WildGoose Space, The Yard, Mina Road, St Werburghs

A one day workshop on understanding and building resilience into your local economy.

Course content:

• Public sector procurement activity
• Support for small businesses (e.g. local currencies/loyalty cards)
• Support for local financial infrastructure (e.g. working with credit unions/new investment vehicles)
• B2C currencies and how to introduce them (e.g. Brixton/Totnes pound)
• Social currencies (e.g. Timebanking) to support the economically excluded
• B2B schemes (e.g. commercial barter schemes)
• Digital currency models

Organisation / local government / corporate £150
Individual / Small organisation / community group £80
Low income Individual £60

For more information go to http://www.shiftbristol.org.uk/

May

An Introduction to Permaculture with Sarah Pugh.

Tuesday 11th May – 1st June (Four Tuesday Evenings).

St Werburghs Community Centre 6.30pm – 9.30pm

Four Tuesday evenings exploring the principles and practice of Permaculture, a holistic and commonsense approach to sustainable living. Learn to work with rather than against nature to create abundant, reslient systems in our gardens, farms, homes and communities. Talks, workshops, slideshows and observational wild walk.
Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £100
Individual / Small organisation / community group £65
Low income Individual £40

Principles of Ecological Living and Traditional Systems with Mike Feingold.

Thursday 13th May.

St Werburghs Community Centre 7.00pm – 9.o0pm

An evening with Mike Feingold, Permaculture tutor and international practitioner. An exploration of sustainability as practiced in traditional communities around the world. An inspirational and informative slideshow based on a lifetimes work on community led regeneration and self-suffiency. Full of valuable insights into creating healthy and vibrant local systems from the grass-roots up.
Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £10
Individual / Small organisation / community group £5
Low income Individual £3

The Living Landscape with Patrick Whitefield.

Thursday 20th May.

St Werburghs Community Centre 7.00pm – 9.00pm

An evening talk and slideshow with author, permaculture teacher and designer Patrick Whitefield. A lifetime of learning about how to read the health and history of the landscape with examples from all over the UK. Patrick specialises in an intricate knowledge of the UK and offers practical solutions of how to manage and repair our soils, hedgerows, agricultural and wild spaces. A unique opportunity to see slides of the making of his new book ‘The Living Landscape’.
Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £10
Individual / Small organisation / community group £5
Low income Individual £3

June

Weaving the Magic with Nick Osborne.

Wednesday 16th June.

Easton Community Centre 10.00am – 4.00pm

A one day course designed to help people in transition-groups work more effectively, enjoyably & sustainably together.

Why is it needed? Many social action groups fail or are ineffective because we don’t pay enough attention to quality of our relationships with each other, our group process, conflict management or how we run our meetings.

What the course covers: Effective meetings, conflict management, looking after ourselves & each other, roles & tasks, group purpose, collaborative communication and power, decision-making & leadership.

Benefits of doing the course;

* Understand the diverse features which create & sustain healthy groups
* Identify issues your group is currently facing
* Plan for how to address difficult issues

Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £150
Individual / Small organisation / community group £75
Low income Individual £50

The Work That Reconnects with Jenni Horsfall.

Wednesday 23rd June.

Venue TBC 10.00am – 5.00pm

The Work That Reconnects is a pioneering form of group work that began in the 1970s. It demonstrates our interconnectedness in the web of life and our authority to take action on its behalf. It has helped many thousands around the globe find insight, solidarity, and courage to act, despite rapidly worsening conditions. Based on systems theory, spiritual teachings, and deep ecology,
Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £100
Individual / Small organisation / community group £65
Low income Individual £40

July

How to initiate an alternative local economy with Josh Ryan-Collins.

Monday 5th July.

WildGoose Space 10.00am – 4.00pm

A one days workshop on understanding and building resilience into your local economy.

Course content:

* Public sector procurement activity
* Support for small businesses (e.g. local currencies/loyalty cards)
* Support for local financial infrastructure (e.g. working with credit unions/new investment vehicles)
* B2C currencies and how to introduce them (e.g. Brixton/Totnes pound)
* Social currencies (e.g. Timebanking) to support the economically excluded
* B2B schemes (e.g. commercial barter schemes)
* Digital currency models

Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £150
Individual / Small organisation / community group £80
Low income Individual £60

How to set up an ESCo (Community ‘Energy Supply Company’) with Trevor Houghton.

Tuesday 6th July.

St Werburghs Community Centre 10.00am – 4.00pm

Description: An interactive one day course about how a community can set up an Energy Service Company (ESCo) as a means of taking control of the basic energy services that would enable us to live more sustainably following permaculture principles. It will provide participants with a basic understanding of what a community run ESCo is, how it might work and what the steps are in establishing one in their community.

Course content:

* Energy services as part of our life support system
* Examples of community run ESCos and what they are achieving
* Keeping the community in the driving seat – governance and legal models
* Working in partnership with local authorities and the private sector
* Financing an ESCo
* Where to find support and advice
* Action planning

Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £100
Individual / Small organisation / community group £65
Low income Individual £40

Building Organisational Resilience with Nick Osborne.

Wednesday 14th July.

Create Centre 10.00am – 4.00pm

Resilience means different things in different contexts; what is common is the notion of bouncing back from disruptions and in some cases adapting to change, and in some cases both at the same time. With today’s world being characterised by increasingly fast-paced change, unpredictability, complexity and the challenges of adapting to resource constraints, interest is growing in what we can do to make our organisations and institutions more resilient.

This one-day course is an introduction and approach to organisational resilience which suggests that ‘business as usual’ is looking like an increasingly unlikely prospect in an unstable and unpredictable future. This course explores how thinking about complex organisational and social issues in simple, linear ways often leads people to try and solve problems with quick fixes rather than resilient, adaptable solutions. Einstein said ‘The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them’. This course provides an approach based on understanding organisations as complex systems which need to be understood and worked with as such.

The course covers:

* the context and need for organisational resilience
* an evolutionary understanding of different approaches to social and organisational problems
* understanding 4 aspects of organisational life which can be worked on to help make the organisation more resilient:
* inner personal resilience of leaders, managers and staff
* what types of behaviour by leaders, managers and staff can help an organisation become more resilient
* developing organisational culture for resilient organisations
* organisational structures, processes, policies & infrastructure for resilient organisations

Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £150
Individual / Small organisation / community group £75
Low income Individual £50

Permaculture Allotment Gardening Techniques with Mike Feingold.

Saturday 17th July.

Starting at Royate Hill Community Orchard (on Royate Hill Allotments) & finishing at Kebele Social Centre 1.00pm – 7.00pm

The day will start with a shared lunch, followed by a practical workshop at Royate Hill allotment, finished by a slideshow on permaculture horticultural techniques. A tour of Mike’s permaculture allotment – a work in progress for over 20 years. Low impact and sustainable practice at its most radical and experimental.
Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £50
Individual / Small organisation / community group £35
Low income Individual £20

To be confirmed:

A weekend of Transition Training.

How to run an open space event.

Up and coming future events!

22nd and 23rd September.

Holding the Vision – With Starhawk.

An inspired exploration of working creatively in groups by internationally renowned author and facilitator.
Category (Click here for more info on this) Price
Organisation / local government / corporate £200
Individual / Small organisation / community group £80
Low income Individual £50

Go to the Shift Bristol website for more information.

Bookings

To book a place click here

Grand Clear out – All items free!

Yummy cakes and fair trade hot drinks for sale.

Bring your unwanted gifts and items and take what you want.

Please bring only items in good working order and condition.

Large items: Please bring a photo NOT the actual item!

Date: Sat 13 March, 10 am to 2 pm

Venue: St. Aldhelm’s Church, Corrner of Chessel ST. and Ashfield Rd., Bedminster, BS3 3TT

for more information: 07740 342420

Suggested donation of £1 on the door.

Bristol City Council has received funding from the Department of Communities and Local Government to encourage the ‘temporary’ use of empty shops during the recession.

The council is now inviting organisations (arts-based organisations, community groups or registered charities) to bid for funding to support projects, which bring empty shops into ‘temporary’ use or promote the Place Management areas. The Place Management areas are Ashley Road/Grosvenor Road, Stokes Croft, Gainsborough Square (Lockleaze), Avonmouth, Ridingleaze, Shirehampton and Bedminster.

Further guidance, application form and toolkit will shortly be available on the internet at

www.bristol.gov.uk/placemanagement.

The deadline for applications is 4pm on 26 March 2010.

Thank you, regards

Jason Thorne
Regeneration Policy Officer
City Development
Bristol City Council
0117 922 2042
www.bristol.gov.uk

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.

A Bristol based man, will be giving a talk in Bristol on the 19th January about his experience of ‘Living without Money’, a social experiment he originally undertook for one year. The talk takes place in The Better Food Co. Cafe, Sevier St, St. Werburghs, Bristol at 7pm.

Mark Boyle, 30, originally from Ireland and founder of the world’s fastest growing alternative economy ‘The Freeconomy Community’, will be talking about both the economic and ecological reasons behind his fascinating social experiment and the actual practical experience of living through four seasons with zero cash. This social experiment has been at the heart of a huge debate on The Guardian online, which led to it being covered by every national newspaper and major radio station.

For the last 12 months Boyle has neither spent or received a penny in an experiment that also didn’t allow any prepayment of bills or stockpiling. He has spent the last year living in a caravan on an organic farm where he volunteers for three days per week. He cooks outside – rain or shine – on a rocket stove made from old catering tins, goes to his compost toilet using newspapers salvaged from his local newsagents, heats his humble abode using wood he has coppiced and scavenged locally, and powers his laptop and mobile using solar. He washes either in a river or by using a solar shower, and cycles the 55km round trip to the city twice a week, using his trailer to transport the things he needs and gives away.

Boyle adds that he eats from the ‘Food for Free table’, of which there are four legs – foraging wild food, growing your own, bartering and using waste food that local businesses would normally throw out.

Boyle undertook this economic and ecological experiment because he believes “it is the disconnection we have with what we consume that is the primary cause of the wasteful and destructive culture we live in today. If we all had to grow your own food again we wouldn’t waste one third of it as we do here in the UK today. If we had to make our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor. If we had to clean our own drinking water, we sure as hell wouldn’t foul it. We’ve absolutely no respect or real appreciation for the embodied energy, destruction and suffering that goes into the things we consume and buy today, and hence the symptoms of this separation of the consumer from the consumed (sweatshops, environmental destruction, wars over resources, factory farms) relentlessly persists. Money is the tool that has increasingly enabled humanity to exaggerate this disconnection with what they consume and therefore has a huge role to play in climate change and the destruction of our natural environment.”

This experiment is featured in the current editions of Resurgence, Permaculture Magazine, The Source, Ethical Consumer, G2 (the Guardian) and Inspired Times, plus lots of other national and international media. It has also been the subject of the two most read stories across the board on The Guardian online – for more information she link below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/nov/02/cashless-man-responds

Boyle will be making himself available for both live and pre-recorded interviews for radio over the next week, and will be happy to give interviews for members of the press also. Members of the media are also welcome to attend the talk also, and he will be making himself available for interviews beforehand and after it.

Venue: 3rd Floor, Bush House, Bristol, BS1 4QD

To book please contact Paul Baker at paul at paulbakerandcompany.co.uk or on 07828882213

The future of many valuable and important projects today depends on the way money and capital are understood, both in ideal and practical terms. If life is not to be marked by a ceaseless and unhealthy chase after money, which acts more as our master than our servant, we have to find new ways of linking capital to concrete initiatives. We need to do this more cooperatively than competitively, and in ways that make sense at both the micro and macro ends of economic life. The only medium that operates at both ends and all points in between, and that is cross-party and cross-ideology as befits a true economic paradigm, is accounting. But not accounting as we usually understand it…

In this workshop, the aspirations and projects of participants will be looked at from the point of view that money and accounting, having long been separate, have now become one. In doing so, they provide a bridge for overcoming the divide between ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’ economics, on which the ‘success’ of transition towns, local pounds, LETS and similar undertakings depend for their longevity and wider, replicable impact.

The workshop will be led by Christopher Houghton Budd, an economic and monetary historian with a doctorate in banking and international finance, who travels widely as an educator and consultant. Combining both business and academic backgrounds, his experience ranges widely from ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ economics to central banking and financial markets.

09:30 – 10:30 How Money and Accounting became One
Pause
11:00 – 12:30 Working Discussion I*
Lunch
14:00 – 15:00 The Nuts and Bolts of Accounting-Money
Pause
15:30 – 17:00 Working Discussion II*
17:00 – 17:30 Closing session

* Based on case studying participants’ question and projects

For further information contact paul at paulbakerandcompany.co.uk or on 07828882213. This workshop will help you make your projects viable.

From Bristol City Council:

Dear all

Empty Shops and Promotion Initiative

Bristol City Council has received funding from the Department of Communities and Local Government to encourage the ‘temporary’ use of empty shops during the recession.

The council is now inviting organisations (arts-based organisations, community groups or registered charities) to bid for funding to support projects, which promote the pilot Place Management areas and/or bring empty shops into use for a ‘temporary’ period. The Place Management areas are Ashley Road/Grosvenor Road, Stokes Croft, Gainsborough Square (Lockleaze), Avonmouth, Ridingleaze, Shirehampton and Bedminster.

Further guidance and an application form are available at www.bristol.gov.uk/placemanagement. The deadline for applications is 5pm on 11 November 2009.

Thank you, regards

Jason Thorne

Jason Thorne
Regeneration Policy Officer
City Development
Bristol City Council
0117 922 2042
www.bristol.gov.uk

FROM THE ASHES OF THE CRASH: Rebuilding the new economics

Venue: Bristol Council House, College Green

Chair: Stewart Wallis of nef (new economics foundation)

“This year has been finance-led capitalism’s 1989. It is now as broken as the old Soviet Union. It didn’t work for the real economy. It put people in rich and poor countries alike into debt for short-term profit. It was uncontrolled and grew in power until the tail was wagging the dog.

Now there is a huge opportunity to develop a new model to build a real economy that does work for people and the planet. The challenge is to take short-term action to stabilise the situation, together with a measured, programme to build a diverse, localised, sustainable economy which puts finance in its place as a servant of society and values people and the environment.”
Andrew Simms, nef Policy Director

Event Details
THE MARKET THAT FAILED
Jayati Ghosh – Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
(lecture)

THE TERRIBLE FREEDOM BEFORE DUSK
Andrew Simms – nef, Policy Director and head of the Climate Change Programme (lecture)

A NEW DEAL FOR LOCAL ECONOMIES
Stacy Mitchell – Researcher with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, USA
(lecture)

Buy tickets here

Download programme here

For those of us worried, troubled, or just curious about the current economic meltdown, go here to learn more.