Greetings from the Transition Bristol coreteam!
We hope that you all had a lovely holiday season. Transition Bristol had their first meeting of the New Year on 20 January after an extended winter break. We are excited about what we are hoping to accomplish this year.
The Coreteam currently consists of Paul Baker of Sustainable Thornbury, Angela Raffle of Sustainable Redland, Ciaran Mundy of Transition Montpelier, and Kristin Sponsler and Simone Osborn of Transition BS3.
As a coreteam, we help coordinate the following current “support” functions and resources:
- Maintaining Transition Bristol website and newsletter (thanks to Jane Buttigieg for her help with the newsletter and help from Ale Fernandez and Ed Mitchell on the website).
- Fielding inquiries and requests for speakers, stalls, and support from Transition groups.
- Neighbourhood Welcome pack (available on website here.)
- A copy of the Transition Movie (email team at transitionbristol.net to request, more info online at Transition Culture)
- Several Peak Oil-related DVDs (email team at transitionbristol.net to request). The complete list is available here.
- Transition exhibit boards (email team at transitionbristol.net to request)
Note: Several Peak Oil- and sustainability-related books have been donated to the Bristol Public library and a list of them are available on the website here. These books have just recently been donated so be patient if you want to check out a copy as it will take a few days to get them into the library’s system. Copies of the Transition Handbook are also available from the Bristol Public Library.
We also run monthly Sofa Sessions to answer questions and discuss issues in person. Come bring your lunch or have a cup of tea and chat with members of the Transition Bristol coreteam. The next session is TBD.
We are continuing to “Reimagine Bristol” with our main areas of work centering around engaging with the Bristol Partnership and the Council around the Peak Oil Report and the planned response to it.
Several of us are working with different initiatives as well as helping out with our local Transition Neighbourhoods:
Angela Raffle, along with other members of the Coreteam, helped run a World Cafe in June 2009 involving emergency planners and health service leaders within Bristol. During the evening they explored the question of how health and health care would look in a fossil-fuel depleted world. This event, together with the publication of the Peak Oil Report, has helped to influence NHS Bristol in creating a new post for ‘health, climate change and peak oil’ within their public health department. NHS Bristol is also supporting one of the next steps in Transition Bristol’s food themed work, which is to put together a comprehensive report showing how Bristol currently feeds itself, and where the vulnerabilities lie. This report should be completed by the summer.
Update: Joy Carey has been awarded the contract for the comprehensive food report mentioned above!
She is also involved with a joint Transition Bristol/Sustainable Redland initiative which is helping with the development of a Community Supported Agriculture project ‘the Community Farm‘, which is located in Chew Magna. An Open Day took place last September attended by several hundred people, and an event for prospective members is planned for early summer, with much work going on behind the scenes to get business plans, legal structures and funding all in place.
Ciaran Mundy is a member of the Transition Montpelier group along with about 200 others so far. They are developing a community energy project, starting to improve the layout of the streets with better shared space, slowing down/restricting cars, making the area safer for walking and cycling, and organising regular parties, festivals, and film nights.
He volunteers time to sit on the Green Capital Momentum Group, a part of local government, and is involved in this respect in communication, policy and project development and engagement projects, energy groups, the sustainable food strategy, and development of a regional green economy. Currently he has responsibility for the Citizen’s Engagement working group, the Peak Oil Leadership strategy for the Local Strategic Partnership, and launch of the Bristol pound – a currency for the South West Region. He also sits on the Scrutiny panel to ensure the Peak Oil Report is taken on broadly by the Bristol City Council. This involves elected members looking at the actions of council officers in relation to recommendations and issues raised by the PO report.
Kristin Sponsler is engaging with the Sustainable Food Strategy Local Food Lottery bid sponsored by Forum for the Future. A meeting with interested stakeholders was held on January 13th and follow up will go on with specific stakeholders during the next few weeks to help advance the bid. She is on the steering group of the incipient Sim’s Hill Shared Harvest (working title) Community Supported Agriculture project (which hopes to locate soon on a 14.5 acre area of Grade 1 Agricultural land off the M32 in Bristol’s “Blue Finger”, an area of former market gardens that used to supply the city with food). Kristin also currently assists Jane Stevenson of Bristol Friends of the Earth with the Bristol Local Food Newsletter.
At the local level she is involved with Transition BS3, the BS3 Community Smallholding, and is a member of the community food coop Food@the Space.
Simone Osborn, the author of the Bristol Peak Oil report, is liaising with the Sustainable Cities Team of the Bristol City Council on ideas around publicising the report, including making better use of the Peak Oil exhibit which is currently at the CREATE Centre. We will keep you updated on this activity as it happens.
At the local level she is involved with Transition BS3.
Paul Baker has spent many years investigating conflict, what it is, how it works and how to transform it into something that actually helps builds relationships and community. If you are dealing with internal or external conflicts (individual or group), Paul would like to hear from and help you explore how to use your conflict well so that we all benefit from it. He would also like to hear from you if you are intrigued, horrified or frightened by, excited, etc by conflict and want to understand it better.
He is also part of the Sustainable Thornbury team that is working on creating a CSA in South Glos.
