The Common Treasury, Transition Town Hastings and others have been talking about a Library of Things for some time and now the conditions are right, and it’s happening!
What is a Library of Things – how does it work?
As its name suggests, it’s a library – but instead of books, you borrow common household items! It’s a way for people to borrow, not buy, things they only need every so often. It’s a way to save money, save the planet, and build community.
The Library will have an inventory of things– garden things, tool things, party things, camping things. (You can suggest things we should stock).
Members join for a small annual fee, then borrow things like a chocolate fountain, a drill or a tent; use them, then return them to be used by somebody else.
Who are we?
We are a new group, supported by Heart of Hastings (HOH) and others, which is why your email is coming via Transition Town. HOH is providing some infrastructure so the Library of Things group can get on with the fun stuff.
The LOT is community-led and community-run …essentially, a group of volunteers inspired by mutual aid. There are no leaders, but there are organisers and everyone can get involved.
When can we start using the Library of Things?
The Hastings Library of Things opens in the Spring of 2021, in Claremont, Hastings.
How can you find out more?
We will be updating our Facebook group regularly, and will add a website soon, but you can get in touch any time.
How can you help?
Get the word out! Get people to join our facebook group or, even better, the mailing list. Ask people to email shelley@heartofhastings.org.uk with Hastings Library of Things in the subject bar.
Get involved. There are no leaders, just organisers, so ask a question, make a suggestion, arrange a call… team “LOT” would love to hear from you
Thank you, Transition Town Hastings!
And, a huge thank-you from “Team LOT” to Team Transition Town Hastings for the generous donation to help us on our way. We will use the money to buy a PAT (electrical safety) testing device and to train a couple of volunteer Librarians to use it. This will mean we can lend drills, candyfloss machines, and all sorts of other electrical appliances safely time and time again.
The local council are proposing a 5 storey development, to house 152 units, which the West Marina Group believe is unacceptable and overlooks the massive potential the site has to offer. There are already several sites in the immediate area with planning permission sitting dormant and also the large area of land adjacent to the site is already earmarked for residential development.
The West Marina Group are petitioning the council to genuinely and urgently engage with the local community in West St Leonards and other interested parties to develop a clear community-led action plan for the former Bathing Pool site and the area around it.
The Common Treasury of Adaptable Ideas is running weekly community conversations on Isolation Station Hastings.
Imagining Life Beyond Lockdown are online conversations that include people from many of the projects featured at Common Treasury past events such as Rob Hopkins from the Transition Town Network.
Support science today: Join Earth
Challenge 2020 and be part of the world’s largest ever coordinated citizen
science campaign.
The
initiative will combine data from existing citizen science projects with
information from a new mobile app to shed light on key environmental issues and
grow citizen science worldwide.
By
downloading the Earth Challenge 2020 app, you’re joining a community of
activists answering critical questions:
What’s
in the air where I live and breathe?
What
kinds of litter and trash are polluting my environment?
How
can I take action as a citizen scientist while homebound during the COVID-19
pandemic?
The
app is easy: Just take pictures of the air or litter on the ground and submit
the photo through your phone or tablet. Your data will be added to the global
citizen science database mapping the health and safety of citizens across the
world. And you can do this from the safety of your own home.
On Wednesday 25th March, The Observer Building
(Hastings), launched a Facebook channel to offer a platform to the local
community during the nationwide lockdown. The channel, Isolation Station
Hastings, is working with a range of local people and organisations to
live-stream daily content from people’s homes and is calling out to the local
community to contribute live-streamed content.
In its first three days, the channel has gained
almost 2,000 followers and 50,000 minutes viewed with a daily chat show, and
music performances from renowned jazz singer Liane Carroll, BRIT Award winning
song-writer Blair Mackichan, Wildflowers singer Siddy Bennett, Doc Savage and
Buddha Triangle. This week’s schedule includes a life-drawing class with Sue
Tilley,who posed for Lucian Freud’s £17m painting ‘Benefits Supervisor
Sleeping’, a film show interviewing local film-makers, Coastal Currents Arts
Hour, a pottery class, yoga and a
Saturday-night zoom party for up to 500 participants.
The channel has been prompting viewers to raise
money to support local NHS workers with Liane Carroll’s performance, raising
over £1600 alone. They also have a daily community news show led by Hastings’
local emergency volunteers who are part of the Hastings Emergency Action
Response Team (HEART).
Jess Steele OBE, who oversees The Observer
Building project, said: “Our town is renowned for its creativity, culture and
community and we want to do our very best to keep that alive during these
unprecedentedly challenging times. Staying at home doesn’t mean we can’t stay
connected and keep our spirits high, as well as offer our services to those
most in need.”
The platform offers live-streamed Facebook
slots to artists, performers, creators, pubs, local businesses, organisations,
teachers and anyone who has an idea for content that could be entertaining,
informative or offer learning. Some slots are paid, some offer funding
opportunities through viewer donations, and some will raise money for a charity
of the content-provider’s choice.
The channel is being run by The Observer
Building, which was due to launch this spring with a season of events,
workshops and other projects, which have been cancelled due to COVID-19. The
channel is funded by Leisure & Learning (Hastings), the Common Treasury of
Adaptable Ideas and Hastings Voluntary Action.
The channel is live with an ever-evolving
schedule on:
The
Hastings Commons is a collection of interconnected buildings and spaces in the
town centre that have been brought into community ownership since 2014. In February 2019, the Commons was expanded significantly
with the purchase of The Observer Building, a 7-storey, print factory, derelict
since 1985.
Leisure
& Learning is a charity set up to ‘activate and animate the spaces of the
Hastings Commons’. Our programming
offers a broad mix of lifestyle and life-long learning, vocational training and
community education intermixed with cultural and popular entertainment events.
Underlining
all our activities is a desire to create positive social impact by providing
life-changing and place-shaping opportunities for local people, especially
those who usually miss out. Our
programming is designed to be diverse, inclusive, affordable and
multi-faceted.
The Common Treasury of Adaptable Ideas creates
spaces for people who want to make a real difference to the local
community-enterprise sector. By
showcasing change-makers and great ideas from elsewhere, our events act as a
springboard for inspiring and energising positive change in Hastings.
With the generous support of the Big Lottery’s
Power-to-Change programme, the programme
launched in March 2019 and has been extended for a further year, to February
2021. The programme includes
knowledge-sharing, idea-development, seed-funding and peer-mentoring, helping
participants to transition great ideas
into actionable enterprises in the community.
The Common Treasury aims to help shift mind-sets – moving thinking
from beyond existing ‘damage-limitation’ approaches – to thinking about what
community-led enterprises look like when based on a sustainable local economy
that makes links between people, place and planet.
Hastings Voluntary Action supports charities,
communities and social enterprises in the Hastings area, promotes volunteering,
and runs community projects to support people in the Borough.
Led by Hastings Voluntary Action, co-ordinating all local VCSE (Voluntary,
Community and Social Enterprise) sector activities in partnership with Hastings
Borough Council, the CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups), ESCC (East Sussex
County Council) and the NHS
CV-19 EMERGENCY HELPLINE FOR HASTINGS
01424-451019
hosted by Hastings Borough Council,
open Mon-Thurs 9-5pm; Friday 9-4.30pm
On Saturday, 1 February, 30 Transition Town members came together at the White Rock Hotel to explore, debate and agreed on some exciting new priorities for 2020. We agreed to focus on some exciting new projects – details below.
If you’re interested in knowing more or want to get involved, please do get in touch at info@transitiontownhastings.org.uk and feel free to spread the word !!!
A Green Hub for Hastings and St Leonards
A real or virtual hub that provides space to connect –
bringing together individuals and groups keen on creating a more sustainable
and integrated community. Similar conversations are taking place within The
Common Treasury, in XR and at Energise Sussex Coast (ESC) so this is a great
opportunity for collective action! Talk to Kate Meakin or Julia Hilton for info.
A Library of Things:
Initially introduced at The Common Treasury in October,
it’s a great idea that has members keen to get one happening in Hastings. Why
buy, if you can borrow? If you want to know more, check out
Planting trees was a popular priority – in town and country! Kate Meakin, Mary
Dawson and Ken Davis are our champions.
Field Trips and Feasts
A series of learning journeys to places that inspire
(Great Dixter and The Bevy got special mentions) and our always-popular potluck
dinners. More events that bring us together for food and fun. Talk to Sherry
Clark if you have any suggestions!
Map the Territory
From Living Streets to empty buildings, members are keen
to contribute to creating an inventory of what’s there, what can be done and who
is doing what – to help bring like-minded people and groups together. Sarah
Macbeth and Julia Hilton are the go-to-gals for this one.
Hollington Gardens Friends:
A new initiative that matches keen volunteers with
neglected family gardens. Lynn Savage or Maya Evans can tell you more.
We also agreed to continue to invest in existing projects
& partnerships:
The Community Garden at Warrior Square
Station (talk to Chris Petts, Alan Jeffries, Mick Studd or Michelle White)
The Big Lunch – this year on Sunday, 7 June in Warrior
Square Gardens (Talk to Sherry Clark)
Refill
points around town, where you can fill up your reusable water bottle (Talk to
Hannah Robbins at Wonderfill)
Activities related to Sustainability on Sea (Talk
to Kate Meakin or Sarah Macbeth)
Sustainable transport, architecture and urban-planning
(Contact Ken Davis or Julia Hilton)
A few projects have been put on hold – for now. We just can’t
do everything!
Sustainability on Sea will happen next in
Spring 2021, following on from a hopefully successful and inspiring COP26 in
Glasgow in December
Car Free Day: after a great turnout in
2019, despite adverse weather, we are still looking for volunteers keen to take
this forward in 2020 or 2021. The newly-formed Living Streets group is
also keen to get involved in street
Swap shops, a local currency scheme, a network
of initiatives around Sussex and beyond.
This concludes the project to which so many lovely members of the public contributed. It makes the square in front of St Leonards Warrior Square Station look so much more vibrant and welcoming. And it’s so wonderful to see children and adults looking for the piece that they completed and take pride in it… Thanks again to all those who helped – we have helped make St Leonards look even better!
The printed programme is hot off the press! Look out for it around town over the coming weeks or download a PDF version here. SoS_Programme_digital Download
With more than 60 events and activities across 9 days the
festival spans Hastings and Rother, from Winchelsea in the East to Bexhill in
the west.
With each event taking a different approach to promoting a
sustainable future the programme has something for all ages and many activities
are free to attend.
Highlights include the Car Free Day street party (Sunday
22nd September, 12pm until 6pm) as Hastings marks the international event for
the first time, turning the seafront road into community space for socialising,
alfresco dining, entertainment and play.
The festival culminates in The Big Green Fair at the Stade
(Sunday 29th September, 11:00am – 6:00pm) bringing together a wide range of
local stallholders in an ethical marketplace, a programme of talks on
sustainability issues, craft and culinary workshops, great food, entertainment
and info stands for various local environmental campaigns.
We’re celebrating the completion and final installation of the seaside themed mosaic created by the community. We are having a little celebration on Saturday 24th Aug from 3-5pm in front of Warrior Square Station, come with your smiles and we will supply refreshments. If it’s raining we will be in Zoom Arts.
