What's Happening in Transition Norwich - 28 September

Join us to find out more and be part of this expanding, inspiring, creative and forward-looking movement at 7:45pm on Friday 28th September at Inner Space, Maude Gray Court, St Benedicts St, Norwich NR2 4PA

During this informal gathering of those who are passionate about environmental and social justice, we will be discussing how to expand, inspire, engage and create a lasting shift towards a better, low-carbon future in Norwich. We will be talking about success stories both locally and from further afield, ways we can collaborate across organisations and ways we can engage with larger audiences in the future.

Anyone is welcome, so whether your concern is inequality, environmental degradation, economic instability or the effects of the rising costs of oil, we'd love to see you and talk about what we can achieve together! You are invited to bring a handful of veg and/or herbs to add to a shared dinner.

For further details or directions please contact either:
Simeon Jackson (Tel: 07816 231009 Email: simeon [at] simeonjackson.co.uk)
Christine Way (Tel: 01603 614460)

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamfish/3368619008/in/photostream/

RELATED EVENT: Harlequin Fayre - 12/14 August

STOP PRESS! TN's Mark Watson will be giving a Bee and Flower walk at the Fayre on Saturday 13th August at 12 noon. Meet at the Transition tent in the Sustainable Futures area.

If you want to be part of those representing Transition Norwich at Harlequin Fayre this year, please get in touch! They have offered us a stall at the event which is on the 12 to 14 August this year and it would be great to be able to run some TN workshops for them there! As a community group in their "sustainable futures" area, we need to make sure that we really show what we are about!

Harlequin Fayre is a local festival with a green ethos that follows on the tradition of colourful events such as the Albion Fayres. It will never be a large "music festival" and is intentionally kept as a small, magical event. It's generally a great place to find people sympathetic to the ideas of Transition, and who may already be doing Transition, in their own way.

If you have any resources that you would like to have distributed there, or can donate banners, decorations, books or have ideas for workshops, please get in contact with Simeon: simeon@simeonjackson.co.uk

RELATED EVENT: Material Inequality in Britain - 24 June

When The Spirit Level was published in 2009 it caused quite a stir. Taking the results of hundreds of studies it showed that, contrary to the general assumption, health and social problems such as violence, mental illhealth, addiction, teenage births and educational failure do not have a simple relationship with poverty. Instead, the authors show that problems which are most common at the bottom of the social ladder are actually more common in societies where the difference in income between the richest and the poorest is the greatest. The UK has the fourth highest inequality of income distribution of developed countries. The authors conclude that, “The evidence shows that reducing inequality is the best way of improving the quality of the social environment ....... for all of us”.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, the authors, are in great demand as speakers and, to share the load, Martin Wilkinson, Richard’s brother will be coming to Norwich to give a presentation on the book and to lead a discussion on equality, both in terms of the Quaker Testimony to Equality and more generally on how we in Britain should respond to the message of the book . Rupert Read will then offer a short philosophical and political response to “The Spirit Level”.

Material Inequality in Britain (Based on The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Saturday 25th June, 2-5pm at Friends Meeting House, Upper Goat Lane, NORWICH, NR2 1EW. All welcome – entry free

For further details contact Teresa Belton 01603 465851, teresa.belton@ntlworld.com

Photo from BBC documentary, "Poor Kids"

Spring Scheming - Shaping the Norwich we want - 20 March

We have had a very exciting three years of community-led events and projects, many of them still flourishing. So in the evening of Sunday 20 March we will be celebrating all our successes so far and then looking to the future to see what dreams and schemes we could work towards next.

Everybody is welcome to come along whether you have been involved in Transition in the past, are at the moment or want to be in the future. Let's continue shaping Norwich to create our low carbon future together.

So come along at 6.15pm on Sunday 20 March at Inner Space on St Benedict's Street. Bring some food to share and let's look to the future of Norwich together.

For more info email Kerry on kezereky_the_first@hotmail.com.

Millennium Babies Project wins CUE East funding

The Millennium Babies Project team is delighted to report that we've won a funding award from CUE East to develop the Oil Game, in partnership between members of Transition Norwich, UEA and local schools. The inspiration for the Oil Game was the Transition Tales project on peak oil, Transition Norwich's Resilience Plan and creative workshops with Year 6 children. The original Oil Game was invented by Rob Hopkins and developed by Steph Bradley. Tom Harper and Charlotte Du Cann used this format as a base when they played the first TN Oil Game at Catton Grove school last year.

Tom, creative director of the project, says: "This is fantastic news for us. This prestigious award enables us to expand our innovative programme of work with children in Norwich schools. With our partners, we'll be exploring sustainability issues in a fun and creative way. The children will discover the extraordinary story of how dinosaur poo and ancient sunshine became the oil that we use today, and how, during their lifetimes, they will have to find creative new ways to live well without this ancient resource!".

For more information contact Tom Harper: tomharper@ekit.com

Pic: Tom and Year 6 children exploring peak oil at the Millennium Library, Norwich

Magdalen Street Annual Celebration - 8 September

The next organising meetings for the Magdalen Street Celebration (October 2nd) will be at Aladdin's (TBC) on September 8th at 6.30pm for a 7pm start (please come for 6.30pm if you're new to the group as we will get down to business at 7pm!)

We're looking for all kinds of contributors, from the traders on Magdalen Street itself to artists, performers, helpers and local groups from Magdalen Street and surrounding NR3 area to come and get involved with a range of activities, stalls and events.

To keep up with latest developments please go to http://www.magdalenstreet.blogspot.com or look up 'Magdalen Street' on Facebook.

REPORTS - All Change on the Western Front

The Wave in London
On 5 December Transition Norwich travelled down to London to take part in The Wave, the biggest climate march in history, when thousands converged on the capital to bring attention to the planetary crisis being discussed by the nations of the world at Copenhagen. It was a big march with 50,ooo people dressed in all shades of blue: royal blue dragons, sky-blue banners, turquoise wigs, indigo-striped faces. While MPs and campaigners spoke eloquently and passionately at Speakers' Corner, thousands gathered in Grosvenor Square before moving through the great shopping and political highways of the West End towards Parliament. Placards supplied by political and religious organisations declared an end to climate chaos, poverty and capitalism, brightly coloured homemade ones (including our own) from all round the UK declared Climate Emergency, Cardiff is Ready and There is No Planet B.

Along the way and as we circled the Houses of Parliament both sides of the Thames we met fellow Transitioners - from Ipswich and Bungay at Speakers' Corner, from Berkhamsted by the Houses of Parliament, from Brixton, who were carrying a banner over Westminster Bridge. At three o’clock Big Ben sounded and a great cheer went up from us all. Was anyone listening? Is this the time when ordinary people get to speak out about the 101 issues that climate change brings to light, rather than give the authorial voice to the scientists and politicians and the corporations who pay for them behind the scenes? It was a beginning. The event went almost unoticed by the media, but we were there resiliently nevertheless.(Charlotte Du Cann/Comms) You can find a full report on the day on http://www.transitionnorwich.blogspot.com/ (Dec 7 tag 'Climate action') and check out the big blue pictures taken by Josiah Meldrum on flickr (http://tinyurl.com/ye2xjvv)

Conversation Cafe on Cultural Change





Transition work is as much about how we do things as it is about what we do. So it was no surprise to find that the opening to this evening's event was in the form of a short play/narrative featuring Kerry, Eric, Mark and Alex. Kerry and Eric seemed very busy driving around doing their supermarket shopping and worrying about their next overseas holiday, while Mark was doing his best impersonation of Jeremy Paxman on them as they went about their business. Alex commented that they didn't appear to be listening.

The evening progressed, world cafe style, as we moved around the different themes in small groups and shared how we might see change in those themes - so how we might overcome the perceived obstacles. As we came together at the end there was no shortage of ideas as to how Norwich might look if even some of these ideas became reality. One new person to Transition commented: " I came along here not knowing what to expect, and nervous.... I am going away having enjoyed myself and learnt a lot". (Chris Hull, Core Group)