The training course, which is delivered by Garden Organic, is free and will be held at Holt Hall Field Studies Centre in North Norfolk (lift sharing will be organised and travel expenses paid). After completing the training, volunteers are asked to spend 30 hours over the next year promoting the home composting message and supporting their family, friends and neighbours to compost at home. Volunteers are supported by a dedicated project coordinator (me) and have access to technical advice from Garden Organic and free membership for the year.

The Master Composter scheme in Norfolk is a partnership between Norfolk County Council and Garden Organic.

For more details contact;

David Hawkyard
Norfolk Master Composter Co-ordinator
01603 223328
07825 670645
e-mail; david.hawkyard [at] norfolk.gov.uk

Or see the Norfolk County Council web page [here].

If you’re interested in traveling to the regional gathering from the Dereham area, please contact TransitionDereham to see if we can arrange to share transport, etc.

I mentioned our first regional gathering, held in Downham Market in March 2009, (with a group photo) in a blog post here.

Local Food (cover)

The Transition Handbook (cover)

The Transition Timeline (cover)

The Transition Network is beginning to develop a series of ‘how to’ Transition books. The Transition Handbook, and The Transition Timeline are already available, and the first of the new ‘how to’ series; Local Food is released on the 17th September 2009. You can read more about this on the Transition Culture blog.

There are substantial discounts available for bulk orders of 10 or more of these books (of any mix). Please do e-mail transitiondereham@googlemail.com (or use the Contact page) if you’re in the Dereham area and you’re interested in copes of any of these books. If there is enough interest we could look to make a bulk order, passing on some of the discount, and keeping some to help fund Transition Dereham activities.

The RRP for these titles is £12.95. But with enough interest, we could offer these books locally for about £10 per book.

I have started a Resources section on this website with a Transition Books page containing details on these Transition Network publications. In time I’ll add details and links to various other publications and resources or interest to the Transition process.

The Transition Network team have now resolved the technical issues. So the 60 minute film is now available on-line for the next 72 hours (until early on Sunday 14th June 2009) here. For more details visit Transition Culture .org

The on-line broadcast can be found here.

What can be done to get more people along to something like this? Was it just one bad date, or a bad time of the week? If you’re in the Dereham area please do post any comments on when and where you might like to come to film screenings in the town. I know several people have said they were interested but couldn’t make Monday 11th.

I want to show another film in Dereham; “The Power of Community”. But it’ll only work if more people are interested and able to show up for it! So please do let me know when and where you would like to see this.

In organising the screening, a couple of avenues have opened up to screen the films for other groups or gatherings. So this might be the way forward! The most likely looking of these at present is at Adam Jackson’s Treehouse Party on 4th July 2009

If a Transition Initiative is really to develop in Dereham then we need to begin forming an “Interim Steering Group” who will then organise further film screenings and other events to raise local awareness of Peak Oil and Climate Change. If you’re interested in this please do let me know. If there are several people out there, a good starting point might be to gather together to watch the new film about Transition, called “In Transition”. It is being shown for the first time on Saturday 23rd May at the Transition Network gathering in London, and also streamed over the internet from 2:45pm. If I hear from interested people before then, we can arrange to meet somewhere to watch the film on-line and then discuss together how to take Transition forward in Dereham.

Here is a trailer for the film;

There are more details about the film at www.transitionculture.org/in-transition

WHAT A LOT OF NONSENSE! I looked “Dr Nils-Axel Morner” up on the web and what I found was very unconvincing! This man is into strange things like dowsing for water! His case reguarding sea level change includes lots of little bits of truth! But then so does any good deception! I found his case most unconvincing and I’m sure that no-one else (with a good understanding of the real evidence) would be either.

So this week’s Dereham Times (9th April) carries two responses to Malcolm Heymer; from Geoff Hinchliffe and from me. I copy my letter below which the newspaper gave a headline of “Communities must generate own energy”.

I agree with Malcolm Heymer (letters, 2nd April) that we still need some large power stations of some form, at least for the forseeable future. But I also believe that we need to take responsibility for generating an increasing proportion of our local energy requirements within our own local communities. In an age where energy security looks increasingly fragile, and where terrorists threaten to attack large power stations and distribution grids, this seems particularly sensible!

We need more micro-generation, feeding into a decentralised energy grid, thus removing power from the big energy corporations and giving it to local communities. But with power comes responsibility!

I would be happy to see wind turbines near me, as part of a mix of local micro-generation, along with solar panels, and with micro-hydro (at old watermill sites along the river Wensum for instance). But of these, in relatively flat Norfolk, wind power probably makes the most sense!

What I found from a web search for “Dr Nils-Alex Morner” (mentioned by Malcolm Heymer) was unconvincing! This is a man into strange things like dowsing. His argument reguarding sea-level change (like a good deception) is full of half-truths! But I’m sure that few people with an understanding of the real facts would be swayed by his case.

Matt Walker

I was tempted to write to the newspaper then, but decided to wait a week to see what other reaction there might be in the newspaper’s letters pages. I was surprised! Balanced coverage? Hardly! Last week’s Dereham Times’ letters page (19th March) carried two letters about the Shipdham wind turbines, both highly negative. So in response to these I did write to the newspaper, and my letter was printed in this week’s paper along side one by Geoff Hinchliffe from CANIS, the Shipdham group who support the wind turbine proposals. The letters were printed under the headline “Our energy has to come from somewhere – so why not here?” which is very good considering the nonsense the paper can sometimes invent (e.g. what I refer to at the end of my letter)! I post my letter below, as I wrote it. What the Times has printed is in italics (they didn’t print all of the last line).

In response to the Shipdham wind turbine debate, I ask doesn’t the energy we use have to be generated somewhere? So why shouldn’t it be in our own “Back Yard”? It has to be in someone’s back yard! Is Brian Kidd [letters, 19th March] arguing to have a coal or nuclear power station, or a waste incinerator on his doorstep? What is he arguing FOR? I know that I would much rather see a few wind turbines! And we cannot continue using up finite resources like oil, coal, and uranium infinitely. We have to start making the transition towards truly sustainable, renewable energy, and lower energy lifestyles for the sake of our economy, our society, and our environment.

The climate globally is warming as a result of our CO2 emissions (contrary to Malcolm Heymer’s assertions [letters, 19th March]). Only recently the official predictions for sea-level-rise during this century have been doubled due to the latest scientific observations from the polar regions which are said to be the fastest warming regions of the planet.

We all have to begin taking the urgent action needed to avert climate chaos. I believe that having some wind turbines in our local landscape will be one small part of this. Another part is to get a “Recycling Centre” in Dereham (it is NOT a “rubbish tip” as the newspaper wrongly labels it! Please use the right term in your headlines).

Matt Walker