Transition Town Lewes News – October 2007

In this issue

· Events past

· Events to come

· New online forum

· New EDAP group

· New LoveLewes website

· Recycle your Read!

· Funding for new TTL post

· Planning the spring programme

· Social event next week

· Lights out in Lewes – TONIGHT (Tuesday)

· Climate Cartoons

The autumn programme has had a good start, with plenty of people turning up to most events. For inspiring reports on these, please go to our wiki pages http:\\www.transitiontowns.org/Lewes Meanwhile, peak oil and chaotic climate effects are increasingly in the news and some of us feel we are straddling parallel universes (see cartoon at the end). Please keep coming to the events, getting involved in the groups (all listed on the wiki) and helping facilitate the transition to a better Lewes with less oil. Nobody’s in charge – this is our process. Have a good month.

Last week

Aubrey Meyer and Shaun Chamberlin spoke lucidly and passionately about Contraction and Convergence and Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) – ways by which Energy Descent would work at international and national levels. These approaches are currently under serious consideration as solutions. A moving evening. The report and a cartoon are here: http://transitiontowns.org/Lewes/Ccteq.

Next week

The business and currency groups have been meeting weekly and have been discussing many things including the philosophy of and origins of money. Here is a link to an interesting piece http://transitiontowns.org/Lewes/Currency. They’ve also been planning some events to which they invite widely:

Local Money, Local Skills, Local Power: the role of money in building resilience

Molly Scott Cato, author, economics spokesperson for the Green Party, senior lecturer in economics and TT Stroud core member, comes to Lewes to talk about Local Money, Local Skills, Local Power: the role of money in building resilience. This evening we will explore inspiring and practical ways to strengthen and enhance our economy, enabling the Lewes community to be more resilient and abundant. Wed 24 October, 8pm, All Saints Centre, £3

Open Space Event

Followed by an Open Space event hosted by the Business and Currency groups: How will we thrive locally in a world with less oil? Come along if you want to investigate how to rebuild the once flourishing local economy of Lewes and how to support local businesses. This is a community think tank to which all are warmly invited. Come for the beginning and then move in and out of the day if you choose. Sat 27 October, 10-4pm, Southover School, Potters Lane, Free. (Local lunch provided).

New online forum http:\\www.ttlewes.co.uk

… in which to debate all the complex issues surrounding Transition Town Lewes. Some interesting threads have already begun. Please be one of the first to join the forum: the community password is harveystt. If it works, we will link it to the homepage of the wiki. The googlegroups will remain for everyday communications.

New Energy Descent Action Plan group

The newest TTL group is the Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) group. We met for the first time on 8 October following an excellent EDAP open space event. The purpose of the group is to co-ordinate the creation of an Energy Descent Action Plan for Lewes – a positive vision of Lewes in a low energy future and the steps we will need to take to get from here to there. Our first step towards this has been to email all the grop contacts to find out where each group is at with its EDAP and what we can do to help and support them. See our wiki page here http://transitiontowns.org/EDAP and have a look at the Open Space event here http://transitiontowns.org/Lewes/OpenSpaceDay-EDP. If you want to get further involved contact Pippa Johns, whose details are on the wiki page above.

New LoveLewes website

The TTL Business group has created a new website designed to give owners and managers of Lewes businesses quick access to some of the best websites on everything to do with making their businesses more sustainable and resilient. It’s aimed at a broad range of business people from the sceptical to those that are fully up-to-speed with climate change and peak oil. The address is http:\\www.LoveLewes.com and we’d welcome your feedback, and suggestions for good sites to include. Thanks.

Recycle your Read

On 25 October TTL Arts Group launches Recycle Your Read!, a local project based on an international initiative, bookcrossing.com, where readers' favourite books are registered and then released 'into the wild'. Those who find and read them can then use bookcrossing.com to say where they found the book, what they thought of it and then release it again. Recycle your Read! will place books in public places relating to the vision and broad themes of the Transition Town Lewes' movement. Look out for I Count: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Climate Bliss, Six Degrees, Our Future on a Hotter Planet, The Last Oil Shock, Natural Babycare and many more on park benches, the train station, coffee shops and other places. If you have any books that you would like to donate to Recycle your Read! please drop them off at the Transition Town Lewes office.

Funding being sought for new post

A small group has formed to seek funding for and recruit a part time office manager for TTL to help with the workload and take TTL further. If you can help in any way with this, or if you are willing to help fund the part time post for a year, please contact the TTL office.

Planning the Spring Programme

Now that the core group is dissolved, a group is meeting to plan the spring programme on Thursday 1 November. Everyone is warmly invited to bring or send in their ideas. See http://transitiontowns.org/Lewes/Programme for venue and other details.

TTL Social

Next Thursday 25 October, 7.30pm, upstairs at Lewes Arms. Organised by the Arts Group. Everyone welcome; please rsvp to Janette Scott (contact details on http://transitiontowns.org/Lewes/Arts).

Lights out in Lewes TONIGHT this Tuesday 16 November

Our sister campaign, Lewes Climate Concern, is asking everyone in Lewes to switch off their lights from 7.30pm to 7.35pm, the twentieth anniversary of the hurricane. The event is also designed to highlight climate change effects on the weather, the need to change our lightbulbs as well as the need to become aware of the darkness. For more information see the website http://www.lcc-campaign.org/lightsout.htm.

Another cartoon from Climate Cartoons to illustrate the surreal world we live in

http://www.climatecartoons.org.uk/groundhog.html

From the communications group of

Transition Town Lewes

Get involved: contact hello [at] TransitionTownLewes.org.uk