Big Wheel of Kent - Saturday 11th June - Deal Details

There are several ways for families and less confident cyclists to take part in this great event - and raise sponsorship money for one of the three charities:

(1) Just do the ride from Deal Pier to Sandwich, where you can join in "Le Weekend" and the "Tour de Sandwich) see: http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk/community/events/le_weekend2011.htm

(2) Make your way to Canterbury, and join in the Cycling Festival in Dane John Gardens (see below)

(3) Sign up for the whole 16 mile ride to Canterbury, and get the train back!

Whichever you choose, it would be good to have a big crowd at Deal Pier for the 10am start.

DWI: Marine Conservation Zones meeting

A small group of about a dozen people gathered together to listen to a fascinating presentation by 'Balanced Seas' project manager Sue Wells.
She explained that 'Balanced Seas' is a collaborative project, based at the University of Kent, Canterbury, working to recommend Marine Conservation Zones around South East England.

There are three other projects covering the rest of the English coast.

The Marine Conservation Zone Project has been set up to ensure the long term survival of the wildlife and rich diversity of these seas and to safe-guard sensitive species and habitats. A Regional Stakeholder Group, made up of people representing all different kinds of activities related to inshore and offshore waters, have been working to designate areas needing protection while giving consideration to livlehoods and activities also taking place.

At the end of her presentation, Sue answered lots of interesting questions and discussions continued while refreshments were served. It was a most enjoyable evening.

Thank Vicki for the report and Rose D for the pix

A great short film made by Transition Worthing....

A great short film made by our colleagues in transition worthing ... what could Deal be in 2030 ?

In Transition to a Positive Future from Transition Town Worthing on Vimeo.

or follow this url if you do not see the video http://vimeo.com/23761168

Veg out this week - National Vegetarian week 23rd-29th May

This is National Vegetarian Week - Why not try something veggie to lower your carbon footprint full details at http://www.nationalvegetarianweek.org/

Big Wheel of Kent - Saturday 11th June

Big Wheel of Kent

In association with national Bike Week SPOKES East Kent Cycle Campaign will once again be running the Big Wheel of Kent cycle event. This will be a celebration of cycling that will include long and short rides for all types of cyclist and a cycling festival at Dane John Gardens in Canterbury. The event will target both experienced cyclists and those who are new to cycling or who only get on their bikes occasionally. We will demonstrate the health, economic and climate related benefits of cycling and provide an opportunity for all to discover Kent’s rich network of Sustrans cycle routes and interesting byways and hidden-away places in and around Canterbury.

There will be a contingent from Deal following the NC1 cycle route & Deal's Cocos Lovers are playing at the end. full details at http://www.bigwheelofkent.org.uk/

Cycle Hire on Walmer Beach

There is a new Cycle hire service this Summer available on Walmer Beach. They are located between the Sea-Scouts and the bandstand.

 

Please support this local business - full details from Anne Keene @

www.beach-cycle-hire.co.uk

Best of Dover&Deal Business Recycling

Welcome to Recycle for Free

Recycle for free in the Dover, Deal and Sandwich area. If you are in business make use of the unwanted goods other organisations don't need - for free.

Are you a business or organisation in the Dover, Deal or Sandwich area?

Do you regularly throw away cardboard, bubble wrap, cardboard tubes, packaging materials and other unwanted goods?

Are you paying to have these unwanted goods taken away?

Stop!

You can save yourself money and recycle your unwanted goods for free. They can be used to help save other businesses in the Dover Deal and Sandwich area money.

There are businesses and organisations in the Dover Deal and Sandwich area who will take your items to recycle for free as they can make use of your unwanted goods in their own business.

Here is a list of local businesses who can recycle your unwanted goods and details of what they want.

Here is a list of local businesses and details of the unwanted goods they are throwing out.

Can you recycle your unwanted goods to help another business or organisation?

Contact any of the businesses listed in the Dover Deal and Sandwich area and start saving money and protecting environment today.

If you would like to recycle the unwanted items you are throwing out,

contact the Offices at

The Best Of Dover Deal and Sandwich

01304 362563

and get your business or organisation listed on this recycling page.

Dover Cycle forum meeting 8th June

DOVER CYCLE FORUM - AGENDA ITEMS

Are there cycling issues you would like discussed at June 8's Cycle Forum meeting?

Please send issues, problems or ideas in reply to this email before TUESDAY 24 MAY, so that Steve Darling of Kent Highways can supply us with a reply, or information, feedback, maps, etc by the meeting.

ONLINE CYCLE JOURNEY PLANNER

Steve would welcome feedback on this online journey planner for cyclists that is now live - you can interrogate it for journeys.Please send feedback on how it is working.

http://www.transportdirect.info/Web2/JourneyPlanning/FindCycleInput.aspx

FOLLOW-UP FROM LAST MEETING:

(1) CYCLE ROUTES THROUGH SHOLDEN TO FOWLMEAD

We attended a site meeting with Kent highways which successfully agreed a route from Sholden Church through to the outskirts of Deal and Sholden, avoiding the main London Rd. Implementation of this would be at the developers' expense, if the controversial development goes ahead;

(2) SEAFRONT CYCLE PATH MAINTENANCE

Following our discussion of deteriorating surface and poor ride quality, Kent Highways has inspected and agreed to re-surface the worst section, Oldstairs Rd (thanks to Margaret Johnson).

VENUE Please contact for details

Ian Killbery earlystart@me.com

Chair, Dover District Cycle Forum

Tel/fax: 01304-362569

Coop member and fancy learning about beekeeping, then read on.....

If you're a member of The Co-operative, based in the South East and want to attend one of The Co-operative’s exclusive introductory beekeeper training sessions - read on!

Bee numbers in the UK have halved over the last 20 years and as a third of the food we eat is dependent on pollination, it is essential we have to save them.

The Co-operative’s Plan Bee campaign is a 10-point plan to tackle the loss of honeybees in the UK. No one knows for certain what is causing the decline in the bee population, which is why we have funded research into honeybee healthy and prohibited certain pesticides from our own brand fruit and vegetables. 

We have advised our members on how to become bee friendly gardeners and now we think it’s time to take the campaign a step further and offer you an opportunity to attend one of our FREE introductory bee keeping training events that will be taking place in May.

Details of events in the South East are below:

• Surrey & Berks | Friday 20 May, 10am – 4pm | Brooklands Hotel. Brooklands Drive, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 0SL
• Kent | Friday 27 May, 10am – 4pm | Singleton Environment Centre, Wesley School Road, Singleton, Ashford, Kent, TN23 5LW

If you know of anyone who may be interested, please pass on this information.

For more information or to book your place/s please call 0800 015 1147. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis so please book fast.

Transition Tenterden

Transition is about communities and individuals deciding they can do something about climate change, and just getting on and doing it.

What was heart warming at our stall at the Canterbury Climate Fair just how many people are out there who are either concerned about climate change or doing things already as individuals but now want to make things in their communities.

So welcome to our latest transition colleagues in Kent at Tenterden who are taking that step by becoming a transition town 'muller' group. We wish them every success - http://www.transitiontenterden.blogspot.com/ they are also on facebook so support them!

Canterbury Climate Fair

The Canterbury Climate & Fairtrade fair this weekend was bigger and better than last year's, and that was pretty good!

Great stalls, atmosphere and music - much of it coming from Deal. There was a great 'Flash Mob' on the saturday.... see it here

Well done to Canterbury Greenpeace for organising it.

 Deal With it had a successful stall. Big thank you for Sarah, Rose, Charles, Jeremy, Alan & Steve for organising and special thank you for Driftwood for doing a busk at the stall

Allotments under threat?

From the Independent:

Government paves way for sale of country's 300,000 allotments as plot-holders revolt over plan to scrap historic right to council land

By Jane Merrick and Mark Jewsbury

Sunday, 1 May 2011

JUSTIN SUTCLIFFE

Ian White and his daughters Roberta and Nico at the Honor Oak Park Allotments

The century-old right of people to demand an allotment from their council may be abolished by the Government under plans to scale back red tape, it emerged yesterday.

Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, is examining plans to free local authorities from a 103-year-old obligation to provide plots of public land for cultivation by gardeners. The proposals could see local authorities, many of them strapped for cash under government-imposed cuts, selling off allotment land for social housing or even for profit to major companies.

The move has triggered a wave of protest from allotment society members and gardeners, who have lobbied Mr Pickles to rethink the plan

Allot of waiting - Transition Group national survey on Allotments

The Current waiting list in Deal as about 80 or two years. Deal With It supports the expansion of affordable allotments but we are also looking at other solutions to get people on the land. Have a look at our Garden Share Scheme

From Transition Culture Website

Ian and Margaret Campbell of Transition Town West Kirby recently researched and published, together with the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), a report called ‘Allotment Waiting Lists in England 2010′.

The report, which you can download in full here, is an up-to-date detailed look at what is happening in terms of allotment provision. They found that waiting lists have grown 20% just in the last year, and that in some parts of the UK, some people will need to wait as much as 40 years for an allotment, but the average wait is 3 years.

They estimate that nationally, 180,000 people are waiting for allotments, and that while Councils have a statutory duty to provide allotments, most are failing to do so.

Publication of the report generated a lot of press coverage, including this piece in the Telegraph, and pieces in the Sun, Mirror (see top left) and the Express. A fantastic piece of work, and great to see Transition initiatives getting this kind of coverage.

Full report is here

Urban Voids - Debate and Exhibition

You are invited to an exhibition and a debate about vacant urban spaces in Dover.

João Gameiro Neves, postgraduate student at the Canterbury School of Architecture, presents an analysis of and a vision for

existing buildings that have lost their original function and are awaiting new forms of use and occupation.

The public debate brings together artists, architects and planners

to discuss the challenges and the potential of these spaces for the future regeneration of Dover.

Debate: Friday 13 May, 5pm

Exhibition: Friday and Saturday 13 and 14 May, 10am-5pm

Where: DAD studio, Old Sorting Office, on corner of Frith Street and Maison Dieu Road, Dover, CT16 1AA

For more information click here

Very Best Wishes


DAD
Dover Arts Development Ltd
Joanna Jones & Clare Smith

www.dadonline.eu

No backtracking on climate targets

Campaign against Climate Change www.campaigncc.org

No backtracking on climate targets!

EMERGENCY DEMO

Next week: Monday 16th
8.00 am at Lib Dem HQ, at 4 Cowley Street, Westminster – map here.

Demand the Lib Dems stand up for their environmental principles! Or are they just poodles to the Tory right?

8.45 am Move on to Downing Street

Demand that Cameron stick by all he argued for when he supported the Climate Act. Or was that all just green posturing? Is this the most green-backtracking government ever?

This looks like crunch time for this government, and for the country on whether we will have any meaningful targets on emission cuts, or whether they will be watered down in the interests of the business lobby and short term economic interest every time…

See:

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/09/climate-defining-green-moment-cameron

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/09/friends-earth-ipcc-proposals-policy

www.monbiot.com/2011/05/09/shaking-the-tree/

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/09/vince-cable-chris-huhne-carbon-emissions

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13343055

The crucial decision will be taken at a meeting on Monday… hence the timing of this demo

Never mind that the targets - even before they are watered down - are not stringent enough in the light of the latest science, anyway. Never mind that the UK’s whole carbon-cutting strategy will rapidly unravel once regular budgets for cutting emissions like this are not maintained. Never mind that delaying emissions cuts risks putting a fatal amount of carbon in the atmosphere before we ever get to making those cuts anyway. Never mind that the fate of billions hangs on us actually getting to grips with the climate crisis and making it our number one priority. Never mind that we will never be able to influence other countries effectively if here at home we are seen to put our own economic welfare before the global environment we share with the rest of the world….

…still it looks like short sighted, short term, economic considerations are threatening to take us down the path to misery and suffering on a colossal, unimaginable, scale…

Don’t let them get away with this, without any visible opposition! Join us outside the Lib Dem HQ and Downing Street on Monday morning!

Check the website for updates: www.campaigncc.org

PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

free seeds for busy bees from the co-op

The Cooperative's Plan-Bee to protect our Bees is in full swing this year and giving away free seeds  for bee friendly flowers - full details here

Many wildflowers are nectar rich, providing a good source of nutrition for pollinators, however since the 1930s; the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows.


To increase the number of wildflowers being grown in the UK, we have given away over 600,000 packets of wildflower seeds to our customers and members since 2009.


This year we are giving away a further 300,000 packets of seeds. On 17 April we gave away free packets of wildflower seeds with the Mirror in The Co-operative Food stores. If you missed this promotion you can request a packet below from 9 May.

Fourth Garden Share in Deal

Welcome to  Lulu  and Matthew our fourth Garden Sharer and Grower!

The new share is our largest so far at nearly 3/4 acre. Most of our schemes are a lot smaller that this, so dont be put off!

We still have a number of medium sized gardens around the mill hill rd and plus a number of smaller plots...

contact us at gardenshare@dealwithit.org

Free breakfast for beach clean @ St Margarets

St Margarets Beach Clean every Saturday from 8am.

Free Continental brekkie after @thewhitecliffs for every 2 bags collected!

http://www.thewhitecliffs.com

Deal Beach Clean Sunday 8th May

We had 20 people enjoying a lovely sunny day for  a beach clean of Deal Beach.

We collected some 13 sacks which weighed over 33kgs.

Deal beach warden, Wendy Boorman said "it was a fantastic effort. We picked a lot of rubbish up in a relatively short stretch of beach in a short time. What was disappointing was the sheer amount of broken glass from drinks bottles we found. Which as well as being an eyesore is a danger to families enjoying our beach"

Well done everyone who participated!

Fun Day for all ages in the Big Outdoors at Rippledown June 5th

Fun Day for all ages in the Big Outdoors at Rippledown - part of COUNTRYSIDE 2011

COUNTRYSIDE 2011 takes place from 28th May to 12th June and celebrates the enormous variety of events and activities that you can enjoy in the countryside across the South East of England. It brings together hundreds of country-based events, activities and attractions; a one-stop-shop of things to do and see.

This year Rippledown are involved and on Sunday 5th June we have an exciting day full of outdoor activities for all ages to enjoy. Bring your family and friends - a chance to explore outdoor activities.

So what is happening?

Pond Dipping

-find out what lurks underneath our pond-

Introduction to Humane Mammal Trapping

-what little friends share our surroundings-?

Treasure Trail

-find the treasure we take for granted while exploring the grounds-

Teambuilding

-find your strengths & weaknesses while having fun, things aren’t always as easy as they seem. Get your family & friends involved-

Campfire & Story Telling

-get lost in the imaginative world of storytelling whilst surrounded by trees and woods with the smell of an open camp fire-

Badge Making

-create your own piece of the woods to keep with you-

Model Making

-making fun things out of recycled materials-

Also throughout the day there will be:

Face painting, Music, Food and Drink & More….

Rippledown is the leading independent environmental education centre for school groups in the South East of England. The team of full time staff run educational programmes for all ages and the secure & homely surroundings make the perfect base to explore the countryside and the stunning White Cliffs of Dover. Situated between Deal and Dover, the centre is an ideal location for school, scout and family groups. The old rectory has been restored to provide quality hostel accommodation (for groups up to 70).

Rippledown is part of The Bay Trust, one of Kent’s leading environmental organisations. This charity prides itself in its ethos of building sustainable communities; of its outstanding deliverance in environmental education to young people at its Residential Environmental Educational Centre; its award winning eco conference venue used for weddings and events; its visitor attraction The Pines Garden with adjacent Tea Room and by making a difference to peoples’ lives now and in the future.

Contact:

Louise Kjaertinge, General Manager, 01304 851 737 – louise@pinescalyx.co.uk

Chris Luckhurst, Deputy Head of Centre, 01304 364854 – chris@rippledown.com

Victoria's Green Matters - 5th May 2011

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

The idea of a European supergrid became reality in December when an agreement was signed by all 10 nations that border the North Sea to link renewable energy generation e.g. wind from the UK, solar from Germany and hydropower from Scandinavia, into a joint venture. High voltage direct current (HVDC) cables allow electricity to be carried for much greater distances than alternating current lines because they lose far less power. This means that it is now possible to move power between countries, enabling the stabilisation of wind power generation by exporting power when there is a surplus and importing it when there is a shortfall.

There has been a HVDC cable in place between France and the UK for 25 years and the first one since then started operations in March this year and runs from the Isle of Grain, in Kent, to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Electricity has flowed from the Netherlands to the UK for most of the time since the start. More cables are planned to be in operation by 2020, including links from the UK to France, Belgium and Norway. The next cable to become operational in 2012 will run from North Wales to Dublin.

Another exciting development being considered is the sharing of Iceland’s immense geothermal energy reserves, which are constant, and while talks are ongoing, the main problem to overcome after agreement has been reached between nations is the distance between Iceland and Scotland. The longest cable to date is 580 km and the length required would be about 1,300 km.

Critics of renewable energy generation always cite the unreliability and unpredictability of wind and solar power. The European supergrid will go a long way to alleviate worries about the inconsistency of renewables and enable energy to be shared by neighbouring countries.