro Mayor and Liverpool City Region.
Dr Amani Becker of the University of Liverpool and National Oceanography Centre, UK will speak in the morning. Amani is a Coastal Resilience Impact Fellow at the UoL and an Applied Coastal Scientist (specialising in coastal resilience) at NOC. She leads delivery of the UK Space Agency C-RISe project , which works with in-country partners to deliver outcomes from satellite altimetry Earth observation services in Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius.
A light lunch will be provided with vegan and vegetarian soup, and desserts
Tea and coffee will be available throughout the day
After lunch there will be an Open Space session, for you to put forward ideas for practical things you would like to do to tackle climate breakdown. Gather in groups to discuss, collaborate, generate interest and plan your actions/projects/ideas. If you have something you think we can do directly that will make a difference, please bring it and put it out to the gathering.
We hope for donations on the day towards lunch and the work of Transition Liverpool.
FREE - but please book now on Eventbrite to reserve a place
Or, visit the Facebook event page to connect to the booking page
And, follow us on Facebook for more information
Transition Network News
Transition Network excitedly invite you to two brilliant events in London on Sun 20th October:
Pop Up Tomorrow (London) - Join us as we step into an imagined future to collectively vision, playfully build and then physically inhabit a 3D vision of a Zero Carbon Britain in 2030. Facebook event
Book Launch: From What Is To What If - celebrating the launch of Rob Hopkins wonderful and inspiring new book 'From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of the Imagination to Create the Future We Want'. - Facebook event
Pop Up Tomorrow Events. We appreciate London's a bit of a hike for some folks, so there's lots of ideas here of Pop Up Tomorrow events and activities you can do in your local area
Co-housing and building
Merseyside Co-housing
After all that waiting, we’ve had not one, but two newsletters in the last month
Co-Housing Meeting - 15th Oct
7 to 9 pm, Tuesday 15th October
Quaker Meeting House, School Lane, Liverpool City Centre
The meeting is in the George Fox room, which is a small room on the 2nd floor
There is Facebook event for the meeting
After the last newsletter, several people responded that they want to live in co-housing, so I’ve pressed on and organised a meeting. The most important thing is to begin getting to know each other. That might be enough for this first meeting
Please Note. This is a meeting for people who are already interested in co-housing We’ll have meetings later for people who want to find out more, or email us on info@merseysidecohousing.org.uk if you have questions
Meeting on PassivHaus construction - 8th Oct
Liverpool Green Party are having a meeting on PassivHaus construction
7.30 to 9pm, Tuesday 8th October, open to all (The Green Party have a (closed) business meeting from 7 to 7.30)
DoES Liverpool, 1st Floor, The Tapestry, 68-76 Kempston Street. L3 8HL (behind TJ Hughes on London Rd). Facebook event
Lilly Hein-Hartmann is giving a presentation to the Liverpool Green Party on PassivHaus construction. This is a method with very high levels of insulation and minimal heat loss through draughts and conduction from inside to outside the building, so much so that a person sitting in a room will act as a 1.5kW heater, and no other heat source is required. However, more air circulation is then required, and this is done in a controlled way so that heat loss in minimized.
This is easiest in a new-build, but retrofitting old houses to this standard is possible, and clearly the Green Party want to study this
Lilly is a recently qualified architect who is also an enthusiast for co-housing.
Report on Community Funding Meeting
This was held at the Harry Moncrieff Centre several weeks ago
There are two main routes for funding of new community housing projects
Buildings. Homes England fund the building side of things, while
Community Development. Homes in Community Hands give funding for the social and community side of things, ultimately funded by Power to Change via a range of agencies.
It’s become clearer to me after this meeting how this can work. For example if someone bought a large old house…..
1. Homes England don’t fund the actual purchase of a house, but they can fund things like feasibility studies for retro-fitting of eco features, or feasibility of installing a lift, of making some other adaptations and applying for planning permission for these.
2. Community Social Fund / Power to Change might fund any external community dimension that are introduced into a project, for example funding a polytunnel for gardening education, funding a shed for a shed club, and perhaps funding a toilet block so that visitors to these projects wouldn’t have to go into the members living areas.
Quite a lot of funding is available, but, there are always hoops to jump through and you need to adapt to fit in with the funders ....
Wonderful Council Housing in Vienna – a different world to what we have here – Channel 4 video report on Facebook
Underpopulated Italian region offers visitors €25,000 to move in - Guardian Report
How to plaster straw-bale walls with clay: the first coat – Low Impact article
Straw bale, strohballen, strobaal: reflections on the European Straw Bale Gathering 2019 – Low Impact article
Forest of Fabrication – DRMM pioneers of timber architecture – exhibition on at RIBA North until February – RIBA website
Study on Community Land Trusts – Financial case studies on a number of trusts - online report
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Fundraising - Liverpool SOUP – Special Feature
The last Liverpool SOUP was on Thursday 3rd October, and as always, it was wonderful. This one was hosted by Tusk at Cains Brewery.
How it works is that you make a £10 donation (if you can) and you get a ticket for your bowl of soup (excellent) and then use the ticket as your voting card. There were pitches from 4 organisations, each of which deserved and needed the money, but, there is a vote, and the winner takes all of the pot of donations. In this case, the winners received £680, which was amazing
Please try and help them all if you can, either with funds or practical help !!!
These were the 4 organisations
Ullet Rd Church Rebels. Follow them on twitter @UlletRebelsFC
This is a football club for some of the most needy people, including many recent migrants and asylum seekers who have no money and are not allowed to work, and who have often suffered greatly to get here. Football lets them forget and enjoy themselves, and form friendships and connections.
The team has to provide all the kit, travel and food, as these people have nothing, and this costs about £7,000 a year.
Old Swan in Bloom – on Facebook
They are trying to improve Old Swan with planters and flowers, and set up a community garden at the library, in one of the few places away from the traffic
They especially need
- donation of landscape gardening consultancy to help them plan properly
- equipment to make a sensory garden for disabled children, and to make it accessible
- plants, equipment and publicity
Please help if you can
Humanise Me Project – on Facebook (The Winners !!)
They are a film club with a difference. They also set out to help recent migrants and asylum seekers who have no money and are not allowed to work, and also people with illnesses and who are on benefits.
They carefully choose films that will be of relevance, and have a showing every few weeks. The big difference is that they have discussions after the movies to find the wisdom in each film – what they can learn from it and apply it in their lives
They especially need:-
- funds to pay for the screening rights (about £100 per film)
- they need to pay the transport costs so that people can attend
- they provide meals and popcorn each time
- more people to come and attend the screenings and join the discussions
- People with spare rooms where an asylum seeker can stay
- Ideas for films where people show their humanity, dignity and resilience
Plastic Tactics – on Facebook
They are equipping a shipping container as a plastic recycling centre where (young) people can bring some plastic, process it themselves, and a few hours later walk away with something they have made themselves from it !
They have chosen this direction of “connecting people with their own waste” rather than other options such as industrial or semi-industrial production
What they need at the moment:
- Construction advice to finalise our shipping container conversion plans,
- Help to get second-hand (but solid) plywood boards and insulation. Specifically, are there any sustainable insulation materials that could work?
- Contacts in organisations who might be able to book plastic workshops - this is our main way of raising funds so far.
- If you can afford the price of a coffee each month, could you make a small monthly donation on Patreon . It would be a dream to fund the project from hundreds of little donations from the community, on top of doing our paid workshops, rather than rely on big funding organisations.
More Links from the Meeting
Awesome Liverpool give lots of money away every month to awesome ideas to make Liverpool more awesome – see their website
LAB Liverpool also gave the winner 6 months free membership of their co-working space – see their website for more information
Atlantic Youth Creative Hubs – gave free coaching to help some of the pitchers to fine tune their pitches, and provide a range of services to help young people to unlock their creativity. Visit their website for more info
Choir with no Name – for homeless people - practices at the Bluecoat, needs helpers to make meals
People Power Forum – empowering the Grassroots – October 25th See Eventbrite for details and booking
A series of lightning talks on issues around people power and grassroots growth. Come and hear from local leaders on issues concerning you.
World Wide Wednesday is a new international network and monthly gathering.that meets on the first Wednesday of the month, usually at Avenue HQ, Mann Island – check their Eventbrite page to connect
Please note:- I am happy to do a section every month of groups seeking funding for their projects. Please send them in !! I think it works out better if you state what you want to do or get, rather than asking for a sum of money that you want to spend.
Could we make other improvements to the way that groups in need can get access to potential donors ??
Climate Change
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Climate Strike and Extinction Rebellion
Another fortnight of Extinction Rebellion events thas just started !! please follow social media for more info. I expect there will also be a major Climate Strike
Greenpeace Petition. There is a new Greenpeace petition demanding detailed actions from the Government on climate change (instead of their vague intention to do more)
For example, there is a video connected to this campaign that covering 0.3% of the UK land suface with solar panels would solve the problem ! This would be about 3,000 square miles, which sounds a lot, but there are plenty of south-facing roofs and hillsides !
Climate change: UN panel signals red alert on 'Blue Planet' - BBC article
Greta Thunberg to world leaders: 'How dare you – you have stolen my dreams and my childhood' - video – Guardian report with video of the magnificent speech by Greta Thunberg at the UN
315 billion-tonne iceberg breaks off Antarctica – BBC Report
Iceberg insists it can thrive on its own after winning referendum to leave Antarctica – from Newsthump
Where do Greenhouse Gases come from ? – Information is Beautiful graphic (see photo above) – for more see their Facebook page
Ireland to Plant 440 Million Trees in 20 Years to Fight Climate Change – internet article
Plastics, recycling, zero waste
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