Tuesday 3rd March– Captain’s Garden @ Deal Castle 10am to
12ish (Then every Tuesday)
Wednesday 4th March – Landmark Garden Group 10am
to 12 (1st Weds of each Month)
Wednesday 4th March – East Kent Climate Action 7pm Dealability (then every fortnight)
Thursday 5th March - Captain’s Garden @ Deal Castle 10am to
12ish (then every Thurs)
Thursday 5th March Deal Station Clean up Crew
2:30pm (Meet at Triangle – Ramsgate Side)
Saturday 14th March – Deal Hop Farm – Rhizome pick
up stall 10:00 to 12
Wednesday 18th March – East Kent Climate Action 7pm Dealability (then every fortnight)
Sunday 22nd March – Walmer Community Beach
Clean Sea Café 9:30am
(part of Great British Spring Clean)
Sunday 29th March – Deal Station Gardening Group
10:30 to 12:30
Sunday 12th April – Sandown Castle Community
Beach Clean, 9:30am Sandown Castle end of Deal Beach. Part of Surfers
Against Sewage Big Spring Beach Clean Series
Bank Holiday Monday 13th April – Captain’s Garden
Open Day 10:30 to 3pm Deal Castle
Sunday 19th April – East Kent Permaculture
Gathering/Picnic Stream Community Garden Whitstable 11am to 2pm
·Please register interest at
·We will organise a car share from Deal – please email
info@dealwithit.org.uk if either
you need a share or willing to give a lift
·Poster enclosed
·Please bring something to eat
A supportive Bioregional network to help
make Permaculture more visible and accessible and to share inspiration
Activities:
·Tour of Garden
·Short session to meet each other.
·Short talks on a range of Permaculture subjects:
·What is Permaculture?
·Vegan organics.
·Pollinators
·Children in Permaculture
·Low carbon Living
·Foraging
·Things you can do in a small garden
·Hot drinks available
·Donations welcome toward Streamwalk Community
garden and East Kent Permaculture Network
Sunday 22nd March – Walmer Community Beach Clean Sea Café 9:30am
(part of Great British Spring Clean)
Sunday 12th April – Sandown Castle Community Beach Clean, 9:30am Sandown Castle end of Deal Beach. Part of Surfers Against Sewage Big Spring Beach Clean Series
Bank Holiday Monday 13th April – Captain’s Garden Open Day 10:30 to 3pm Deal Castle
April – East Kent Permaculture Gathering Whitstable TBC
Saturday 9th May – Spring Deal Seedy Saturday (Dig for Victory ??) 10:30am Landmark Garden
Bank Holiday Monday 25th May – Walmer Castle Community Beach Clean 9:30am
Well 2018 has started well: We had over 30 people at our annual gathering in January and produced a good list of ideas to make Deal Plastic Free.
The next day we had over 70 people on our first beach clean and ran out of sign up sheets and pickers. Local Ukulele players have come to our rescue - the Landmark Uke Club and The Sunshine Ukes have donated £200 each so we are getting another 25 pickers. Lovely community support.
The Deal Hop Farm had 40 people at their AGM on the 28th and there is a lot of enthusiasm for its second season. The Hop Farm has been invited to grow hops at Deal Castle’s Captain’s Garden and we are looking at ways in which this can be broaden into a small community garden with EH.
Finally our colleagues in Transition Dover had a wonderful 1st Repairs Café - well done to them on a great initiative plus the second one is on the 27th March. Tuesday 6th Feb – PlasticFreeDeal – Dealability 43 Victoria Rd 7pm Meetup to progress the ideas from the Annual Gathering on the 13th January. Progress on the REfill project with Kingsdown Environmental Group and looking at some action locally. Thursday 8th Feb – Deal Hop Farm Season Launch – Lighthouse Pub, The Strand Walmer 6pm Season Launch meeting for people to come down to hear what the project is all about Saturday 10th Feb – Deal Hop Farm Info Stall Plus Walmer WI Landmark Garden 10:30-12:30 The Deal Hop Farm have the 1st of a series of info stalls on the project plus colleagues from Walmer WI will be there are part of their national initiative : as part of the NFWI's collaboration with the Climate Coalition, on potential changes to local and global climate change. The theme of the campaign is 'Show The Love' and this is symbolised by the wearing of a green heart, which indicates that we can tackle climate change if enough of us show the love for things around us in the natural world
Saturday 17th Feb – Seedy Saturday @ Landmark Garden 11-1pmOur first seed swap of 2018 – please bring/donate seeds and plants. We will also have stalls from Walmer WI, Deal SE in Bloom, Deal Fair Trade, Bay Trust and the Deal Hop Farm plus music from the Landmark Uke Club
Sunday 18th Feb – Deal Beach Clean Meet Deal Pier 9:30am This will be our first Marine Conservation Society Clean so we will be logging what we find
Sunday 4th March – Walmer Beach Clean – part of the Great British Spring Clean. Sea Café Walmer Green 9.30am Thursday 8th March – Tales & Ales @ Alma West Street Deal 7pm Guardians of the Deep with our own Roisin Murray stories and legends from around our coastline Free but please book tickets here
Tuesday 27th March – Dover Repairs Café. Biggin Hall, Biggin St Dover CT16 1BD 6:30pm The second instalment of the popular repairs café from Transition Dover
Sunday 15th April – Deal Beach Clean 9.30amArea on beach to be confirmed in March
Deal With It - Transition Deal has its Annual Gathering (Our 'HooHaa' - like a AGM but with considerably more cake) on Saturday 28th January at 1:30pm meeting in room near the cafe at the Landmark Community Centre (129 High Street Deal)
We will have an photo exhibition of what we did in 2016 from 25th January to 2nd February, The HooHaa will take a quick formal business and elect our three officers (Coordinator, Secretary, Treasurer) but most of the meeting will be what we want to do in 2017.
Anyone can attend and suggest ideas. If you are interested in getting more involved or have a specific project you want to get off the ground please get in contact at info@dealwithit.org.uk .
Great small film on how one village in a ex-mining community responded to climate change and renewal.
Marie-Monique Robin's new film 'Qu’est-ce qu’on attend‘ (‘What are we waiting for?’) tells the story of Transition in the Alsace village of Ungersheim
Next week sees the founding meeting of Transition Dover on Tuesday 10th November at the Dover Town Council's offices in Biggin street from 5:30pm to 8pm.
This very welcome move now means that there are transition groups right around the East Kent Coast from Deal, Dover, Folkestone and Hythe with colleagues also at Faversham, Whitstable, Canterbury, Thanet and Tenterden.
'Transition' is a loose network of hundreds of community based groups around the country and internationally all trying to make their local communities more sustainable and resilient to climate change through the local action of those communities themselves.
Deal With It looks forward to working with our new colleagues in Dover and wishes them every success with their work for Dover.
Transition Dover are on facebook and can be emailed here
The next International Transition Movement conference is down in Devon between the 18th - 20th September. If you are interested in going please let us know asap - this will need to be self-financed but we will look at options for fundraising for travel and other costs.
Looks really interesting and packed weekend of ideas to bring back to Deal
We had the first of 2014's East Kent Transition Gatherings this afternoon in Whitstable.
This is a twice yearly event for an informal networking between all transition groups in East Kent.
Today's event was at the Stream Walk Community Garden hosted by Transition town Whitstable. There was about 35 people from transition groups & projects in Whitstable, Canterbury, Dover, Ashford and Deal. 12 DWIers manged to attend.
The history of garden was very interesting. Its now three years old based on a 7 yr lease of an old allotment in the town which imposes some constraints on building as it all needs planning permission.
The garden is subject to both flooding from the stream and drought - so an interesting site grow things on.
Laid out on good permaculture principles with nice features like compost toilet, education area and Facebook site
coming soon tea /cafe area. An inspiring site to visit with fantastic work being done from TT Whitstable. For more details see their
Jo Barker from Canterbury TT faciliated the afternoon and spoke about the Permaculture International Conference in 2015 & how we could get involved https://www.permaculture.org.uk/IPCUK
From the round up: Canterbury
Eco screenings
Workshops on inner transition
Transition Streets at Addisham
Book swap
Bike mend coming up
Whitstable
as well as the Stream walk...
Library Beds site in the centre of town
Timebanking project
Social Business network via blue banana
Dover
Community Garden got funding & go ahead from DDC
Eden Project coming to Greening Dover 7th June
Deal
Deal has ended its status as the oldest muller in transition and now is 'offical'
Deal station Community garden expansion on platforms
Started 3 pop-up meadows on waste land in the town
2nd year of the Landmark Community Garden on the High Street of Year (!)
Deal Seedy Saturday seed & plant swap on 22nd May
Deal beach clean on 4th May
Energy Fair in October
Attending the Eco-fair in Canterbury on 17th May
Many thanks to our hosts at Whitstable and our car sharers from Deal.
FREE
EVENT For groups and individuals interested in a gentle TRANSITION to a
resilient, abundant, low carbon life style together in East Kent .
From 2-4pm starting at The Horsebridge Centre in Whitstable for our friendly get together then down to the lovely Stream Walk Community Garden for an inspiring tour.
Do
come to this special gathering of transitional activists and hear about
other positive community, environmental, sustainability, 'transition
town' initiatives that are going on all across East Kent and beyond.
Meet like minded and like hearted folk.
Hosted by Whitstable Transition.
Horsebridge Centre: 11 Horsebridge Road, Whitstable, Kent. CT5 1AF
Stream Walk Community Garden: Stream Walk Footpath, halfway between Cromwell Road and Old Bridge Road, Whitstable, Kent, CT5
DEAL WITH IT: We have a number of cars going on Sunday from Deal @ 1pm - send a email info@dealwithit.org.uk if you want a lift
SPRING EAST KENT TRANSITION GATHERING Steamwalk Community Garden, Sunday March 30th Whitstable 2-4pm For Cake and Lashings of Tea! A chance to meet others in the area probably doing similar if not the same things.
There will be time for chat and hear about what others are doing. Tour of the Community Garden. Lots to see!
We will be organising car shares to this - leaving Deal from about 1:15pm - email info@dealwithit.org.uk if you need a lift
The Transition Movement have just made available free to view online their second film, In Transition 2.0.
This film is an inspirational immersion in the Transition movement, gathering stories from around the world of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. There are stories of communities printing their own money, growing food, localising their economies and setting up community power stations.
Transition is an idea that has gone viral, a social experiment that is about responding to uncertain times with solutions and optimism. In a world of increasing uncertainty, here is a story of hope, ingenuity and the power of growing vegetables in unexpected places.
Some of transitioners at the Landmark Community Garden
We had a successful Transition gathering today here in Deal. We had over 30 people from Faversham, Whitstable, Dover, Canterbury, Folkstone, Sevenoaks and good showing from Deal.
The theme for the afternoon was community food growing and specifically how you get the community enagaged. Much of the afternoon was a mix of tea, cakes and informal sharing on how to make our projects more sucessful.
We used some permaculture principles to look at the issue of engaging our communities. Some very useful side discussion on role/impact of finance; inspiration from New Zealand and some very inciteful perspectives from all of the growing projects in the region; local geography of where the projects were and how public a space; The impacts of the recession and world without economic growth on individuals, households and our community and how more direct access to skills and food can reduce those impacts.
Many thanks to Jo Barker for faciliating us, Sue and Kath from Deal Fairtrade for the fairtrade produce, Mike at Deal Town Hall for arrangements and DWI welcome team of Vicki, Charles and Rose and all those who donated cakes.
Locally grown food, community-owned power stations, local currencies … can
small-scale actions make a difference? Yes, according to the Transition network
– in fact, it's our only hope
John-Paul Flintoff
Saturday 15 June 2013 The Guardian - Full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jun/15/transition-towns-way-forward
----
Late last year, Rob Hopkins went to a conference. Most of the delegates were
chief executive officers at local authorities, but it was not a public event.
Speaking in confidence, three-quarters of these officials admitted that –
despite what they say publicly – they could not foresee a return to growth in
the near future.
"One said: 'If we ever get out of this recession, nothing will be as it was
in the past,'" Hopkins recalls. "Another said: 'Every generation has had things
better than its parents. Not any more.' But the one that stunned me said: 'No
civilisation has lasted for ever. There is a very real chance of collapse.'"
Shocking stuff – shocking enough to leave many people feeling hopeless. And
Hopkins has heard MPs and others in positions of power confess to similar fears
in private. But the co-founder of the Transition Town movement is
determined to offer courage and inspiration, and to do that he has published a
short book, The
Power of Just Doing Stuff, showing what people are already doing to develop
a more resilient economy.
For instance, a
Transition group in Brixton raised £130,000 to install the UK's first
inner-city, community-owned power station, consisting of 82kW of solar panels on
top of a council estate. A group in Derbyshire created a food hub that makes it
economically viable to grow food in back gardens for sale, as an affordable
alternative to supermarkets. And groups in Totnes, Stroud, Lewes, Brixton and Bristol launched their own local
currencies. Taken on their own, these initiatives may not make a vast
difference. "But when there are thousands of communities worldwide all weaving
their bit in a larger tapestry," Hopkins says, "it adds up to something
awe-inspiring and strong."
What he is arguing is that sweeping changes in history are made not only by
"big" people doing big things but by groups of "ordinary" people doing smaller
things together. And that it's a mistake to overlook those small steps.
"There is no cavalry coming to the rescue," he says. "But what happens when
ordinary people decide that they are the cavalry? Between the things we can do
as individuals, and the things government and business can do to respond to the
challenges of our times, lies a great untapped potential. It's about what you
can create with the help of the people who live in your street, your
neighbourhood, your town. If enough people do it, it can lead to real impact, to
real jobs and real transformation of the places we live, and beyond."
The Transition network was founded in 2005, as a response to the twin threats
of climate change and peak oil. Unlike other campaign groups, the Transition
network never set out to frighten people, but seemed resolutely upbeat,
determined to find opportunity in what most regard with dismay.
One of the movement's most fundamental ideas was to ask what the world might
look like in the future "if we get it right" – then work out backwards how to
get there. Generally speaking, the Transition vision is of a move towards
self-sufficiency at the local level, in food, energy and much else, but the
specifics of what "getting it right" might look like were never handed down from
above.
Every so often, well-meaning people give Hopkins advice. "They say, you need
to set up a political party, and have politicians everywhere, and set up the
bank of Transition, and a Transition power company. And I think, yeah, or what
we could do is have every community build its own energy company, or bank. And
that's much more powerful."
Transition is like a huge open-source research and development project, he
says. "Different groups try different things, and if an idea works, it
spreads."
During seven years, the movement has attracted high-profile supporters.
Transition gives "great grounds for optimism," says Hugh
Fearnley-Whittingstall, "on topics that are often rather doom-laden".
Jonathan Dimbleby concurs: "Once upon a time, it was tempting to mock the idea
of a Transition Town, but if ever there was an idea whose time has come, this is
it." A sensory garden for children in Brasilandia,
Brasil
And Transition is not just a British phenomenon. There are more than 1,000
Transition initiatives in more than 40 countries. Fans include Ed Miliband and
former German president Horst Köhler – an economist by profession, and former
president of the IMF. Next month, Hopkins will appear at a conference with
France's president and prime minister.
Filipa Leao Pimentel is involved in Transition in Portugal, but is based in
Brussels and works to explain Transition to MEPs. Recently, she arranged for
members of an economic and social committee to spend a day with Transition
initiatives in their own countries. "I have lived in Brussels for years, and
I have never seen anything like the discussion that came afterwards. There was a
Greek who visited Portugal and she was touched by how we dealt with the crisis.
One of the most conservative members talked about his 'journey'. Later, he said
to me: 'Can you believe it, I talked about this as "my journey"?!'"
When the Transition movement started, it was driven by green politics, and
its biggest critics have tended to be deep greens. One, the writer Ted Trainer,
threw the movement into mild existential crisis in 2009, when he accused
Transition of being merely reformist, and too "easily accommodated within
consumer-capitalist society without threatening it".
Hopkins's response was, essentially, to
plead guilty. "For years, in the green movement, we have held that we are
right, that we have the answers … [But] many of the answers we need are to be
found in people who we might, in a more judgmental moment, see as being part of
the 'system', including business people, lawyers, church groups, local history
groups, and thousands of ordinary people with busy lives, bills to pay and
children to raise."
Today, Hopkins says he will only know that his new book has succeeded if his
ideas are taken up by those kinds of people. Indeed, he wrote the book with his
own sister in mind. "I hope she won't mind me saying that! She's raising kids,
she's very busy. She is somebody for whom all this stuff would pass her by. Not
interesting at all. But if Transition is going to get anywhere, it needs to
reach people like her."
In the biggest, most successful Transition groups, every effort is made to
avoid being worthy. The Tooting group's first big event was a big street
celebration, a Trashcatcher's Carnival, with
Arts Council funding. "In Topsham, in Devon, they asked: 'What is it that unites
people in this town? Is it peak oil, or is it beer?' And they started a brewery.
What are you inviting people to be part of? A group that talks about climate
change? Or a historic, celebratory rethink about a place and what it does?"
The key thing is to find ways to bring people together. "In Totnes, we
started to change the narrative: how do we create a culture of entrepreneurship,
and support young people? And all kinds of new people came in."
At the first Local Entrepreneurs Forum, local business people gave advice to
would-be entrepreneurs. But later they switched to a Community of Dragons, in
which enterprises pitched to the entire community. And on the basis that
"everybody is an investor", individuals pledged support in the form of time,
cash, land, support, services and more.
The localisation movement has not always been good at talking about
economics, Hopkins says. "If Tesco wants to open a branch in my town, they can
say it will bring jobs and so on. The localisation movement never tends to do
that, they just say localisation is a great idea, it's sustainable, it's good
for the community. So we tried to map the local economy and put a value on it.
Here in Totnes we spend £30m on food every year, of which £22m goes through two
supermarkets. It's like water running through our fingers, going to banks and
offshore investors. But it could be staying local. If we spent just 10% of that
locally, we'd have £2.2m staying in the local economy to be spent again.
"Could a hospital that buys four tonnes of lettuce every year get that
locally? If it uses energy, could it use a local energy company? We're looking
at different ways of investing internally." 'Bristol Pounds' can only be spent locally, so more
money stays in the city
One powerful way to prevent money leaking from a community's economy is by
using local currencies. Businesses in Bristol can pay their rates in "Bristol pounds", and the city
council gives staff the option to take part of their salary in B£s. The new
mayor, George
Ferguson, announced at his inauguration last November that he would take his
entire salary in B£s, which can only be spent in Bristol. More than £180,000 has
been turned into B£s, estimated to be worth £1.8m in local economic
activity.
This new emphasis on economic development has galvanised the Transition Town
movement, and not only in the UK. "The economic crisis helped us to gather so
many people," says Pimentel. "In Portugal, we are under water. There is no
money. You see your country starting to sink, and you close down, waiting for it
to pass – but this is not going to pass. Transition was our framework to give
people something to do. Instead of thinking, 'My god, we are sinking,' we said:
'Let's do this.' Little steps are important."
Important because they contribute to something bigger – the "larger tapestry"
Hopkins talks about – but also important because it's small steps that help
people recognise that they have power to make a difference. "Starting a
vegetable garden in the street is small," Pimentel says. "But what is incredible
is that when people learn to do that, they start to have confidence.
"The key thing is persistence. What people tell me now is, 'I thought that
you were going to fail, and you did not.' They say: 'It's really true that doing
little things, step by step, makes a difference.' And when they say that, I
smile. I feel very proud. So even if things seem small, or you think it will not
make a big difference, just persist."
Rob Hopkins one of the founders of Transition movement has new book out - 'The power of Just doing stuff'
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says “There’s
a buzz around this book, and its message, that gives great grounds for
optimism on topics that are often rather doom-laden. Its true power lies
in the fact that it’s many smart ideas are already underway”
The next East Kent Transition Gathering will be on Sunday 16th June 2-60pm at Deal Town Hall in the High Street.
This informal gathering will be around the theme of Community Food Growing and how it can impact positively to make local community more sustainable.
The gathering is open to all those involved in local transition groups or projects, those who who want to find out more about Transition movement or just concerned about the environment.
Transition Town groups can be found at Faversham, Whitstable, Canterbury, Hythe, Folkestone, Thanet and Deal. Plus there is a great number of individual projects inspired by the movement.
The event is free but please bring a mug for drinks and some food to share (Cakes are always good Ed) or plants to swap. For more details see the East Kent Transition Facebook page
