Transition Town Forres Spring 2013 Newsletter

7/29/2019 Transition Town Forres Spring 2013 Newsletter

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S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

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Save the Dates

News from

Transition Town Forres

Work DaysMake the new Centre YOUR

Centre, too!

Join us for Work Days, plannedfor the first Saturday of each

month, starting 1 May. Well

decide shortly before each day

exactly what the tasks will be.

Tasks will include things like

moving items (both large and

small), painting, tending to the

outdoor plants, organizing and

freshening up various spaces.

Look to the website

(www.ttforres.org) for details on

each upcoming work day.

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Additionally, there will be an

impromptu workday sometime in

March or April to paint windows.

Please email [email protected]

to register interest.

Let the Building Works Begin!Work has begun in earnest on the Environmental Education and Healthy

Living Centre. Anticipated to take approximately 12-16 weeks, we arehoping to have works complete some time in May, and an official

opening a month or so after that.

Its a busy time for the directors & Treasurer, who are working very hard

with the architect and the builders to sort out the many questions arising.

Please see pages 2-3 for details on the Centre and proposed programmes.

Swedish Visit23-24 April 2013

Swedish delegation

visits Forres

Photo by Carin Schwartz

Work Day4 May, 10am

First of the monthly

work days, scheduled

for the 1st Saturday of

each month.

Coffee Morning

Coffee Morning at

Forres Town Hall

6 July, 10 am -noon


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SPRING 2013TRANSITION TOWN FORRES

Whats New & Good

TTF + Transition Sweden

From April 22-23, our Swedish Transition colleagues will bevisiting Forres and elsewhere in Moray. We are working

closely with LEADER to plan the visit, which will include

the Community Gardens, the building site (perhaps simply

looking into the building site) for the Environmental

Education & Healthy Living Centre, and more.

Are you interested in helping out or joining us when we

show our Swedish guests around Bogton Road? If yes,

please contact Carin at [email protected].

Help Shape Future OfferingsWe are currently brainstorming and fundraising for

projects and programmes to put in place oncebuilding works are complete for our new Centre.

Help us prioritise them by giving rankings 1 7

(1 means its most important to you, 7 means its

least important.) Or send in your own idea!

__ Cozy Community Corner a place in the Centre

to hang out, with comfy seats, reading material,

bulletin boards, etc.

__ Electric Vehicle Charging Station.

__ Healthy Eating Demonstration kitchen(fridge, freezer, hobs, utensils, juicers, etc for

cookery workshops) and demos, workshops, etc.

__ Hub space for community groups in

Environmental Education & Healthy living to

share resources.

__ Market /Farmers Market a regular market forlocal producers.

__ Mens Shed (outwith the Centre) a space for

people to work together, mostly quietly, e.g. fixingtools, woodworking, etc.

__ Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk regular talks,

films, etc with discussion, planning and action.

If you have another idea, please write it here:

__________________________________________

You can email responses to [email protected], or

post them to TTF, c/o The Hub, 20 Tolbooth

Street, Forres IV36 1PH.

Save up now for the Food BankOne of the many uses we envision for our new Centre is that

it will serve as a drop-off point for the new Food Bank.

Community Food Moray co-ordinates the programme, and

we want to support their fantastic efforts to help people put

food on the table.

Its not too soon to start setting aside non-perishable food

items. We anticipate the Food Bank Drop-Off Spot will be

ready for the first donations in June.


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Environmental Ed & Health Livin Centre

We were able to secure enough funding that, with

scaling the project back a bit, work was able tobegin. Contracts were signed in January, and work

began shortly thereafter.

Youll see at the Bogton site that the building

works area is fenced off, and will remain so until

works are complete. We anticipate that will be in

May.

The builders will leave for us a fabulous areaready for us to work with. It will be a bit of a

blank canvas, and there will still be lots to do: painting walls and windows,

moving in furniture, sorting out files and equipment, putting up bulletin boards, organising the kitchen space,

creating a Cozy Community Corner, and more.

Why not join in for a work day so that it really becomes your Centre, too? Whether or not you have special

skills, your help will be very much appreciated and will make a difference.

Colours, colours

We are choosing colours for the flooring and walls andwelcome your input. The possible colours are up on the TTF

website. Take a look and send us your thoughts. Briefly, if

possible, and with the awareness that the best we can do is

take all the input on board to make the final decisions.

Thank-you to our Donors!

We thank our charitable and government

donors:

LEADER ~ The Robertson Trust ~

Hugh Fraser Foundation ~ Garfield-

Weston Foundation ~ Trusthouse

Charitable Foundation ~ Margaret

Cameron Trust ~ York &

Clydesdale Bank Trust

Work has started

Get involved through work days

And our private donors through the RocketHub crowd-

funding bid, which raised over 700 in total.

Brian Colgate ~ Jane Duncan Rogers ~

Mike Grenville ~ Steve Hull ~ Joanna Legard

Karen Leudtke ~ Yvonne Magee ~

Annie Murphy ~ Claralynn Nunamaker ~

Alison Ozgur ~ Dorota Owen ~ Kamil

Pachalko ~ Carin Schwartz ~ Catherine ~

anonymous donor 1 ~ anonymous donor 2


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The TTF website has a beautiful

new look thanks to our new Web

Services Coordinator, Diana

McPartlin.

Youll find the new site is very

similar to the old but now has

more consistent formatting and is

linked in with the social networks

Twitter & Facebook.

www.ttforres.org

twitter.com/TTForres

www.facebook.com/

TransitionTownForres

Many thanks to Diana McPartlin

for making it happen.

Opportunity Knocks!

TTF now has in hand the Transition Streets materials.

And we are eager to start a group in or near Forres.

Whats needed is a neighbourhood with 6 households

interested in meeting 7-8 times over about 4 months.

Two neighbourhoods have shown interest but have

yet to reach the critical mass of 6 households.

Could your neighbourhood be the first?

What TTF will do is:

* help set up your group and come to at least the

first meeting to facilitate,

* make sure you get copies of the Transition Streets

materials, and

* help you come up with your own action plan tosave money and reduce your carbon footprint.

If youre interested in building community, this is a

terrific way to do so while learning something new,

having fun, and getting to know your neighbours.

Sound interesting? Please contact Claralynn on 01309

671 555, or email her at [email protected] .

Pro ect Re orts & U dates

Transition Streets

Revised TTF Website

TTF is growing and theres room for a few new key

players. Could that be you?

Roles that need to be filled include:

Secretary

Business Development Officer

Events Coordinator

External Publicity & Media Coordinator

Membership Coordinator

Fundraising Coordinator

Volunteers Coordinator

If youd like to volunteer in one of these (or another)area, please write to [email protected]. Please note

that we do ask our volunteers:

* to be a TTF member (it is free);

* to give 2 or more hours a week on a regular basis;

* to be willing to use email for correspondence.

Volunteers - Help Wanted!

The garden has been very quiet over

the winter, with the last meeting being

cancelled due to unforeseen

circumstances. The hope is to have a

meeting in early of March, and to set a

number of workdays for the year.

The relatively mild winter has allowed

the keener gardeners to continue

harvesting some of the hardier crops,

and the stores have survived reasonablywell. The recent sunny days have

hinted at the promise of spring

around the corner, and the cycle of

planting can start again.

It is good to see the work on thepavilion underway, and we look

forward to seeing the project

completed and the site used

productively. (Continued next column)

The Garden Group

Two members of the garden group

have started the Moray Beekeeperscourse. So we will see the return of

some hives to the site soon and

have the hope of bumper crops as

the bees start their work. Fingers

crossed for a good growing season.

The Make & Mend group

continues to meet on Mondays

at Forres House. This is a drop-

in group, and new people are

very welcome to join in.

Project leader Kay Fielding

encourages people to bring their

own projects if theyd like. She

adds that the group is aboutideas for living as well as

projects.

Make & Mend


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Whos on the Board?The TTF board has had a few changes since the last

newsletter. Here is an updated list.

TTF Directors

Carin Schwartz, chair

Kay Fielding

George Goudsmit

Bisong Guo

Sandra Maclennan

Claralynn Nunamaker

Donald Rodgie

Key individuals

Ian Osgoode, Garden Group

Chair

Tony Pinner, Treasurer

Diana McPartlin, Web Services

Coordinator

The last year has primarily

been spent on funding

applications. TTF hassubmitted over 20 applications

and successfully secured

90,000. This is what is now

enabling us to start the

conversion of our shed to an

Environmental Education and

Healthy Living Centre.

A lot of work has gone on in

the background with plans,

planning applications, boardmeetings and a great many

planning meetings. Now comes

the fun part of making colour

decisions and then to plan what

will eventually happen at the

Centre.

First we will need to find a

catchy name. Any suggestions?

Environmental Education andHealthy Living Centre doesnt

exactly roll of the tongue. So

what would you like it to be

known as?

Spring is around the corner,

and any day now we could start

work down at the Community

Garden for those who have

Updates From the Board

Were very pleased to have secured

enough funding to go forward with

the Centre building project!

Additionally, the Forres Common

Good Fund has granted us 400 forthe decoration of twelve of our

Chatterboxes. These are the outdoor

raised beds. We aim to work with a

local artist, a local environmental

educator, and children to decorate

these boxes in a way that is fun,educational, and very artistic.

Currently we are working on 4

further funding applications for

programmes and projects in the newCentre.

Claralynn Nunamaker

Fundraising

Committee

Notes From the Chair

plots. For those of you who

would like to dip your toe ingardening, you could come

down and help to establish the

boxes that we are increasingly

filling the parking area with.

They are just slightly bigger

than a square meter but yield a

substantial amount of food.

They need more soil and some

care before planting.

We will have a number of

projects at Bogton, would youlike to add some of your own?

The initial ones are:

Mens Shed, Farmers Market,

Cozy Community corner,

Healthy Eating.

We anticipate that the shed

will be ready for painting inlate April or early May. We

then need to arrange a great

and fantastic opening weekend.

Would you like to help?

If youd like to volunteer or let

us know your ideas, please

write us at [email protected].

Carin Schwartz, Chair


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If youd like to join or renew your membership, please fill in

the form below and return it to us at:

Transition Town Forres

20 Tolbooth St

Forres IV36 1PH

Please return to

Transition TownForres

20 Tolbooth Street

Forres IV36 1PH

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Transition Town Forres Spring 2013 Newsletter

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