Monday
4th
November, 7.00 – Transition
Shipston
Black
Horse Pub, Station Road
Tuesday
12th
November 10am – Shipston U3A Nature Group
Tuesday
19th
November, 7.30 – Permaculture Group Drink
Red
Lion, Long Compton.
Tuesday
19th
November, 7.00 – Shipston Neighbourhood Plan
Town
Council Offices, Clark House, Shipston
Saturday
7th
December – Transition Shipston Xmas Fayre
Townsend
Hall, Sheep Street
Contents:
Ilmington Solar School
Appeal
Shipston Food Festival
Success
Apple Pressing
Permaculture (&
Organic Gardening) Group
Heart of England
Transitioning
Transition
Shipston Xmas Fayre
Fracking
– The Wrong Move!
Ilmington
Solar School Appeal to raise £17,000
Anna
Pike of the Ilmington Solar School Project has asked transition
Shipston to forward this appeal:
Ilmington
School's solar project aims to raise £17,000 to put solar panels on
the roof. Becoming
a ‘Solar School’ is an exciting prospect for Ilmington School. We
are the only school in Warwickshire to have been selected to
participate in the carbon-cutting organisation 10:10's Solar School
project (www.solarschools.org.uk).
They are supporting us in our bid to raise the money to make our
school 'Solar'.
The
project has many educational, environmental and financial benefits.
Today’s
primary school children will be the generation for which climate
change, global warming and scarcity of fossil fuels will have the
greatest impact. Solar panels will reduce the school’s carbon
footprint and allow the children to learn about sustainable and
renewable energy supplies first hand. Solar panels will also allow
teachers to deliver national curriculum subjects such as numeracy, IT
and science in different, fun and exciting ways using data the
children can gather from the panels themselves.
By
generating our own solar electricity the school can also reduce its
energy bills (electricity and oil) by up to £2000 a year. Energy
bills are paid directly out of the school's annual budget and for a
small school like ours this represents a significant amount that
could be put to direct educational use. The benefits of this will be
felt by the community for many years to come.
The children are busy taking part in sponsored runs, bike rides, swims, gymnastics, cake bakes and ice cream sales. We are, however, a small, rural school comprising about 70 families (108 children) and need to reach out to the wider community for financial support. I would be grateful if you could forward this appeal to individuals and businesses associated with Transition Shipston with an invitation for them to be part of this amazing project.
The children are busy taking part in sponsored runs, bike rides, swims, gymnastics, cake bakes and ice cream sales. We are, however, a small, rural school comprising about 70 families (108 children) and need to reach out to the wider community for financial support. I would be grateful if you could forward this appeal to individuals and businesses associated with Transition Shipston with an invitation for them to be part of this amazing project.
There
are several ways in which individuals and businesses can help us
achieve our goal. Donations can be made directly via our dedicated
online fundraising website www.solarschools.org.uk/ilmington and
are tax deductible (charity number: 1028139). Donations of £100 or
more will allow a company to place a logo and website link on our
fundraising site. We can also celebrate business support through our
parent newsletter and dedicated social media sites. In addition we
will be collating a special ‘book of sponsors’ at the school to
celebrate the support shown by the community. Major donors (£2000 or
above) will have their names included on a celebratory plaque.
Businesses
can also show support by displaying a poster for our appeal. Offers
of this can be emailed to me directly at a.v.l.pike@googlemail.com.
Supporters can also follow our fundraising story on twitter
(twitter.com/ilmingtonsolar)
and facebook (www.facebook.com/ilmingtonsolar).
Thank
you for your continued support
Best
wishes
Anna
Pike
School
Governor
Ilmington
C of E Primary School.
Shipston
Food Festival Success
Transition Shipston Stall
Shipston's
first food festival last month was a great success with about 2000
attending. The
High Street was heaving with colourful stalls over the weekend.
There were more than 30 stalls selling produce from the Stour Valley
and the north Cotswolds. Visitors enjoyed artisan food stalls and
local beers along with cookery demonstrations from Francis Green,
the Cotswold Traiteur, as well as live music. It was good to see
that local producers were able to put on displays at least as good
as the Italian and French Markets.
Apple pressing..
.
There
was lots of interest in Transition Shipston's apple
pressing stall at the Food
Festival. Visitors were offered a taste of the of the apple juice.
Many people who had not tasted fresh juice before seemed surprised
at how fresh and tasty it was. The apples had been collected from
the orchard at Ilmington Manor which would otherwise have been
wasted. There were others offers of donations of apples to press and
share the juice which we are trying to process.
If
you have unused apples that you would like to share or if you would
like to help with apple pressing contact Dave Passingham 07973
846605.
If
you live nearer Chipping Campden...
Susie
Tombs from Transition Campden writes:
At
this time of year, if you have an apple tree you might be feeling
overwhelmed by the harvest. If you wish to take any excess fruit to
the school garden ( that's the 'big' school, in Cider Mill Lane),
they can be processed into juice.
Drop
off your (reasonably sound) fruit - not old windfalls - in carrier
bags or boxes by the shed in the school garden, which is next to the
caretaker's house, to the left as you go into the school drive.
Leave a note to say how much in weight you have left approximately
and how many bottles of juice you would like. Cost is expected to be
£1.40 per bottle, for pressing and bottling, and it will take about
2-3lbs of fruit per bottle. Anything left over will be sold to raise
money for the school. Drop off within the next 7 days.
The
teacher in charge of this is Geoff Carr - who you may have seen on
River Cottage, showing how the orchard is used by the school for its
Land Based Sciences course.
"and
I am autumn-tired /of the great harvest I myself desired"
Robert Frost
Permaculture
(& Organic Gardening) Group
When
starting, Transition groups are encouraged to go on a permaculture
course in order to understand environmental design for organic
gardening, self-maintained agriculture and sustainable
architecture... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture.
Those
who attended permaculture courses in Whichford about 4 years ago
have been doing their own thing since then. Now we are going to get
together every month to discuss our experiences and exchange tricks
and tips. If you are interested in organic gardening in general or
permaculture ideas in particular why not come along for a pub chat
on Tuesday 19th
November at the Red Lion in Long Compton. Contact Dave Passingham
davepassingham@hotmail.com
Heart
of England Transitioning
Heart
of England Transitioning is a network of Transition groups and
village groups from around Warwickshire. At the bring & share
meal and gathering on 25th
October at Lifeways in Stratford there were 10 groups represented.
After the meal we heard all the latest news from around the county.
It's always inspiring to hear about the latest activities which
include harvest shares, community gardens, community fund raising,
“incredible edible” public flower gardens, bee keeping and
protests meetings about fracking.
The
network decided to organise a big speaker meeting and invite one of
the founders of the Transition movement Rob Hopkins. It was decided
to organise some community based environmental training such as
Transition Streets (& village) groups
http://www.transitiontogether.org.uk/totnes-streets/.
Transition Shipston
Xmas Fayre
Transition
Shipston is this year organising an Xmas Fayre at theTownsend Hall
on Saturday 7th
December. Ideas for baking on the day include: ginger bread biscuits
and bread wreaths. There will also be real Xmas wreaths making and
other crafts. We hope to have small indoor market including stalls
of nuts, turkeys, apple juice & cider, fruit wine etc. Calypso
Kids play group will be organising games for children. For more
information contact Erry Lilley erry@redwax.co.uk
Fracking
– The Wrong Move!
Fracking
may come to Warwickshire – this article was sent to us by John
Stott of the Making Henley Greener group in Henley-in-Arden:
Right
now, the government has earmarked nearly two-thirds of England for
possible fracking, without fully understanding what effects it is
likely to have on our health or the countryside.
What
we do know is that if we want to tackle climate change, we must not
be be extracting more fossil fuels out of the ground [1]. The
International Energy Agency has repeated its warning that if
emissions are to be held within the projected danger threshold of a
2C rise,
two-thirds of known fossil fuel reserves cannot be burned.
So what’s the point of spending money seaching for more fossil
fuels? – There isn’t any. It’s pointless and a waste of money.
Money should be spent on development and creating clean sources of
energy instead.
Fracking
involves horizontal drilling that can extend two miles from the
actual drill site, passing directly under the homes of those nearby.
Despite the government’s enthusiastic dash for gas, we have the
power to make fracking very difficult, and may even be able to halt
exploration in its tracks, if enough of us come together. This is
how it works: if you don’t want fracking companies drilling under
your home, you can say so. Then, any drilling there becomes
trespassing; the frackers would be breaking the law. All you have to
do is declare that your home is 'Not for Shale' and you will be
added to the growing legal block to stop fracking where you live.
But
action is needed quickly, as there are hints that the government
will try to change the law to support their dash for gas.
[2]
To
find out if your land is scheduled as possible fracking territory
and to object if necessary click here
http://www.wrongmove.org/
