Victoria's Green Matters - 31st October 2013

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:It was shocking to read the report this week about how much food was wasted by Tesco. During the first six months of this year almost 30,000 tonnes of food was wasted – unbelievable, isn’t it? On one hand, we have many people reliant on food banks to feed them, whilst on the other hand, we are throwing away all this food.

The supermarkets know that they are to blame for the wasteful culture that has grown up around the way they sell food – about two thirds of pre-washed and bagged salads are thrown away. The most obvious system of ‘buy one, get one free’ can be the reason why people take twice as much of one item than they need and often throw the extra away. People who live alone, of course, do not need to buy large amounts of perishable goods but are not offered a half price deal for the one item they want.

The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)has ascertained that 15 million tonnes of food are discarded each year in the UK and households are responsible for about half that amount. The most shameful fact is that almost 4 million tonnes of food are thrown away despite being perfectly edible.

The only way to avoid food waste in the home is to plan your meals in advance and do not be tempted to buy more than you need. If you have leftovers, make another dish to use them up.

Victoria Nicholls.
DEAL WITH IT - Transition Deal.

'Chasing Ice' - Film Show Deal 17th Nov

Deal  With It has organised a screening of the award winning film 'Chasing Ice' on Sunday 17th November at 7:30pm at the Astor Community Theatre. Cost is £5

Chasing Ice is an extraordinarily stark and beautiful film by acclaimed photographer James Balog.

Proceeds of the film show will go towards Greenpeace's 'Save the Arctic' Campaign which is trying to protect this fragile environment.

Colleagues from Canterbury Greenpeace will be doing a short talk after the 76min film ends and will have a stall with campaign material.

In Chasing Ice, Balog deploys revolutionary time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.

For more details on the film see their website - Film Trailer below:




http://youtu.be/VIdkgZVGhWc

Deal With It are very grateful to the support from the Astor Community Theatre for staging this event. The theatre bar will be open from 7pm.

Astor Community Theatre is in Stanhope Road Deal CT14 6AB

Box Office: 01304 370220 http://www.theastor.org/

Next DWI Energy Group meeting 12th Nov

The next DWI Energy Group meeting will be on Tuesday 12th Nov at Jane's House.

The group will be looking at options for energy events for 2014

Please contact her at info@dealwithit.org.uk for details

The Deal Society: Threats to Kent 5th Nov

The Deal Society would love to invite Deal With It members to a talk that we are putting on, which we think will be of interest to many of you:

Tuesday 5th November
7:30 pm
Deal Town Hall
Threats to Kent

The Kent branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England aims to keep our county beautiful by protecting it from inappropriate development.

Their Chairman, Richard Knox-Johnston, will explain some of the threats to that beauty that they are currently tackling. From new housing developments to fracking, there will be some controversial matters discussed!

Deal Beach Clean 27th Oct

Despite the dire warnings for later today - it was really nice on Deal Beach this morning. 

Our 18 volunteers managed to collect 41kgs of rubbish from the beach in little over an hour.

Our youngest member found the heavist item - a sizeable piece of lead piping.

Our next Beach Clean will be in Feb 2014 - if you want to stay informed of this or other Deal With It activity please send you email address to info@dealwithit.org.uk and we will add you to our monthly email newsletter.

A big thank you to Wendy and Sue for organising and all our volunteers who came this morning

Victoria's Green matters - 24th Oct 2013

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

We are very lucky to live by the sea and air pollution seems a far away problem for someone else. The main sources of outside air pollution are traffic, power stations, agricultural and industrial emissions and fumes from the home caused by heating and cooking. Here we have very little industrial pollution and no fossil fuelled power stations nearby which accounts for our relatively clean air.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has officially classified that air pollution is a definite cause of lung cancer and is linked to bladder cancer. Outside air pollution is known to increase the risk of heart and respiratory disease; individual chemicals such as diesel engine exhaust, metals, solvents and dust have been classified as carcinogenic but only now is air pollution in general seen as a cause of cancer.

The main sources of outside air pollution are man-made and therefore, there is much that can and should be done to protect the world population from becoming affected by carcinogens. As developing countries industrialise, their inhabitants will become subject to the same emissions as we are and suffer the same unfortunate effects.

2013 is the European Union’s ‘Year of Air’ but our ‘greenest government ever’ has already made attempts to dilute any stronger regulations. The Mayor of London has declared that 80% of all outside air pollution in London is caused by traffic but has not taken significant steps to reduce the problem.

This report sends a strong signal for urgent action.

Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.

DWI Benefit 4 Deal Station Garden 23rd Nov

We have a Evening Musical benefit for the Deal Station Garden with an vast array local talent appearing at the RMA Walmer on Saturday 23rd November at 7:30pm -entry £2.

The purpose of the evening is to raise money for our food growing project at Deal Station. This has had a successful first season - we managed to raise the money through donations for five planters. We now want to expand it for 2014.

The evening is being by organised local performer and song writer (and Gardenista) Adrian O:

"come and enjoy a great social evening. The only business on the agenda.....is.....
a superb evening of invited musical guests......with a monster raffle......a preloved raffle......

Please donate something that you don't use and would be of use to someone else. Could be anything from a book...plant....cd to a household or garden tool......or even something more unusual....have a look through and see what you could donate.
hopefully see you all on saturday evening 23rd of november"

Adrian is currently running the Comedy Club Session at the Deal Hoy on Thursdays

DWI Organising Group meeting October

These are some of the issues that we discussed at the DWI Committee meeting on Saturday 19 October.

Energy Saving event –generally positive feedback despite some unexpected challenges that arose on the day. Follow-up activity is being considered. Jane to call follow on meeting to look at options.

A wide range of ideas for projects in 2013-14 is being considered and will be prioritised over the next month.

Wendy and Sue organising Beach Cleans

New sites for Community Gardens are being sought. Ideas on Food mapping and Green Space mapping in walmer. Tracy to setup a informal meeting to look at options for a food event.

Benefit for Deal Station Garden 23rd Nov... Adrian

Solstice Fair idea at the Landmark ... Imogen looking at

A fundraising campaign, focusing on Standing Orders, is to be launched in November. Although currently our finances are reasonably strong but we wish to do launch some new projects next year and we do not have a regular funding stream of any kind.

Sharing the marketing and use to media to support the group - Steve to setup meeting

New 2014 Organising  Group:

Charles Franklin
Vicki Nicholls
Tracy Blunt
Sue Delling
Sue Mahoney
Cllr Chris Tough (Deal TC rep)
Cllr Kath Blackburn (Deal TC rep)
Jane Stubbington
Steve Wakeford

#Trains4Deal please add to the 1,000 votes already received....

Trains4Deal campaign to continue the HS1 service to Deal & Sandwich from 31st March 2014 is well underway. 

Over a 1,000 users of the service have lodged their comments on how vital the service is to the town

Add your comments at their site http://www.trains4deal.com/

The campaign is also asking for people to print and display their new poster from artist Neill Kelly

Victoria's Green Matters - 17th Oct 2013

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Plastic wrapping remains one of the things that the modern world cannot do without but while it plays an important role in the preservation of food, it is a huge problem as a waste product.

When perishable food has to travel a long way from plant to plate, it is necessary to wrap food to make sure it is still in good condition when it gets to the shop. For example, the life of a cucumber is extended from 3 to 15 days when wrapped in plastic. Always buy local produce, where possible, or grow your own!

Plastic carrier bags are great for carrying shopping but, again, cause all sorts of problems when thrown away. A dead whale was found earlier this year with its intestines blocked with plastic. There is a huge pool of marine litter in the Pacific Ocean but only 0.03% of it is made up of plastic bags. A much greater amount comes from food packaging such as the wrappers around food in supermarkets. There is a strong movement to reduce this packaging, supported in the main by the supermarkets.

At the recent Lib-Dem Party conference, Nick Clegg announced a charge for plastic bags, as there is in Wales and Northern Ireland that, hopefully, will lead to a reduction of use if it is implemented. For example, in Wales, plastic bag use has reduced by up to 96% in some retail sectors and the over £4 million of revenue has been passed on to various charities.

Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.

DOVER DISTRICT CYCLE FORUM MEETING 24th Oct

DOVER DISTRICT CYCLE FORUM MEETING

The 4th Forum meeting of 2013 will be at 7.30pm on Thursday 24th October 2013.

At the previous meeting on 6th June, we greed that it would be useful to have a discussion on the theme of:

"Developing Cycle Tourism in Dover District"

The recent tragic death of a cyclist at Ringwould adds urgency to this, highlighting the issue of cycling safety in our District and what progress has been made on the Dover District Strategy 2008 and the development of safer cycling routes.

There will also be reports on next week's Spokes meeting with Kent Police Commissioner, Ann Barnes; and on what the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) can do to help people access the countryside on bikes.

Meeting is at 11 Western Rd Deal CT14 6RX

It would be helpful if you could reply to indicate whether you are likely to come to the meeting, so if necessary we can arrange to move to a bigger venue,

Ian Killbery earlystart@me.com

Chair, Dover District Cycle Forum http://doverdistrictcycleforum.weebly.com/

representing everyone interested in cycling in Dover District

affiliated to SPOKES East Kent Cycle Campaign http://www.spokeseastkent.org.uk

Victoria's Green Matters - 10th Oct 2013

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Whether or not you are concerned about climate change or do not believe that man-made carbon emissions have exacerbated the warming of the planet, the acidification of the oceans should be concerning you greatly.

The oceans are more acidic now than at any time in the last 300 million years and this is due to the carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Leading marine scientists warn this week of the inevitable extinction of many species if the acidification continues. Coral is particularly at risk and coral reefs are vital to the health of fish populations as they act as nurseries for young fish and small species which are food for larger fish. Because the oceans have absorbed carbon dioxide and heat from the atmosphere, they have shielded the planet from the worst effects of climate change on land but the extreme changes on marine life are only now being understood.

Acidification is not the only challenge for the oceans. Overfishing and pollution are also contributing to the lethal effects to marine life on which billions of people rely for food. Countries around the world are failing to stop overfishing – in fact, 70% of the world’s fish populations are overexploited.

The International Programme on the State of the Oceans (IPSO) has called for strong actions from governments to limit carbon dioxide emissions by reducing the burning of fossil fuels. Fishing subsidies must be removed; destructive fishing methods banned and marine conservation areas established if we care about our oceans. Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.