Newsletter November 2007
Sustain West Cork Weekend Festival
After months of preparation, weeks of anxiety and many sleepless nights the Sustain Festival finally arrived. After the summer of misery the sun came out to grace proceedings and it was more than welcome. The three day event was an ambitious one - a packed programme of lectures, street theatre, music and children’s events. The theme of the weekend was "It's about our children's future". In designing a logo we asked local children to base it around what they feel needs to be done and what they are asking us as adults to do to help ensure a healthy and sustainable future for generations ahead. The winning designs were by Thomas Everett and Dylan O'Flynn from Coomhola NS and Ceola Reece from San Matthias NS Ballydehob.
The festival opened on Friday night with a sell-out concert with Christy Moore and Declan Sinnott. Moore who spends a lot of time in the area makes no secret of his feelings about the environment. ‘ It’s really important work that Sustain West Cork are doing. Everyone should support them’. Earlier in the evening Mark Edwards, the widely published photographer, gave a moving presentation of his Hard Rain book of photographs taken in 150 countries. It is a powerful commentary on climate change, environmental collapse and global poverty. The Hard Rain exhibition, a spectacular 40m montage currently on tour around Europe, was on display in Wolfe Tone Square over the weekend. Sustain took the banner on to the Electric Picnic in Co Laois the following weekend and it's still on tour. The Hard Rain book is available from Booksteps bookstore in Bantry www.booksteps.ie
One of the highlights on Saturday was a talk given by film producer David Puttnam and one of the founding members of Friends of the Earth Jonathon Porritt. Puttnam, famous for films such as ‘ Chariots of Fire’ and ‘The Killing Fields’ is now Chairman of the British House of Commons Joint Committee on the Climate Change Bill. Porritt is Chairman of the Sustainable Development Committee in Britain which is the watchdog overseeing government environmental policy. Both underlined the importance of politicians drawing up strong legislation to reduce emissions and protect our environment. Mike Holden from the sustainable community development The Village in Cloughjordan, County Tipperary gave practical examples of how development can take place while taking care of the environment . Klaus Harvey from Kinsale, now designated a Transition Town , explained how they are working to reduce its energy needs. Later, on Saturday night several bands including Poles Apart , The Bobby Lee Band with Ciara O’Driscoll and local band Mannikin played in the West Lodge Hotel.
Sunday was another glorious day as people arrived for the parade and for the exhibition. Artist Luisa McCarthy ran a bee making workshop with recycled materials which took place in Bantry Library with children between 7 and 12 . The bees were used as part of a bee keeping information exhibit as part of the larger exhibition over the weekend. The purpose was to raise awareness about the depletion of bee stocks and the ongoing survey on West Cork bees organised by Tim Rowe. Elsewhere, children were donning their costumes also made from recycled materials for the parade. They carried their “Eco-Inventions” made in local summer camps run by Annie King and K2 Arts. After the parade around the square the audience were treated to colourful street theatre and live music. A stage was erected for set dancing and those who still had enough breath left got up and danced to lively gypsy and Jewish music from The Fireflies. All in all, a fun and informative weekend.
The theme of sustainability continued the following weekend at the Sustainable Homes Exhibition which took place at the Bantry Show on September 2nd. This was a great success as the show attracts up to 10,000 visitors each year. We intend to build on that success in 2008.
Sustain West Cork nominated for environmental award
As a result of the successful Sustain West Cork weekend festival we have been nominated for the Cork Environmental Forum Community Sector Environmental Award 2007. Awards are presented to groups and organisations in the Community, Business and Public Sector for projects and actions they have taken as well as one award made to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution towards environmental care in the Cork region. The awards event will take place on Friday December 7th in Cork City.
A big Thank You to all who were involved in this year's event. If you have any ideas for next year or would like to get involved please contact Volunteers Coordinator Sarah Falkner at sarah.falkner@gmail.com or ring her on 087 9332060.
Community Solutions
Well, after the success and excitement of the Sustain West Cork Weekend we thought we may get a little break. But no, it's all go and many inspiring events and ideas keep coming. We have been holding regular COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS evenings aimed at doing exactly what it says on the label: finding local solutions to the issues facing our community.
The End of Suburbia This film was shown in The Bantry Bay Hotel, the venue kindly provided by Vivian O'Callaghan. On Tuesday 11th Sept. about twenty people-including Mary Hegarty, Bantry Town Mayor showed up to view this film, which discusses the dwindling supply of cheap energy in the form of fossil fuels and its effect on society. Discussion followed facilitated by Mike Holden, Global Action Plan Project Manager for the Cork Region. If you would like to get a copy of this film, you can order it through www.endofsuburbia.com
We would recommend you watch it in a group so as to have the opportunity for immediate reflection. Alternatively, if you would like Sustain to bring the "Community Solutions" forum with a facilitator and the film into your community please contact us and we will try to arrange this.
Preparing Communities for a low energy future
There was a huge turnout for the public meeting held On Tuesday 18th Sept. in The Bantry Christian Fellowship Hall with kind permission of David Ross and the Church Committee. Around eighty people turned up to avail of this opportunity to hear presentations and join in the questions and answers session. These high profile speakers had come straight from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) International Conference which was held in Cork City this year.
Davy Philips from The Cultivate Centre in Dublin was the first to speak, and gave a power point presentation on the "Community Powerdown Toolkit" course designed by Cultivate . (A study group is currently following this course in Kinsale Further Education College and it will hopefully be on offer to the people of West Cork through Sustain's Outreach Education Programme.) Davy then gave a short presentation of "The Village", Cloughjordan, Tipperary, which is an innovative
community development project. It is designed specifically to be integrated into an already existing village with a population in decline. You can find out more through their website www.thevillage.ie .
Next to speak was Albert Bates, founder of The Farm, Tennessee, and an influential figure in the intentional community and eco village movements also the principal organiser of The Ecovillage Network for the Americas. Albert firmly believes that Peak Oil and a Post Petroleum Lifestyle could be something wonderful. The audience were taken on a brief visit of Ecovillages around the world and Albert spoke of the challenges that arise for them. You can find out more about Albert and The Farm through www.thefarm.org.
Rob Hopkins from Transition Towns Totnes in England was next on the floor who presented an overview of Energy Descent Planning and introduced the 12 step process towards communities "Skilling Up for Powerdown". He spoke of the importance of building resilience, creating a vision and backcasting a timetable of how to get there, and stated that once our liquid fuels have been taken away from us there will be no alternative but to adapt to life without them anyway. There are numerous communities in England inspired by the Transition Towns Movement and here in Ireland Kinsale has taken the initiative. A Transition Network has now been set up in England to offer support to these initiatives and projects and Kinsale is currently developing a network to support transition in Ireland. To find out more about Robs' work and Transition Towns, visit Robs' website www.transitionculture.org.
The last speaker was Jonathan Dawson from European Global Village Network who was replacing Gregory Greene, writer and producer of the film "The End of Suburbia", who only managed to get as far as Dublin!! Oh well, maybe another time! Jonathan, who resides at and works for the Findhorn community in Scotland however, was a wonderful replacement and covered a variety of topics, which acted as a springboard for the discussions that followed from the floor. These topics included: Community Cooperation in order to reduce our ecological and carbon footprint; Community Interest Companies such as Hydro schemes etc; The importance of access to land in order to produce local food; and Awareness Raising methods. In attendance was Mary Hegarty and Aidan McCarthy, Mayor and former Mayor of Bantry. Mary thanked Sustain for their dedicated work, and stated that she felt Bantry had all the potential to become an Eco town.
Bantry Allotments Scheme
Unlike many European countries, Ireland has very few allotments available. There are currently less than 500 compared to the UK which has a thriving allotment culture with around 265,000 plots a decade ago. Today, the Netherlands has approximately 650 allotment parks and 100,000 allotment gardeners. Germany has over one million of them.
On Tuesday October 16th there was a meeting to discuss the proposed new Bantry Allotment Garden project. It was an opportunity for anyone interested in renting a plot to find out more and add their name to the waiting list.
Kate Arbon of West Cork Community Partnership (WCCP) and Sustain West Cork (SWC) introduced the evening. She highlighted the fact that SWC was very interested in promoting the growing of food locally. She also explained that WCCP has 2 years funding for allotment gardens in Bantry as part of its social integration budget. Cork County Council is also starting two pilot allotment projects, one in Reenrour East, Bantry and the other in Shannonvale, Clonakilty which should be up and running in the Spring.
Michael O’Donovan and Bill Lynch of the National Learning Network (NLN) were demonstrating the plans for the new community garden project which is under construction at Donemark, Bantry. Bill Lynch has been involved with the plans since they first began 17 years ago. The funding for the project has now been secured and the plans are now going ahead with the support of FAS. There are many areas to the garden including an auditorium for outdoor performances, a meditation space, a sensory garden, a children’s art and play area and a water sculpture which will be powered by renewable forms of energy. The construction is being done as part of a FAS sponsored training course. It has 15-20 trainees and three supervisors, with the training being done to FETAC level 5 in various areas including horticulture and construction. The plans look very exciting and NLN is hopeful that it will be a popular area to visit in Bantry and that members of the local community will be interested in helping with maintenance of the project when that time comes.
The next speaker was Fred La Haye. Fred comes from Holland and has been living in Ballingeary for 30 years. He is a very enthusiastic organic gardener. He said that local food production is becoming ever more critical with food shortages already evident worldwide. He is concerned for the future of farming as it is no longer lucrative and many farmers are choosing to buy food rather than growing their own and farms are being neglected. If people were to choose to learn again how to grow their own food, a small plot of 100 sq m including a polytunnel can provide enough food to feed a family of three to four with the possibility of being self-sufficient on a year-round basis.
Fred grows both indoors in the polytunnel and outside. H has managed to grow a large variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers among them peaches, nectarines, apricots, kiwis, pears and passionflowers. He harvests many of his own seeds and promotes the benefits of having a local seed bank. He is very enthusiastic about allotments because they are a very interactive and sociable way of gardening with people sharing their knowledge and experiences. There can be a shared area in any allotment project where for instance fruit trees can be grown. Also an area around the site can be developed to encourage wildlife.
There are two potential sites for the allotments about which WCCP were very hopeful. WCCP would help in the preparation of the allotment garden site. There was also support in the audience from a number of other organic growers in the area who were willing to offer advice and support at the meeting and in the future.
People were invited to give their names to Kate Arbon if they were interested in signing up to the project and they would be contacted in the near future.
The next Community Solutions eveniing on November 27 tackled the issue of reducing energy costs without losing any of the home comforts. This public meeting looked at ways to save energy and money in the home. 3 builders / self builders talked about how to re-insulate an existing home to bring it up towards an A Rating and different methods to build a new highly efficient home. A Self Builder also talked about his current build & the realities of taking on such a project. Check out the Community Solutions section of our website for more details and a list of green building links.
Freecycle
Sustain would like to highlight our "FREECYCLE FORUM" which is a new item on the website. Here you can advertise things that you no longer want yet which may be of value to others. So, if you have a couch, a fridge or even spare wood or building materials you no longer need instead of taking them to the tip advertise them on FREECYCLE. If someone is interested they contact you and come and collect the item. It saves you the hassle and the expense of dumping AND it doesn’t go into landfill!
All items must be free. To use this forum you must register yourself. We are working in conjunction with Cork County Council to promote and provide the use of this forum through information boards and leaflets at Recycling Centres and Council Offices throughout West Cork, and to highlight the change in attitude needed to move from a "throw away" culture to one of resourcefulness.
New Powerdown group for Bantry area
Powerdown is a term used for a process of reducing reliance on energy. The emphasis for the establishment of the group which is welcomed by Sustain will be looking at ways to keep the economy truly local, taking away the dependence on imported goods, going as far as looking into establishing a Community Power Company and other Community Business opportunities. The group will also be looking at the Transtion Towns model. The first meeting took place on November 14 at the Resource Centre in Bantry. All sectors of the community are encouraged to become involved in this initiative. Look out for notices in the local papers and posters regarding further meetings.
New volunteers
Sustain has an ambitious programme of events and goals to achieve. We are planning a day of action on December 8th in conjunction with the Stop Climate Chaos alliance which includes social, development as well as environmental groups. We hope to carry out some joint projects with Growing Awareness including Farm/Garden and Sustainable Lifestyle visits and workshops starting next spring. Therefore, it’s vital that we encourage as many people as possible to get involved. On October 24th a new volunteers gathering was held in Rosie’s bar in Ballydehob. We had a good response and we now have some new enthusiastic volunteers onboard. But we could always do with more help so as to get more projects off the ground. If you want to get involved please contact Volunteers Coordinator Sarah Falkner at sarah.falkner@mail.com or ring her at 087 9332060 …We’d love to hear from you.