Love Food Festival will take place on Sunday 18th July from 10.30 – 4.00pm at the Paintworks, Brislington.

Come along and enjoy the huge indoor market selling produce from local farmers and producers including artisan bread, local cheese, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables, jam, wild food, cakes, ice cream and much more.

The Children’s area hosted by the very talented “Ooodle Doodle”. The theme will be a Mad Hatters Tea Party and you can take part in cake decorating, Top Hat making, flower making, seed planting or just enjoy the child size café, courtesy of Baby Bites.

There will also be a beautiful herb garden from local growers Glenholme herbs, selling medicinal and culinary herbs and salads. And for those of us with stressful lives can chill out in the relaxing healing space with massage,nutritional advice, shiatsu, personal training and lots of lovely natural products.

The Picnic area provides you with the perfect place to relax with friends and family and enjoy some fantastic local food including Oysters, Toms’ fabulous pies, Seafood paella, BBQ or indulge in a little afternoon tea.

The bar will be well stocked with local ale and cider and the music provided by the Love Food DJs who’ll be serving up the much loved blend of food grooves!

Hope to see you there!

Lorna

A Create event in support of the 10:10 campaign www.1010uk.org

Get energised for summer at Create’s solar- and pedal-powered celebration of low carbon living.

• Free children’s activities plus hands-on demos, workshops and energy saving advice from the experts.
• Meet a Bristol City football player
• Have fun in the sun with live music and locally sourced food and drink.
• Free entry; steam train running from ss Great Britain (£3 return).
• See a full list of the day’s activities

From Clare Adamson of Grofun:

I am coordinating a ‘garden’ in the new area being introduced this year called Bristol Village Fayre area at the Harbour Festival 30 July-1 Aug – which has two themes of (i) country fayre with a bristol twang and (ii) ’skills for the future’. Perfect way to engage a great number of people in transition, organics, grow your own, permaculture & all things green.

What I am aiming for is a garden that is beautiful to look at and sit in yet engaging, fun and educational too. I’d love to have a community notice board signposting people to the various things going on in Bristol – around food, permaculture, organics, energy etc.

If anyone from a local Transition Neighbourhood group could take on the design and production of this, the board would be branded with the group’s logo. Please reply to clare@grofun.org.uk.

ST STEPHENS CHURCH FRIDAY JULY 30th 7.30pm £8/£6 concessions St Stephens Church, St Stephens Street BS1 1EQ tickets on sale from July 5th St Stephens cafe, same address, 10.30am to 3.30pm weekdays. ffi 01179559444 bigbromo@yahoo.co.uk

The Bristol Ecoshow is a new presentation of the city’s story, using newly composed music, old Bristol songs with new lyrics, poetic narrative, projections of artwork and commissioned film. It raises questions about the city’s cultural and environmental direction. Filled with our cars, planes and business’s will the City keep expanding, continuing to use more of the world’s finite resources as it has since Cabot’s day?

Or could Bristol become a ‘new found land’ that has a healthier connection to nature and with a better connected, more vibrant community life? How can we improve the ecology of our great City?

A multinational, multi arts EcoShow cast invite you on board as they steer the city to a newfound vision of the city’s green future.

Book on 0117 9559444. Tickets also available on the night. Seating capacity 200.

Fore more information go to the Bristol ecoshow website here.

Paintworks, Bath Road

The aim of the festival is to get children (and adults) from Bristol, out into the countryside learning about how and where our food should come from, how to grow and cook their own food and generally try to spark an interest in the topic through various mediums including hands on experience, tasting, art, movement and storytelling.

Teachers from local schools will be invited along with local families, Countryside education agencies, chefs, farmers will all be brought together to learn what resources are available to us and how we can work together to best use and preserve our wonderful countryside.

For more information: 07815 308488
Lorna@lovefoodfestival.com
www.lovefoodfestival.com

Stapleton Road train station, Easton, Free entry

It’s time for the Eastside Roots annual shindig featuring live bands and dj’s under our bespoke timber frame stage.

There will also be a host of other fun stuff for all the family to welcome in the spring and celebrate the launch of our volunteer led garden centre – such as adults and childrens workshops, a communal planting session of a nearby piece of waste ground, not to mention a cafe, stalls, and plant sales. We will also have a local artist to create an installation with the help of some local children.

Our free community fayres are always well attended and a great opportunity to participate in Bristol’s only community garden centre.

Eastside roots is now open as a garden centre on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 11am–4pm, for all your gardening needs. It is volunteer led and cooperatively run for the benefit of the community and its members.

enquiries@eastsideroots.org.uk
www.eastsideroots.org.uk

LAUGH LISTEN LEARN ENJOY

Bristol Happiness Lectures 2010

Feel welcome to arrive from 6.30pm if you’d like to mingle and chat before the main event.

At St George’s Hall, Bristol BS1 5RR

Positive Psychology Responses to Depression

Natural ways to boost your mood

An evening of positive discovery offering proven, practical strategies to improve your mood and protect against depression

Your hosts are Positive Psychologist Miriam Akhtar (co-presenter of The Happiness Training Plan CD), GP/Comedian Dr Phil Hammond (author of Sex, Sleep or Scrabble) and self-help specialist Dr Chris Johnstone (author of Find Your Power – a toolkit for resilience and positive change).

Tickets priced at just £10 (£8 concs) are available from St Georges Box Office,

Great George St, Bristol BS1 5RR Tel: 0845 40 24 001 or online www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk.

More information at http://www.chrisjohnstone.info/happiness_lectures.htm

Supported by BUD Ltd and Permanent Publications Ltd

Ps if you do facebook, please join our Bristol Happiness Lectures group.

Free event at Create, Saturday 24th April 10:30 am – 3:00 pm

Pop down to the Create Centre this weekend when we throw open our doors so that people from across the city can come and find out what all this Peak Oil business is really about. Organised from the grassroots with the city’s Transition movement together with Create, and with a dizzying array of courses and a plethora of family fun activities there’s something for everyone.

Workshops:

* Growing food in small spaces: Hands-on practical learning, illustrated case studies, and handy hints for dealing with pests and problems. Beth Astle – who has worked with people wanting to grow food in all sorts of urban spaces from window boxes to balconies – will touch on permaculture principles, organic gardening and container planting in a friendly, informal and outdoor session (weather permitting). No experience necessary.

* Sparging the Wort: A hands-on learning session throughout the day for anyone wanting learn how to home-brew craft beers full mash style

* Dr Bike: Bicycles receive a health check, minor surgery performed and prescriptions written. Dr Bike fixes punctures, tunes gears, fits new brake blocks and replaces cables, as well as giving out advice about bike care.

* Film-making workshop with Steve Taylor: Our unwitting impact on the rainforest. An open workshop for anyone interested in exposing our hidden connections to the environmental catastrophes that seem so distant to our everyday lives. The purpose is to put together a film team that will develop a short film over the next few months to be shown publicly in Bristol. Film director Steve Taylor will lead the workshop, presenting some of his own work documenting the impact of human activities on rainforests globally. Film starts at 10:30 moving into workshop room and finishing at 12:30.

* How to hold a Street Party: Been wondering about a street party in your street this summer but daunted by the logistics? Learn about the legal stuff, paperwork, keeping it safe and makings sure its a party for everyone. A one hour session starting 1 pm.

* Home energy audit training: Cutting your carbon through Energy Efficiency makes sense for the planet and your pocket. Learn how to audit your home to identify energy saving measures. The sessions will last for an hour and will include a demonstration of how to use an OWL Energy Monitor to measure your electricity usage – these will be available to borrow to help with your energy efficiency. There will be a session starting at 11:00 am and another at 2:00 pm.

* To register on any of the above workshops call 9224379

Plus:

Create your own brass-rubbing edible Bristol map // Experience the mighty Pedal Powered Washing Machine // Get inky with Mel’s Lessons in Linocut: What goes into oil? What does oil go into? // Special Create Café “Peak Oil” menu full of local and seasonal goodness // Discover which beers pair up with different foods with the very very local Bristol Beer Factory // Consider the future of the city without Peak Oil // Come and see arts, music, photography and film (programme below) // Spotify the best post oil playlist and win post oil prizes // Draw what you think the future will be like After Oil // Help turn the back lane into a giant planting and bikes play zone (soil and oil!) // Identify the post oil holiday destinations and win 3 OS maps of your choice // See Ashton Gate Primary School’s environmental calligrams… It’s all FREE, it’s all home grown and it’s all oil-proof.

Peak Oil at Create films listing:

10:30 – 11:30 Film Workshop – Steve Taylor
An open workshop for anyone interested in exposing our hidden connections to the environmental catastrophes that seem so distant to our everyday lives. The purpose is to put together a film team that will develop a short film over the next few months to be shown publicly in Bristol. Film director Steve Taylor will lead the workshop, presenting some of his own work documenting the impact of human activities on rainforests globally.

11:30 – 14:00 Rolling programme – short film loop, featuring:

FreeRangeStudios / Annie Leonard – The Story of Stuff
An eye-opening, humorous, and highly readable account of how our seemingly innocuous lifestyles are part of a larger system of destruction and dysfunction. Gain new facts, ideas, and inspiration

decyphersmc – Understanding Peak Oil
Graduating from The Ontario College of Art and Design, currently working in Toronto as a web designer for The Globe and Mail, Scott McLean has made a Quick 3 minute video visually explaining Peak Oil, what oil is used for, and what the future may hold with regards to Peak Oil. This is the culmination of Scott’s year-long thesis project looking at how Graphic Design can help communicate a complex topic such as Peak Oil.

Jamfactory & Makinov – BOIKZMOIND
BOIKZMOIND (say it out loud) is the collaborative product of Gavin Strange and John Clooney, who set out to capture the spirit of the Bristol fixed gear scene.

Anita Sancha – Travelling towards Transition
Small short films that make a difference. Using no language, and mostly with positive happy endings, they can cross language barriers, educate and inspire.

Leo Murray – Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip
It turns out that the way we have been calculating the future impacts of climate change up to now has been missing a really important piece of the picture. It seems we are now dangerously close to the tipping point in the world’s climate system; this is the point of no return, after which truly catastrophic changes become inevitable.

Journey TV – The Journey – BS3 Allotments
A Bristol Transition Town group, found out about a quirky English Law that states if 6 or more people apply to the council for allotment land, the council is then obligated to try to provide it. They were successful and were granted a large plot. Together they cleared the land and planted a crop for summer. The allotment is maintained by the group and harvest divided up between. This short film is part of “The Journey” an unique documentary project that delves into environmental, socio-culture and economic issues, with a questioning mind.

14:00 – 15:00 In Transition 1.0
The first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. The Transition movement is about communities around the world responding to peak oil and climate change with creativity, imagination and humour, and setting about rebuilding their local economies and communities. It is positive, solutions focussed, viral and fun.

Check back soon for updated timings and programme!

Bristol Green Doors is a Transition Bristol project for anyone in Bristol who wants to see first hand how homes can be made fit for the future.

There will be an online map showing homes with reduced energy consumption through a complete range of retrofits, renewable installations, water management systems and sustainable construction. On September 11th there will be an open day so the public can visit many of these places. People all over Bristol will be able to locate homes and meet and learn from others close to where they live. Green Doors will run alongside and compliment Bristol Doors Open Day, a Heritage Open Day.

We envisage the day working with clusters of homes centred around hubs (community centres, libraries etc) which in turn can provide a stimulating, visual and localised context for each neighbourhood’s work. Bristol knows about Doors Open Day, it knows about Art Trails, it will understand Green Doors. Easily.

The aims of the project are to:

• Normalise, encourage and accelerate retrofitting homes for energy efficiency
• Present good practice to contractors, self-builders and DIY and develop skills and knowledge
• Aid the development of Transition Bristol and neighbourhood groups of all stages through visible and successful project and neighbourhood activity
• Stimulate the green, low-carbon economy
• Reduce dependence on fossil fuels and cut CO2 emissions
• Celebrate people and homes making Bristol more sustainable

Bristol Green Doors will have many partner organisations. They include Bristol City Council’s Sustainable Cities team and Connecting Bristol (just launching their Green, Open and Social project), The Architecture Centre, EcoHome and CREATE Centre, Centre for Sustainable Energy, The Energy Saving Trust, Ecomotive, Forum for the Future / Refit West, Green Register and Knowle West Media Centre.

Bristol Green Doors has a steering group and an embryonic and fast growing team of Transition Bristol Neighbourhood personnel and Architecture, Environment and Energy MSc students ready to deliver the project. A Google Group has been set up too. Please join it if you are interested in getting involved and contact your local neighbourhood group. Updates will be sent regularly including invitations for volunteers, homes etc. We are particularly keen to get a fundraiser (for what should be a very satisfying task) involved asap.

The project has just been presented to a small core of neighbourhood group contacts for evaluation and the response was excellent. It was felt that Bristol Green Doors offers a unique opportunity for neighbourhood groups of all stages and sizes to contribute to a unique city wide event and develop their community and its reslience to peak oil and climate change.

We firmly believe Bristol Green Doors can contribute a significant part towards Bristol becoming a more sustainable city. Cllr Jon Rogers who leads on Sustainability and Transport feels it is “exactly the way the city should be going”, leading architect George Ferguson (of Tobacco factory fame) thinks it’s a “great idea”, Lucy of BS6 thinks it “just what I need to learn from others what I can do to my home” .

Bristol Green Doors – September 11^th.
Normalising green refurbishment;
Reducing CO2 emissions
Developing neighbourhood activity;
Sharing good practice;
Stimulating the green economy;
Celebrating Bristol’s people and homes.

Our first EcoFair will take place on Saturday 22^nd May 2010, in the historic community-owned Chantry. Open to all, it will be a fun way for all ages to find out about eco-living and the positive choices we can all make towards enjoying a low carbon future.

We are putting on a wide range of attractions, including activities for both children and adults, indoors and outdoors, a performance space for talks, music, and stories which will go on throughout the day. There will be stalls to buy sustainable goods and services, demonstrations, information stalls and food and drink. You can even test how economically you can drive on a driving simulator! Lots of fun for everyone, whatever the weather. See also the EcoFair leaflet (PDF 710KB) and poster (PDF 242KB).

We are also running a competition to make a greetings card using recycled materials. The closing date for entries is Friday 14^th May, and the winner will be announced at the EcoFair. Download your entry form here (PDF 48KB) or a poster (PDF 119KB).

Entry charges: individuals 50p, families £1

Do come and join us in an event that will be uplifting and inspiring, thought provoking and informative and above all, fun and a good day out!