January 2009
Sustainable Bungay has so far this year presented a talk on Peak Oil and Climate Change to the Rotary Club, which sparked lively interest and discussion. Also two of our core members attended a steering group meeting in Beccles where they were invited to share their experiences in the setting up of a Transition Town.
We held a Sustainable Bungay strategy day on Sunday 1st at Josiah and Ellie’s house, where about a dozen of us looked at the events and activities planned for 2009. These include our Unleashing, to take place in May, and The Big Green Market in September.
After the above meeting Josiah set up a google group for SB, where there are discussions, files and pages. It’s already pretty active so do have a look (there is a link in the right hand side bar). You can see the notes of our strategy day in the Files section.
Several members of Sustainable Bungay went to GreenGrow’s Apple Tree planting day on Saturday 14th in Ilketshall St. Andrew, a village just down the road. It was the first clement weather for ages, and we all joined in with the plantings, which was instructive and good fun at the same time. We learnt about varieties of apple (Ashmeads Kernel, Suntan) and about grafting varieties onto rootstock, as well as how to use a sledgehammer! (for the stakes).
March 7th 2009 Transition East Gathering
The East Anglian Transition Gathering in Downham Market. There were several of us from Sustainable Bungay present at this day long intensive in Downham Market, organised by Transition Downham Market and Villages. There were several Open Space sessions in the morning and a World Cafe in the afternoon (for more on these meeting tools see The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins). This gave Transitioners from all over the region a chance for us to meet each other, network and swap experiences. Plentiful, delicious and sustainable food was provided by the hosts as well as those visiting.
March 15th 2009 The Age of Stupid
The Age of Stupid Film Premiere, Norwich. Six of us car-shared up to Norwich for the premiere of this British film about climate change seen from the year 2055 looking back to the present with documentary footage showing how human-caused climate change is already seriously affecting the earth and all life upon it.
We also launched our first quarterly SB newsletter this month to be distributed throughout the town and to the local press.
March 21st 2009 Give and Take Day
We gave the first of our community resource sharing days with social enterprise Bright Green. Here is the press release:
Old is the new new! With worries about climate change, peak oil and an economic recession, now is the time to value our waste. It’s great to recycle, but it’s even better for the planet to reduce and reuse. To encourage us all to help the environment and our pockets, Sustainable Bungay is hosting a Give and Take Day on Saturday, March 21st, 2009 from 10am-1pm at Bungay Community Centre. A Give and Take Day is a chance to get rid of things that you don’t want or need anymore and to pick up something that you do – all for FREE!
Bring along any useable unwanted items from 10am on the day. These can be household and garden items, such as books, toys, bikes, tools, kitchenware, bric-a-brac, plants, furniture and clothes. If you don’t have anything to bring, just bring yourself and you might find something useful that you need. There will be information stands about a range of environmental issues, as well as fair-trade teas, coffees and locally baked cakes for a small donation.
With help from Bright Green in Lowestoft, Sustainable Bungay will even be able to collect bulky items, such as furniture, from your home in Bungay on Friday, March 20th and can deliver these items to their new homes on the Saturday afternoon if you can’t transport them yourself. A team of volunteers will be on hand to record items donated and taken and to sort anything left over at the end of the event. Most of the remaining goods will be donated to charity shops and similar organisations and some may be sent for recycling. We hope to have nothing to send to landfill. If you would like to be a volunteer, please contact us.
For more pictures of the day click here
April 4th Spring Tonic Walk
Mark leads a medicine plant walk in his wild neighbourhood in Reydon for SB and members of theTransition Norwich Heart and Soul group.
“I’d been working with plants, especially wild and medicinal ones, for many years and in many places. So I organised a Reconnection with Nature walk with Charlotte in coastal Suffolk where we live and invited fellow Transitioners from Transition Norwich and Sustainable Bungay, where we’ve been most active, to spend the day with us getting to know some of the neighbourhood plants. The main thrust of the day was to inspire others to get in touch with the plants and trees growing where they live.
We based the day on three Transition plants, Nettle, Cleavers and Dandelion – traditional herbs used to spring clean the system and help the body “transit” from winter into Spring. The walk itself was an introduction to many food and hedgerow medicines such as burdock, hawthorn, rosehip, ground ivy, damson and garlic mustard, and a guide to the main native trees. The day also featured a slide show and a delicious shared lunch, including Nettle Soup and a Cleavers Plus Tea.”
From This Low Carbon Life, the Norwich Transitioner’s blog www.transitionnorwich.blogspot.com
For a full slide show of the day click here.
April 9th 2009 The End of Suburbia
As part of the lead-up to the Unleashing on 9th May we showed the seminal Transition documentary about Peak Oil, THE END OF SUBURBIA at The Fisher Theatre (Gallery) at 7.30pm, with a discussion after the film.
Saturday May 9th 2009 The Great Unleashing
Bungay Community Centre, Upper Olland Street, 7pm
This is the Transition rite-0f-passage where the inititiative “unleashes” itself into the wider community and invites everyone to celebrate. We decked the hall with branches of blossoming trees and May flowers and sat at tables with different themes, ranging from Food and Farming to Reskiling. Our guest speaker was Shaun Chamberlin, author of the just-published The Transition Timeline. Kate and Josiah introduced the evening and after Shaun’s talk we engaged in round-table discussions about our Transition themes and added our insights to the Bungay 20 Year time line. En route we enjoyed Bungay tapas (locally grown, produced food cooked by ourselves), drank local beer, cider and elderflower cup, listened to music and lively conversation.
Here is our press release. For a full write of the evening click here.
Sunday June 28th 2009 Summer Picnic
Sustainable Bungay enjoyed a shared picnic on the Old Grammar School field. This was an informal get together open to all to enjoy this community space while it’s still there. Food was shared and everyone, adults and children alike, played games on the field during the afternoon.
Summer issue of the SB Newsletter now out!
July 2009
Working with CRed Suffolk and the UEA Sustainable Bungay began work on a carbon audit of Bungay. We’ll take a sample of the town’sresidents based on the type of house they live in and ask acouple of dozen easy to answer questions. The analysis ofthese questions will provide us with a bench mark against which we can measure change and develop new projects (forexample, it could become clear that insulation bulk buying groups are a priority if very few people have adequate roofinsulation). The results will feed into the Town Plan that is being prepared by the Community Partnership.
“We had a great day. In spite of the torrential weather 55 people from 18 different initatives travelled from Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex and converged in Diss. Here we are (most of us anyway) just at the end of our plenary in which we summed up the events and the conversations we had enjoyed together.
Thousands of people flowed into into London to take part in a national demonstration called The Wave, organised by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition, to call for action on climate change ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. Sustainable Bungay coordinated a Waveney Valley coach thanks to generous support from the Co-op.
Earlier organisers, Kate and Rita flew the SB flag at the Climate Emergency Rally in Norwich and spoke about some of the solutions we were engaged in. On Dec 6th both starred in BBC’s The Politics Show, talking about Transition and the Bungay Allotments.
On December 23 we all meet for a Christmas Party at Kate and Rita’s to celebrate our very full Transition year.
