STALL4ALL – an opportunity for local growers, makers and producers!

If you  have surplus fruit or veg from your allotment/garden, produce small quantities of food at home - pots of jam, cakes etc. or are a local producer of  arts and crafts, read on!   From June 30th, you’ll be able to sell these direct to the public on the Thornton's Budgens Stall4All outside both stores in Belsize Park and Crouch End!
stall4allcrouchend@thorntonsbudgens.comor Sarah at Belsize Park:  stall4allbelsize@thorntonsbudgens.comThornton’s Budgen’s, in collaboration with Stall4All, are launching a brand new  Community Market Stall at their store in Crouch End on Thursday 30th June 2011, and at their store in Belsize Park on Wednesday 6th July.  The stall is for hire by local producers, artisans or makers, from within 20 miles of Camden and Haringey, who have made, grown, produced or created their products.

The Stall4All is available for hire, seven days a week, from 9am - 8pm Monday - Saturday and 12 - 6pm on Sunday.  It is also possible to hire the stall for half day sessions from 9am - 2pm or 3pm - 8pm.  The stall can also be hired for multiple and repeat bookings.
The cost for hire of the stall is £30 per day (or £25 per day for members of Capital Growth, London Food Link, Camden Good Food Partnership, ‘Growing in Haringey’ and local Transition groups.) A covered market stall, a pair of scales and two chairs are included in the hire of the stall.

For further information or to make a booking please
e-mail Anna at Crouch End;

Steering Group Meeting, 13 June 2011, 8.00pm at The Maynard Pub

Present:  Steering Gp: Pamela (Chair), Gillian (minutes), Tilly, Jacki,

Minutes from last meeting (15-05-11) agreed. 

Matters Arising

·       Ed Compton has been in touch re website.  The next stage is to discuss content but this was left over to a later meeting.

·       There will be a meeting about the Crouch Hill Community Park on Wednesday 22 June, 7pm at Crouch Hill Park, entrance from Crouch Hill.

Agenda Items

1) Reporting back

Gillian reported that the North London Bike Power Workshop held on 11 June was a great success.  Magnificent Revolution had found previous courses difficult to fill but this one attracted 15 people. The outcome will be greater collaboration between TCE, Magnificent Revolution and the Green Lens Studios, and a joint venture with other North London Transition Groups to produce a bike-powered generator.

Pamela gave a brief summary of Haringey Council’s 40:20 Conference held on the same day.  There were three presentations from Councillor Jo Goldberg, Cara Jenkins from the 100 Homes Project and a representative of Brent Green zones. This last initiative was very inspiring, a volunteer-run project which involved local activists going round houses and encouraging residents to be responsible for their locality.  Despite the project’s success, funding has been cut due to the change in government.

Pamela has arranged a meeting with her local Councillor Paul Strange to discuss a similar project.  She would like to replicate Muswell Hill Sustainablity Group’s 100 houses project and start a solar panel buying group in Crouch End.  She also proposed a green hub, where people could find out about energy saving, etc.  Gillian suggested HVCC which could also be a centre for recycling.

Tilly reported back that Green on the Screen’s showing of No Impact Man attracted over 40 people; the film was a complex and sometimes challenging view of how to follow a sustainable lifestyle.

There was also information on the two Capital Growth sites: the Harold Road Community Garden and HVCC Kitchen Garden.  Concern was expressed about David’s leaving since he has played a considerable role in organising and overseeing the budget.  There will be a meeting on Wednesday 15 June at 7pm to discuss the future of the site and a farewell celebration for David.  Some suggestions were greater involvement of MORSSH in the project and leafleting local residents.

Richard has been in contact with the Selby Centre to make raised beds for HVCC.  It might be cheaper to collect the beds and assemble on-site and Richard is looking into this.

2 Up and Coming Events

a)Sustainable Haringey Summer Gathering – Sunday 26 June at Railway Fields.

Lunch at 1pm followed by discussion on waste from 2pm onwards.  The three main talking points will be:

·       Veolia’s contract with Haringey Council

·       theproposed incinerator at Pinkham Way

·       increased use of supermarkets plastic bags in Muswell Hill and Crouch End

b)Meadow Orchard Open Day – Saturday 9 July 2011

c)HVCC/TCE Reuse/ Recycle/ Tabletop Sale event 24 September 2011

d)HVCC/TCE  Apple Day 15 October 2011

Note for the last two events,forward planning will be necessary to ensure tables are allocated beforehand.  There is an HVCC Events Meeting on Thursday 15 June at 7.30pm in Meeting Room 2, HVCC to discuss these and other events.

There are two more opportunities to collaborate with other groups:

Transition Finsbury Park’s Well Oiled Festival on Saturday 17 September and the Urban Green Fair in Brockwell Park on Sunday 4 September.

3 Any Other Business

Andrew Thornton has requested a representative from TCE to attend a photoshoot on Wednesday pm to promote the Pennies for Plastic Fund at Budgens.  Pamela will check if Kate or Gemma are free then.  Gillian will find out how the images are to be used and in what context.

North London Bike Power Workshop

A great collaboration between Transition Crouch End, Green Lens Studio and Magnificent Revolution led to the North London Bike Power Workshop being held on Saturday 11^th June, part of Haringey Sustainability Month . The event was well attended with fourteen people engaged in learning all about generating electricity through pedal power. There was an interesting assortment of reasons for attending and possible end uses for applying this knowledge. These included a teacher and a university lecturer wanting to involve their students in experiments with pedal power; desires to use this technology to enable an off-grid lifestyle or to power a theatre production, and as an awareness raising tool for demonstrating the considerable effort needed to produce energy.

The workshop began with an explanation of the physics involved in electrical energy to explain what is required in order to achieve successful power generation. We then split into three groups to start putting theory into practice. There were three practical exercises demonstrating different end uses of the generated power and each group had the opportunity to try out each example. The three methods being:

· Generating power to charge a battery

· Generating DC electricity to directly power appliances

· Passing generated current through an inverter to produce AC power

The workshop also provided useful information on designing the generation system to be appropriate to what you want from it. It also considered the problems with batteries, the pros and cons of DC and AC power, as well as giving essential safety advice.

The day was packed with activity and knowledge sharing but was much enjoyed by all. Much praise goes to Adam and Simon from Magnificent Revolution for putting together and delivering such a fun and accessible workshop. Thanks also to Yev of Green Lens Studio for providing such a delightful venue and of course Gillian of Transition Crouch End for organising and promoting the event. 


If there is anyone out there interested in attending a future Bike Power Workshop please get in touch via transitioncrouchend@gmail.com and as soon as sufficient numbers show an interest, we shall arrange another workshop.

If you want to see more pictures of a great day, check out the Green Lens Studio facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150206831097267.315048.194763337266

Try out an electric bike with Muswell Hill Sustainability Group - Tue 14th June

Muswell Hill Sustainability Group invite you to an evening of sustainable transport
Tue 14th June, any time between 6.30 and 9.00pm
CUFOS, top of The Avenue (behind Alexandra Palace), Muswell Hill N10 2QE (www.cufos.org.uk)


The MHSG Low Carbon Buying Group is now launching the electric bikes disount with Spencer Ivy - see here for info. The bikes will be available to trial around Alexandra Park at this event. You can also bring your bike along for a free Dr.Bike MOT and find out about safe cycling, car clubs, electric vehicles and charging points.

Please RSVP if you would like to attend or are interested in the electric bikes offer.Kate Allardyce
En10ergy and Muswell Hill Low Carbon Zone
07798 835738

Real Farm Festival, Church Farm, Ardeley 17-19 June 2011

Real farming, what’s the big idea?

If everyone in Britain is going to enjoy safe, healthy, natural food, often referred to as Real
Food, we need a national Real Farming movement. ‘We all farm every time we eat’ says Tim Waygood, farmer and entrepreneur. We Britons need to take responsibility for our food and how it is farmed.

We need to abandon factory farming and the GM industrial agriculture advocated by British and American governments, corporates and banks, and invest in healthy, ecologically sound ways of farming that produce the food that people want to eat at an affordable price.

On Saturday 18th June, Real Farm Festival invites people to take part in a series of conversations on the science, philosophy and practicalities of farming for real food. We welcome speakers from the Soil Association, Organic Research Centre, Campaign for Real Farming, Self Knowledge Global Responsibility, Pesticide Action Network, FARM:shop, Agrarian Renaissance, and Ecological Land Co-operative.

The IAASTD, United Nations and HRH Prince of Wales have all this year advocated “agroecology” as a practical way of feeding the world’s growing population, but British government scientists refuse to acknowledge that it can be done.

British people need to get clued up on farming if they are to hold the government to account, to demand research is directed towards ecological farming and to implement change at the grassroots level regardless of political will.

Questions we’ll be putting to the presenters at the Real Farm Festival include: How bad is GM? What are the alternatives? What is polyculture? What will it take for Britain to become ecologically farmed?

Real farming needs a new focus for agricultural science, new appropriate technology and potentially different economic structures to ensure farms nourish people and planet, before profit. People are invited to come down to Real Farm Festival and contribute to the big ideas.

Church Farm is a mixed, high welfare 175-acre farm run predominantly by young people (80% female) who care about the future of real food. Get a taste of how ecological farming is possible, have a go at farming, take part in various workshops (such as the Biodynamic Stirring Party, Wild Cultures - art of fermentation, Peg Looming) enjoy and take part in lots of live music, performance and games, eat great food fresh off the farm, and really get stuck in to some big ideas.

All tickets and info are on the website, www.realfarmfestival.com

CSA Off Grid 'Sleep under the Stars' Camp at Church Farm

Wide skies, fresh air , lush open  fields, compost toilets , water, plenty of material to make fires ,12 Crouch Enders, great neighbours, spirits of adventure, all made for a rich and rewarding experience. We put up tents together, quickly established cooking, fire pit and washing areas. We rustled up Dinner, breakfast and lunch together, suiting both veg and meat eaters. The halloumi and marsmallows were a hit! We joined the big camp for an unbelievably huge bonfire, surrounded by straw bales to sit on.. We made dens and friends, collected firewood, launched sustainable rockets, fed lambs and calves, celebrated Dans birthday, napped where we could and connected with shared stories and experiences..   All in all a very worthwhile experience and a great celebration of 10 months Crouch End CSA 'More than a box scheme'!

Community Choir Thursdays 12-2pm

Local singer, teacher & choir leader

invites you to

 

- launch of the new community choir starting Thursday lunchtimes :-)
- 2nd June, 12 midday til 2pm   (it will run for 6 weeks, then restart in September.)

 

At The Station House, 73c Stapleton Hall Rd, Stroud Green, London N4 3QF

(Bus W3, or 10 mins walk from Finsbury park tube, 5 mins from Buses, W7, 210.

junction of Ferme park road, parkland walk and Stapleton hall rd)

 

A choir open to all abilities, and nationalities, beginners welcome

 

Rock, soul, Gospel, Motown, Classical, Jazz, Folk...

 

We will sing one of each music style, hopefully have a lot of fun,  then the rest of the songs we sing will be up to you!

sliding scale costs £5-10

(reduction for 6 week bookings)

 

Come build up your inner resilience

To find your voice, contact our choir leader:

07729 749 493      sing1728@yahoo.co.uk