Introduction to Permaculture course

Local group, South London Garden Organic and Urban Permaculture, (aka Green Peas), can confirm there will be a 2-day Introduction to Permaculture course on Monday 11th and Tuesday 12th October 2010. The tutor will be Graham Burnett and the course will take place in Mayow Park. The fee is £55 for the 2-day course and will include refreshments, but bring your own lunch. For more information and an application form, please email sheridanalona@hotmail.com

Harvesting fruits from local trees

It is fruit harvest-time in Sydenham. There are so many local fruit trees in streets and gardens but most of the fruit goes unpicked. The cherries have mostly finished but the plums are ready. Is anyone interested in calling on neighbours to talk about street fruit trees that need harvesting and to offer help with harvesting fruits in gardens? Soon it will be the turn of the apples and the pears. Are there any volunteers out there?

Transition Sydenham to visit Horniman Gardens

Our next event will be on Saturday 17th July, from 11am to midday. We will join Emily Dutton, who is Gardens Access and Learning Officer at the Horniman Museum and Gardens. She will lead us on a special tour of the medicinal garden, Allotment Life Exhibition and Wildlife Garden. It will also be an opportunity to meet fellow transitioners for coffee and a chat afterwards at the Horniman Cafe.
Places are limited so please book by contacting Kathleen on 020 8699 3107

Transition Sydenham Events

Two upcoming events arranged by Transition Sydenham:



1. 'Discovery Walk' from Mayow Park to Lower Sydenham on Saturday 3rd July 2010.

Meet in Mayow Park, by the Recreation Road entrance gate at 2.30pm

We will be looking for wild edible plants and sharing wild-food recipes.

Bring any ID books on trees, plants, berries and even invertebrates.

This is not an 'expert-led' walk but one where we learn together so that we can get to know our green spaces better. Slow walkers and children are particularly welcome. There are some roads to cross and one very busy road.

For more information phone Alona: 020 8244 4259



2. A guided visit to Horniman Gardens on Saturday 17th July 11am - 12 noon

Join Emily Dutton, Gardens Access and Learning Officer at the Horniman Museum and Gardens on a special tour. Visit Medicinal Garden, Allotment Life Exhibition and Wildlife Garden & Pond. Find out about the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Meet fellow transitioners for a coffee and chat afterwards in the Horniman Cafe.

For more information phone Kathleen: 020 8699 3107

A new way to share and swap skills

Transition Sydenham is proud to announce a new partnership with localskillswap.com, a website that helps you find like-minded people in your area so that you can swap your skills and get things done for free.

Localskillswap.com is a nationwide site, but is actually the brainchild of Katrina Gillard, a Crystal Palace resident who is in the process of setting up a Transition Town there. The site is divided into regional umbrella groups (London & home counties, Devon, etc.) and more local groups within this – a Sydenham & Forest Hill group has been set up within the last week.

To take advantage of this and start mapping who knows how to do what in our area, simply register as a member on the website, including any skills you have that you would be willing to share. You can search your area for particular skills, and post specific requests (what you need and what you can offer in return) on the home page. You can also post requests for local knowledge on the home page, and tap into the wealth of information that local residents often share. If you are contacted by a fellow member and invited to swap skills but can’t for whatever reason, there is the option to offer your skill at the going rate.

The idea of swapping local skills and pooling knowledge is a key part of what the Transition movement is about – increasing local resilience as oil supplies reduce and the impact of climate change increases.

What does this mean in practice? Well, it could be swapping products and services: getting a massage/haircut/piano lesson/bike repaired/wall built from someone in the next street rather than you or them driving several miles; or, it could involve sharing knowledge of one thing in return for another: you teach me how to keep bees, I’ll show you how to do DIY loft insulation.

The effects? A community better equipped to look after itself if resources are in short supply; individuals learning new skills and developing interests; the opportunity to get things done without spending any money; and maybe making a few new friends into the bargain.

The more people that join, the better the resource. Once a large enough number of people from Sydenham and Forest Hill are signed up, we hope to run a skill-sharing event of some kind in collaboration with localskillswap.com – watch this space!

So sign up now, and let’s get skill-swapping…

As I Write This I am Dressed in Oil

I got talking to someone from the Forum for the Future the other week - and only just getting round to sharing the discussion now is more to do with busy work and family, than it is to do with the quality of the conversation. For those who don't know, Forum for the Future 'works with leaders from business and the public sector to create a green, fair and prosperous world', and I've been particularly impressed with their previous publications such as the completely excellent Climate Futures (well worth a read).
But the discovery of the day following this conversation was their most recent piece of work, a publication called Fashion Futures, which takes a look at the issues surrounding the clothing industry and tries to plot some scenarios of interest to anyone interested in how fashion, textiles and clothing in general might 'unravel' in coming years.

This is, of course, hugely relevant in a post peak oil world. Textiles are completely dependent on a range of not very sustainable resource streams, from the 1/3lb of (petrochemical) pesticides required for each cotton t-shirt, to the huge amounts of water used in cotton production and synthetics made from oil products. Aside from raw materials, clothes production is implicated in unfair wages worldwide and has a large shipping footprint. Growing, making and shipping our clothes to us takes a lot of resources. A lot of oil effectively. And then we wear them for a short time before chucking them out for next season's number.

It would have been easy for Forum for the Future to have pulled together some burning polemic pointing the finger at public habits and big business. It is to their credit that the publication is a joint exercise with Levi Strauss. Embedded change is the only real sort surely.

So what's in this piece of work?

Scenarios are not predictions. They are a set of possibilities that might come to pass in part or in combination. Neither are scenarios a final word in any way; one of the most interesting thing about scenario planning is that it is an iterative process - it can be repeated and improved as many times as you like. So Fashion Futures tells stories that can still be changed by governments, communities and businesses alike. They name their four scenarios: slow is beautiful; community couture; techno-chic; and patchwork planet and they are all interesting to read even if you don't run a clothing empire. Slow is beautiful describes highly ethical production of clothes, techno-chic limits impact through innovation and patchwork planet opens some very relevant discussion about how national differences may play out.

However, it is the community couture scenario has particular lessons for the Transition Town movement. Within this scenario community is strong, reuse is central to how we dress and diy skills are at the heart of the matter. Some of the ideas suggested are really interesting. Second hand markets with in-house stylists, clothing libraries, community-run recycling and remaking centres, community laundries and make-do-and-mend lessons in schools... these could all be very productive transition projects.

I wonder if some of these approaches might be tried out in areas that have a lot of second hand shops already (I recall Transition Penge said this was a real feature of their neighbourhood). How many of these ideas can you fit under one roof? A Transition charity exchange with in house tailor and barter washing machines anyone? Links to local fashion/design colleges and schools curriculum perhaps...

Given that we're all dressed in oil - one way or another - that doesn't mean we need to start collecting a sackcloth wardrobe. And this is a lesson that applies across a range of resources. The largest copper 'mine' in the world is New York City (because of recycling). And maybe Transition Towns can be at the heart of a new wave of re-use and glamour!

Welcome

Hello people of Sydenham

Welcome, with open arms, to the discussion...