Author: TThastings

Transition Town Hastings ~ Meeting Minutes 20/09/17

25th September 2017

Projects

Garden:

  • explanation of garden project – where we are at
  • Open Day 22nd Oct 12-3pm
  • Alex explained that Quakers do small grants (£400) we could use towards a water butt – we would have to raise another 400 as the cost is 800.

Energy Group:

  • Ken reported 3 ideas being explored
  1. Hastings Pier – to make it an electric generator/ renewably run
  2. twinning with German town Schwerte
  3. Wasn’t sure ? But maybe Anthony’s idea of mapping all the solar power in the town and connecting it?

 

Chris connected with someone from Wave Energy – talked about wave machine on pier.

Possibility of a feasibility study for a scheme across Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings. Approx cost of study is £10,000. Chris going to look into it more – connect with Richard and ESC! Think Chris will be attending the next Energy group meeting.

ACTION: Karen – add Chris to mailing list (DONE)

 

Packaging:

Karen explained the project we had in mind, starting with survey to assess the current situation with local food takeaway businesses

Possibility of affinity scheme to get a discount from eco packing companies with a mass order

Problems we came across were needing more people and support but also, what would happen to the packaging when disposed of? Compostable materials cannot go in landfill waste or recycling.

This lead to a discussion about food waste collection in Hastings and the petition to ESCC by the Green Party.

Should TTH partner with GP to help push this forward before pursuing the packaging project?

ACTION: Chris to send Karen info from Judy Scott (GP Secretary) about food waste petition and Karen to mail out to members

Ken mentioned the new sports complex proposed for Filsham Valley area – could this be a good place for an anaerobic digester?

ESCC contract with Kier has come to an end – good opportunity to push for alternative waste disposal?

 

Janice: unsure about what should happen to all the recycling – not always clear. Info from Veolia trip would be useful – FORGOT TO MENTION THERE IS SOME INFO ON THE TTH WEBSITE!

 

Events

AGM:

  • 21st Oct 10-12 @ White Rock Hotel
  • speakers: Gabriel Carlyle from Fossil Free Hastings/Divest East Sussex
  • possibly TT Deal
  • Sherry; are we sending out official invites to HBC and local councillors/stakeholders?

Energy Day:

  • 1066 energy campaign day on the Stade 10th Sept
  • not much said on this but some attendees were there – said it was good, collected some signatures for FFH

Film Nights:

  • after AGM now – hoping to get someone to volunteer to organise
  • Felicity and Richard suggested showing new Al Gore film – maybe first and second
  • Sassie suggested ‘We the Uncivilised’ – really good but makers want £100 to show film and give a talk Q&A. We could take donations/small charge on the door again?

Other:

  • Felicity – Hastings Supports Refugees event organised for 27th Sept ‘Hastings Debates’ hoping to be a regular event. Would help the interconnection of groups in Hastings. TTH to promote. ACTION – Felicity to send digital copy of poster to Karen who will share with mailing list

 

  • Alex; Quakers event at Friends Meeting House Sat 7th Oct (evening), ‘preparing people for the next economic collapse’
  • plenary session and Q&A inviting 4 groups to speak including TTH
  • focus on resilience

ACTION: Sherry to send info to core group

 

A.O.B

 

Ken – Ore CLT & Heart of Hastings CLT, Old Power Station Site in Ore Valley. Bill Dunster (eco housing guy) involved

Feasibility study to connect greenway from hastings station to Ore Valley (is this correct I can’t read Chris’ writing!?)

 

Old bathing pool site (west St Leonards) up for sale – perfect for a CLT – do we know anyone in that area? Encourage community in that area to set up a CLT. HBC have £200,000 sitting in the bank to be spent on CLT’s – already given money to HoH CLT and Ore CLT

 

ACTION: Karen speak to Mat and Tom and contact HBC to ask for an info pack on the site and send to Ken.

 

Discussion about Eco Pods for the homeless. Empty properties in Hastings

 

Sherry: Well-Being event this weekend. Looking for case studies of people being brought together in a positive way – HSR picnic? Felicity?

 

Summary of Actions

 

CHRIS P: send Karen info from Judy Scott about food waste campaign

KAREN: add Chris R to mailing list (done), mail out food waste petition info to members of this meeting & a Mailchimp to gather support, send out Hastings Debates promo to mailing list, speak to Mat & Tom about bathing pool site and contact HBC to request info pack

FELICITY: email Hastings Debates poster to Karen

SHERRY: send info about Quakers event to core team

 

Meeting Adjourned.

Next Meeting tbc.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t miss the bus on climate change: make pensions fossil free!

13th September 2017

On Saturday 23 September campaigners from across East Sussex will be boarding one of the Big Lemon’s sustainable buses for a one-day tour of East Sussex, taking the message about fossil fuel divestment – and the Divest East Sussex petition – to Hastings, Bexhill, Hailsham, Eastbourne, Seaford, Crowborough, Uckfield and Brighton.

If you’d like to come and see us off on the day – and take part in the photo call, featuring one of the Big Lemon’s sustainable buses – then please meet us by Hastings pier at 9.15am on Saturday 23 September.

“If we want to avoid 2C, we have very little time left. The public should be very concerned.” – Adrian Raftery, co-author of the recent scientific paper ‘Less than 2 °C warming by 2100 unlikely’, Nature Climate Change, 31 July 2017.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

We’ve already seen global warming of over 1 degree centigrade.

The resulting climate change is now leading to increasingly severe impacts – from rapidly melting sea-ice at the poles to 50 degree heatwaves in India and drought in California. The UK is also seeing serious impacts – with increasingly severe flooding in almost every region and country in the UK in recent years – and it’s going to get much, much worse.

Unless, that is, we take action NOW to ensure that most of the known deposits of fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) are left in the ground unburnt, and replace them with cleaner sources of energy.

LET’S NOT MISS THE BUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

East Sussex County Council (ESCC) currently has £150m of local people’s pension monies invested in fossil fuels. These investments are a disaster for the climate as well as a financial risk for local people’s pensions.

Hastings Borough Council, Lewes Town Council and Brighton & Hove City Council have all called on ESCC to get rid of these investments (‘divest’).

Add your voice to the calls for divestment by signing the petition to divest the East Sussex Pension Fund and join us on 23 September if you can (see below for our schedule).

Together we can send a strong message to the ESCC that it’s time to move our money away from the problem and into the solutions.

More info here.

Save the date! 1066 Energy Campaign Launch

7th August 2017

Join us for our Big Happy Sun-day on Sunday 10th September 10am–4pm, outside the Stade Hall in Hastings Old Town. A day of family fun and celebration as we launch the 1066 Energy Campaign for Local Energy.

The jam packed day will include free interactive games for children such as solar boat making, cycle powered smoothies, toy car racing and our solar cinema! This will run alongside fun for all the family such as a morning salute to the sun yoga session, music, singing, massage, giveaways and more.

Transition Town Hastings is part of the group launching the 1066 Energy campaign for local energy to power the local economy.

Contact kate@energisesussexcoast.co.uk for more details or visit www.energisesussexcoast.co.uk

Compost it!

Recycle Food Waste Petition to HBC

31st July 2017

PROVIDE SERVICES TO RECYCLE FOOD WASTE IN HASTINGS

Food waste:
– smells, attracts vermin and seagulls, and contributes to CO2 emissions in landfill sites.
– could be turned into valuable compost.

Hastings Old Town residents said in recent surveys that not knowing what to do with food waste was one of their main local concerns.

Lewes District Council will save 4000 tonnes of CO2 over 5 years by recycling food waste. They will also produce soil conditioner from the waste that can be sold to bring money back into the community.

We call on our Council to provide regular food waste collection services for Hastings residents. This will reduce the problems of bins attracting seagulls, reduce CO2, and encourage people to reduce their own food waste.

Sign the Petition to Hastings Borough Council now

Image © Beccy McCray

Flourishing community garden

20th July 2017

Thanks to all the hard work of our volunteers the community garden at the station is flourishing. The sunflowers are starting to appear as well as Cosmos, Cornflowers, Honeysuckle and Lavender and much more. We’ve lost a few things to the wildlife but we’re more than happy to share! In fact we encourage the local residents to help themselves. Get down to the garden and see if there’s anything ready – courgettes are looking good…

Our visit to Hollingdean Materials Recovery Facility

19th July 2017


A truly fascinating and educational morning was spent by 14 Transition Town Hastings folk at the Hollingdean Materials Recovery Facility in Brighton last week.

We found out they don’t actually recycle Hastings and Rother recycling waste – it goes to Crayford in Kent!


Before the sorting begins

We did get to see how they process all of Brighton’s recycling, as well as fly tipping and commercial waste and learn about what they do and don’t recycle.

They employ  a team of people to sort waste as well as relying on machinery to filter out paper, steel and aluminium. Machines suck up paper and steel cans get pulled away by magnets. They mostly sell on paper, steel and aluminium made into large bails and sometimes shipped to China!

Seems we need more industries in the UK prepared to buy recycled materials to manufacture products. At present, more than 50% of materials recycled in the UK are exported and often manufactured into down-graded products – instead of becoming raw materials for UK industry.

According to our guide at Hollingdean many food companies are reluctant to use recycled plastics because of fears that people will not buy their products (like plastic milk bottles that look slightly grey).

Non recyclables collected at Hollingdean end up in the Newhaven Incinerator down the road where energy is generated and fed into the National Grid.

Also at Hollingdean and other Veolia sites they are working with a new (and secret) technology to recycle coffee cups.

We think every school pupil in the country should visit these sites to find out what really happens to our waste.

NEW – relaunched energy group!

10th July 2017

Following the Community Energy Fortnight speaker event, the relaunched transition community energy group met on 6th July at the White Rock Hotel. The meeting was on an appropriately beautiful sunny day in the White Rock hotel which overlooks the sea and generates some of its power with solar panels on the roof. In this spot, we couldn’t help but be inspired by the potential we have locally to use the energy of the sun, sea and wind to power our town.

The group concentrated on visioning what we would love to see in our local area, with ideas ranging from becoming ‘Silicon Seaside’ and encourage cutting edge renewable energy tech innovation to the local area, to becoming the first seaside town with a pier powered on renewable energy. Please take a look at the minutes to read the full list of ideas. We would love to hear your thoughts, feedback or any useful contacts. Even better we’d love to hear them in person at the next meeting!

The next meeting will be held on Thursday 10th August, 7:30pm – 9pm at the White Rock Hotel where we will be voting on our ideas and selecting a few to start progressing. The meeting is open to anyone that would like to get involved in community energy, or just learn a bit more. More ideas can be added to the list so please get in contact if you’d like to add anything and come along to the meeting. If you are thinking about getting involved then please do! This is an exciting time in the world of community energy and there’s so much potential in Hastings and St Leonards for interesting projects which really make a difference.

For more information please email kate@energisesussexcoast.co.uk

Vote for Science Lab on the Beach at a local Tesco store

29th June 2017

Energise Sussex Coast is bidding to bag a massive cash boost for it’s ‘Science Lab on the Beach’ project from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative.

Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme, which sees grants of £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 – all raised from the 5p bag levy – being awarded to local community projects.

Three groups in every Tesco region have been shortlisted to receive the cash award and shoppers are being invited to head along to Tesco stores to vote for who they think should take away the top grant.

Energise Sussex Coast is one of the groups on the shortlist.

The Science Lab on the Beach will feature solar powered family activities, solar panel making, solar powered boat building for children, an energy quiz and more. We want to give local residents a taste of the amazing potential that sunny Hastings holds for changing the way we power our local area through more locally owned, community benefit renewable energy and greater household energy efficiency.

Richard Watson, Chief Executive of Energise Sussex Coast said:

“Hastings is one of the sunniest places in UK and we want every child in the town to be able to come to our science lab on the beach to have fun and find out how the sun can help us generate clean energy for the future.”

  • Voting is open in the following local stores throughout July and August:
  • Tesco Express, Battle Hill, Battle, TN33 0BN
  • Tesco Express, Fernside Ave, St Leonards, TN38 0UU
  • Tescos Extra, Church Wood Drive, TN38 9RB
  • Tesco Express, Lacuna Place, Hastings, TN34 1BP
  • Tesco Express, Little Ridge Ave, Hastings, TN37 7LR
  • Tesco Express, Old London Road, Ore, TN35 5BH

Customers will cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out in store each time they shop.

Lindsey Crompton, Head of Community at Tesco, said:

“We are absolutely delighted to open the voting for July and August. There are some fantastic projects on the shortlists and we can’t wait to see them come to life in hundreds of communities.”

Funding is available to community groups and charities looking to fund local projects that bring benefits to communities. Anyone can nominate a project and organisations can apply online. To find out more visit www.tesco.com/bagsofhelp