The second regional gathering for Transition Initiatives in the East of England is being held in Diss on Saturday 14th November 2009. For more details of the program, location, and who to contact, please visit the Transition East regional web portal www.transitioneast.net or see the relevant threads on the regional Google group.
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.
Due to technical difficulties the film “In Transition” did not screen on-line as it had been advertised, though it is said to have been very well received at the Transition Network conference in Battersea, London.
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
Just to correct something in my previous post; the time of the on-line premiere of “In Transition” (the new film about the Transition Movement) is at 1:45pm on Saturday 23rd May (not 2:45 as I previously said). The confusion comes from the Transition team advertising the film time as “GMT” when they ment current UK time! British Summer Time (BST) is an hour ahead of GMT.
The on-line broadcast can be found here.
Monday night’s film screening did not feel very “successful”! Although it ran well, there were only 6 people present (myself included)! Some who I thought had said they would come, didn’t appear! And no-one came who I didn’t at least have an inkling might come! This was in spite of plenty of posters around the town and details in the local newspaper events listings!
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
The 2004 documentary film “The End of Suburbia” will be screened in Dereham
this Monday evening (11th May). Details of this event are contained in “The Guide” in today’s Dereham Times. But once again (as with some of my past letters to the paper) the editor – Mr Redhead – has given the piece on the front of The Guide a very duff headline; “… when the oil runs out”. This headline is inaccurate and perpetuates a false understanding of the issues around “Peak Oil”. Oil will Not simply “run out” and my piece doesn’t suggest that! When will Mr Redhead learn to give accurate headlines to newspaper items?
For full details of this film screening please see events.
As of today I am making this the official Transition Dereham website and blog. The old Blogspot blog will remain available, but will not now receive any new posts. All the old posts have been copied to this site. If you have a website with a link to the old Blogspot blog, would you please update your link to www.transitiondereham.org.uk. Thanks
Last week (Thursday 2nd April) the Dereham Times carried another letter by Malcolm Heymer, responding to the letters printed the previous week, from Geoff Hinchliffe and myself. In his letter Mr Heymer argues for nuclear power instead of wind turbines, and flatly denies the existance of Man-made climate change by citing the claims of a Swedish man, “Dr Nils-Axel Morner”, to argue that sea level rise is “the greatest lie ever told”.
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
Two weeks ago (Thursday 12th March) the Dereham Times reported that the latest planning appeal into two proposed wind turbines in Shipdham, near Dereham, had rejected the proposals. In his column on the letters page of the newspaper, chief reporter Ian Clarke was very dismissive of the proposals, arguing that the planning debate has gone on for so long that it is now time to give up. But he gives no consideration to the serious challenges we face with climate change and energy security. What alternative options does he propose?
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
Sorry for being so quiet on the blog for so long. Its high time I wrote an update.
World oil prices, and fuel prices at the pumps, have fallen some way from their peak during last year due to the global financial crisis and the recession that we now find our selves in. This seems to fit with the predictions made previously in some of the films about the threat of Peak Oil and its consequences. I believe that the high price of oil last year (a result of global supply struggling to keep up with rising demand) was one of the key triggers of the financial crisis!
I don’t wish to undermine the reckless stupidity of the banks lending so much money to those who could barely afford it. But it was the soaring cost of energy that tipped the balance and lead to people defaulting on those loans which exposed the banks and created the crisis.
Had it not been for the high energy costs, the banks would be continuing as before and there would have been no crisis! Maybe then the likes of Woolworths would still have been open on our high streets. But our addiction to oil, and to unsustainable “economic growth”, caused this financial crisis that is killing so many businesses and jobs.
However across the Eastern Region much is beginning to happen with Transition. Transition Norwich has been “Unleashed” and now has themed groups developing projects in a number of areas.
Since October 2008 I’ve been administrating the “Transition East Anglia” [TEA] google group. One of the things to emerge from this regional e-mail networking was our first Eastern Region Transition network day which was held in Downham Market on Saturday 7th March 2009. About 50 people from across Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire attended the day. Towns represented included; Cambridge, Ely, King’s Lynn, Mundesley, Norwich, Dereham, Diss, Bungay, Beccles, Ipswich & Woodbridge.
Transition East gathering in Downham Market
The Eastern Region is now involved in piloting a regional Transition web portal which will contain information on all the Transition Initiatives in the region. I have also registered a new web address for Transition Dereham, linked to a WordPress blog, which I’ll be advertising once I’ve had time to further develop the site’s content, etc.
I am hoping to organise some Transition film showings in Dereham in the coming months. So keep an eye here, or on noticeboards around the town, or drop me an e-mail at transitiondereham@googlemail.com
