Welcome new readers!

January 6, 2010 at 11:52 am · Filed under General chat

Hello to all new readers who heard Kevin, Martin and Dolores talking about Transition recently on “Beyond Survival”, or who saw us mentioned in our local Powell River publications. Here’s a rundown of some basic information:

TTPR Events

Join our email list to get notified of everything we’re doing – email transitionpowellriver (at)  gmail (dot) com (replace the obvious () to get a real email address!)

Home movies once a month in 2010:
Feb 12th: Age of Stupid – call 485 6664 to RSVP
Mar 26: Who Killed the Electric Car?

Practical workshops
Mar 21st: Urban gardening

Community gatherings
“Rebuilding Regional Resilience” Roundtable: Thurs Feb 25th, 6:30 at VIU. RSVP to 483 9052

Information tables at many community events
Feb 10th: Chamber of Commoners
Feb 21st: Robin Wheeler “Get Going, Get Growing!” talk, noon-2pm at the CRC
Mar 13th:  Seedy Saturday

Initiating group meetings
Mon lunchtimes every 2 weeks – next is Feb 22nd, guests and observers welcome.

Phone Kevin at 483 9052 for more information on TTPR

For more in-depth information about peak oil, climate change, and the transition movement, see our resource page

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Alternative Transportation Meeting Jan 14

January 18, 2010 at 6:34 pm · Filed under Meeting reports

On Thursday, Jan. 14, Susan Jersak and I attended a meeting called by Stewart Alsgard for residents interested in transportation.  Susan and I were there to represent Transition Town Powell River.   Below are some of the issues discussed:

1.  Powell River is under pressure to develop a Greenhouse Reduction Plan and has signed onto a Climate Action Charter to become carbon neutral.

2. “Active Transportation” now means all means of transportation except driving cars

3. The BC Transit Authority is actively promoting communities that promote more walking and cycling

4. Community wide bus use has steadily increased and last year stood at 201,000 rides

5. A “Transit Fuel Tax” similar to Vancouver was discussed as a way to raise money to promote more local “active transportation”

6. Marked bike lanes for municipal roads was discussed and is a definite possibility with the annual repainting of the roads.

7. A road paving grant is to be used this year and the widening of Manson when it is repaved could allow for proper bike lanes

8. There is pressure to implement “active transportation” proposals before the Official Community Plans is finished

9. A “Bike to Work  Day” was discussed as well as the B.C. Bike Race due here on June 30th as ways to promote bike safety and use

10. Walking paths were discussed with the idea to promote corridors between Westview, Cranberry Lake and the Townsite.  Concerns were raised about how to safely share walking and biking paths.

11. Mayor Alsgard strongly recommends that groups interested in alternative transportation lobby city council as soon as possible with their concerns and suggestions.

Submitted by Owen Gaskell, Initiating Group member for Transition Town Powell River

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TTPR on Beyond Survival podcast

January 14, 2010 at 1:00 pm · Filed under General chat

Kevin was interviewed about Transition by Martin Rossander and Dolores de la Torre on “Beyond Survival” recently. Here’s the link where you can listen to the recording:

Transition on Beyond Survival

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January Transition Events

January 12, 2010 at 12:53 pm · Filed under General chat

January’s “Home Movie” will be at Graham’s house Thursday January 21 at 7:00 pm. RSVP Graham at 604-485-5409 as space is limited. We will be showing the brand new movie “Transition 1.0.”

Sunday January 31st  2-5pm at the Unitarian Hall 6826 Cranberry St. TTPR presents “Save Energy at Home” a hands on workshop. Discover energy saving renovations tweaks and habit changes from our presenters. Cost is $5.00 and pre-registration is required. Contact 604-483-9052 or transitionpowellriver@gmail.com to reserve your place in this useful and entertaining workshop.

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Initiating Group meeting report, Dec 28th 2009

January 9, 2010 at 6:40 pm · Filed under Meeting reports ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

Present: Kevin, Liz, Julie, Wendy, Barry, Susan

Management

Official Transition Status

We’re now official! The Transition Network accepted our application and we are #262 on the list of 265 official initiatives (#8 of 9 in Canada).

Treasurer’s Report

We have money.

Website

Because posts are mostly meeting reports, the website is a bit “dry”. Kevin will make a “greeting” post that sticks at the top and shows off events & points to resources, and move the meeting reports off the main page to a separate one. He will also invite other members to post.

Event Schedule

Jan 21st: 7pm home movie at Graham’s: In Transition or Age of Stupid. People must RSVP to Graham in order to attend, don’t publicise address, just phone number.
Jan 31st: 2-5pm “Home energy conservation” workshop.
Feb 1st: SD47 Leadership in Sustainability – info table, no workshop required. Location is at Henderson school gym, noon-1pm.
Feb 12th: Home movie at Wendy’s. In T or AoS, whichever we didn’t show on Jan 21st.
Feb 21st: Robin Wheeler talk with FI: waiting for details on this.
Feb 25th or 28th: Multi-group convention. We came up with the name “Rebuilding Regional Resilience: A Roundtable” for this event. Susan will talk to VIU about perhaps co-sponsoring it, or at least using one of their rooms.
Mar 13th: info table and panel presentation at Seedy Saturday. Kevin will do the presentation along with Liz and maybe others?
Mar 21st urban garden workshops at U Hall. Kevin to talk to Rosie Fleur about doing a container gardening presentation for this, Meghan and Tony are fine with us visiting their garden.
Mar 26th Home Movie at Susan’s – Who Killed the Electric Car.

Connecting with other groups

Powell River Living article – Kevin will write by Jan 10th. Isabelle wants something substantially different from what was in Immanence last month.  Wil focus on concrete ways people can work together to address climate change.

Maybe we could present to the local “Ministerial Alliance” to connect with churches.

Kevin has been approached to be a guest on the “Beyond Survival” podcast. Don’t know when yet.

Other business

Transition Training in Courtenay, Jan 30-31 2010. Julie and Owen have booked to go.

Transition Movie - Kevin ordered it online, has been shipped, don’t know when it will arrive.

Transition Talking Points: people would like a sheet of “talking points” to help when introducing Transition to other people.

Barry is with with us temporarily and wanted to know if there is anything he can do to help at a distance when he has to go back to home. line research and blog posting were suggested.

Next meeting - bring ideas for a logo (examples, themes etc). Wendy will ask Corey for ideas on how to approach artists and get a logo made.

Dealing with difficult people at public events – some suggestions:

  • set a time limit for each person at the beginning of the discussion, and even have a timer who rings a bell when time’s up. Applies to everyone, not just problem people.
  • stop someone who is taking up too much time and ask others at the meeting – have we got the point – is it time to move on?

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Initating Group meeting report – Dec 14 2009

December 14, 2009 at 10:26 pm · Filed under Meeting reports ·Tagged ,

Present: Kevin, Liz, Alfred, Julie, Wendy, Owen, Susan

Management

Treasurer’s report. We have money. We will donate $25 to U-Hall for Nov EoS screening and Dec vigil.
Official Transition Status - waiting on Owen for bio. He filled it out and Kevin will ask Transition Network if they will let us in with only one person trained (but another in Jan).

Event Schedule

December

12th Avaaz climate vigil – More than 50 people attended, we collected signups for our email list, sent photos to the Avaaz site, and posted photos on the blog.

January

Thurs 21st - home movie at Graham’s, 7pm. Movie to be Transition 1.0 (see below) or Age of Stupid.

Sun 31st: “Home energy conservation” workshop. Kevin is still trying to contact Victor at Valley Bldg Supplies. Ideally, we would like him to do a short talk on energy-saving renovations, David Moore on grants and programs to support energy conservation, and Kevin on cheapskate and frugal energy saving methods. Then hands-on installation of window film, door weatherstripping, and (weather permitting) exterior caulking on the U-Hall. Kevin will contact David Moore.

February

12th Home movie at Wendy’s. Either Age of Stupid or Transition 1.0, whichever we don’t do in Jan.
21st – Robin Wheeler talk with FI
25th Multi-group convention.  See below for more detailed planning.
day unknown SD47 Leadership in Sustainability – waiting for info

March

13th info table (Wendy, Owen) and presentation (Kevin, Liz) at Seedy Saturday
21st urban garden workshops at U Hall. Try for urban/container gardening article in the Peak or PRL in March. Kevin to contact potential presenter(s). Heavy publicity at Seedy Saturday.
26th Home Movie at Susan’s: Who Killed the Electric Car? or Jane Jacobs documentary.

Connecting with other groups

PRL article – Kevin will write for Feb issue.
Kevin went to Green Step coffeehouse on “Consumerism”. Quite a lot of talk around local curreny and “buy local” campaign.
Alfred and Kevin went to City Consultation meeting on Mon 7th. Low attendance was due to confusion over date and location changes – Susan wanted to attend but it had moved! There was some good talk but almost all present still thinking “business as usual”, no concept of climate change requiring changes in approach.
Susan attended Waterfront Development meeting. Very crowded and hard to see drawings on display. Susan submitted written points for consideration e.g. sea level rise.

Other business

Transition Training in Courtenay, Jan 23-24 2010. Waiting for cost info.
Post-peak livelihoods webinar debrief: 5 from Powell River officially attended, plus several adult children. Some information we already knew and could have been skipped, but it made interesting connections and created a useful structure. Documents emailed after the webinar contained more meat.
Transition Movie is now available on DVD for 18.50 pounds – includes screening rights. Buy? Yes, Kevin will buy on CC and hope to receive in time for Jan “home movie” night.
Supplies - suggested that we buy a few pens, flipchart markers etc for events. Approved up to $25. We could also do with a cash box. Alfred may have one tucked away, he will check. Otherwise, we’ll ask on Freecycle.
High School postering: Wendy’s daughter Zoe will be at Brooks part time from Feb 1st and could probably get our event posters displayed at the school.

February Multi-Group Convention planning

Name: TBA

Ideas – Web, resilience, collaboration, connection, circle, strengthen

Purpose:

  • To find out what’s going on in PR around projects related to sustainability, climate change response, resource conservation, resilience-building, rebuilding skills for self-reliance, economic re-localisation etc., and who is doing it
  • To find out what’s not being done, where the gaps are
  • To make connections between groups and projects who could collaborate or share resources.

Date and location

Proposed Thursday 25th Feb, 7-9 pm at VIU. Susan will talk to VIU about room use and possible closer collaboration on organising the event.

Possible collaboration with SD47 “Leaders in Sustainability” but no date or location info yet.

Who to invite:

Everyone working locally on projects related to sustainability, climate change response, resource conservation, resilience-building, rebuilding skills for self-reliance, economic re-localisation

  • Community groups
  • Councils (City, Regional District, Sliammon Band),
  • Education (SD47, VIU)
  • business/economy (Chamber, Community Futures, PRREDS, Model Community Project, PREP, Careerlink, Credit Union)
  • health (VCH, hospital, PRACL, MCP, PREP)

Invite via email, phone, personal invitation, letter, Peak “Around Town” notice, Shaw ticker, PR Living and Sunnyside anouncements, PR Direct community calendar, Peak Live.

What to do at the event

options include:

  • Large pages on wall to record  groups (with contact names), projects, assets (who owns), needs (who needs)
  • One set of pages for each focus: Food, Housing, Energy, Transport, Economy, Culture, Health…
  • People write down what they know and need on the pages, then scan for connections, link up individually
  • “Round the circle” session for projects/assets/needs
  • Large nametags with has/needs like we used at the CoLF
  • Brainstorming session for what needs to happen to fill gaps, who could do it
  • Brainstorming session for linkups and collaboration possibilities
  • Final “next actions” session: what will we do next, who will do it.

Record results from wall sheets and post online – allow new groups and projects to be added.

Repeat this meeting?

When? Where? Who organises?

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Candlelight Vigil for a Real Deal at Copenhagen

December 12, 2009 at 9:39 pm · Filed under Event Reports ·Tagged , , , , ,

About 50 people showed up to the Unitarian Hall for our candlelight vigil. Here are a few photos!




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Initiating Group meeting report: Nov 30th 2009

December 10, 2009 at 6:16 pm · Filed under Meeting reports

Present: Kevin, Liz, Julie, Susan, Wendy, Owen

Management

Official Transition Status – still need bios from a few people. Kevin will collate.

Treasurer’s report: we have money. Outstanding expenses include donation to Sliammon community garden, donation to U Hall for Nov 22 event, coffee for events.

TTPR business cards - Kevin distributed these to everyone so we have an easy way to send someone to our website when talking to people around town.

Meeting time: Susan requested a 12:15 start instead of 12:00. Agreed.

Event Schedule

Nov: End of Suburbia - went well, good coverage in the Peak, Brenda Allen posted a “Viewpoint” in the Peak. Kevin replied online and posted our web address.

Dec: Holiday party at Owen’s B&B.  Starts 6pm. Approx 17 people have RSVP’ed.

Jan: “Home energy conservation” workshop date changed to Jan 31 to accommodate T4T in Courtenay. Kevin talked to brownie and there’s not much point installing a programmable thermostat as the usage times are so irregular. Weatherstripping on doors and windows, plastic film on windows, and maybe caulking, would be good. Kevin will contact Victor at Valley Bldg Supplies about helping us. Owen will talk to Canadian Tire about donating materials.

Jan: home movie at Graham’s. Kevin will talk to Graham about date/time. Post meeting addition: Date Thurs Jan 21st, 7pm. We can show one of the food-related movies we have available or possibly (post meeting addition) Transition 1.0: the movie.

Feb: Multi-group convention. Kevin needs to send more information on this to Susan so she can talk to VIU about it – what, who, why etc.

Feb: Home movie at Wendy’s. Date, time, movie TBA

Mar: Home movie at Susan’s. Date, time, movie TBA

For more proposed events, see notes from our brainstorming session below.

Connecting with other groups

An article was included in the latest issue of Immanence. This had been in Corey’s hands for some months so was a bit out of date although he had updated it for us. We should look into writing an article for Powell River Living. Liz is willing to write it, Kevin will contact Isabelle to see what she’d like.

City Council transportation committee - Owen and Susan have volunteered for this and will keep us informed.

Lund to Langdale Food Security meeting - Kevin (and other PR people) attended this, it consisted of workshops on community engagement, collaborating with other groups, and strategic planning. Attendees were involved in food security groups from the upper and lower Sunshine Coasts. There will be a further meeting in Powell River in the Spring to plan and create some kind of coalition between all the groups.

Meeting with Tla’Amin Community Garden – Kevin met with several people involved in the community garden about how they would like to deal with our donation. They decided they would like to receive seeds, and that we would approach nurseries about matching/donating funds or goods to make the most of the donation. Kevin following up with nurseries.

Feb SD47 Leadership in Sustainability – info table and workshop request – suggested we co-operate with our multi-group convention. Waiting to hear back from Ryan Barfoot on this.

Feb 21 Robin Wheeler talk: The Farmers Institute is bringing Robin Wheeler in for an event on Feb 21 (she will be doing a workshop for the Texada Garden Club on Texada on the 20th). TTPR has offered to co-sponsor, which may mean cash, printing posters, putting up posters. TBD.

Other business

T4T in Courtenay, Jan 23-24 2010: Julie yes, Liz maybe, (post meeting addition: David P maybe). Kevin will bug Veronica about costs for this.

Online library – moving to David’s “Librarything” which is already set up. Ongoing.

Kevin has set up an online discussion forum, will notify everyone.

Dec 12 Avaaz climate vigil – We will organise one. Kevin to do. Conflicts with Carols by Candlelight, but we can make it earlier in the evening.

Dec 7th City consultation meeting, follow-on from the one in October. Kevin and Alfred will go.

Waterfront Development meeting - Susan will go.

Event Brainstorming Session

We spent the next hour thinking about events we could put on over the next year or so. We looked at a variety of posters from events other groups had arranged, and tried to tie possible events to things which already happen in Powell River, for the possibility of “theme weeks” (or weekends). A good deal of chatting back and forth resulted in some tentative plans and possibilities (and Kevin has added some more notes post-meeting)

January 2010

  • Home energy conservation workshop
  • Home Movie at Graham’s

February 2010

  • SD47 “Leadership in Sustainability” event (more details needed)
  • Multi-group convention (waiting for above to try to co-ordinate)
  • Robin Wheeler talk with FI, Feb 21st
  • Home Movie at Wendy’s

March 2010

  • Spring Break is March 8th-9th
  • March 13th – Info table and presentation at Seedy Saturday
  • TTPR event Sunday march 21st – U Hall – Urban gardening – containers, converting lawns etc – maybe visit Meghan and Tony’s garden
  • Home Movie at Susan’s

April 2010

  • Home Show is Fri 16th- Sun 18th – could we have an info table there, following on from Jan workshop? CaroleAnn Leishman re green building? Co-sponsor a presentation on energy saving building?
  • Open Air Market opens Apr 24th – we could have an info table there that day, or a Spring Festival there, or a Spring Festival the Saturday afternoon or Sunday at the U Hall. Spring Festival – seeds, plants, bike tuneups… or have it along with Garden Club’s plant sale, first weekend in May.
  • Home movie at ???
  • Writers Conference is Apr 30 – May 1st

May 2010

  • May – indoor garage sale and swapmeet at the complex – have an info table? Fundraiser sale table?
  • Home movie at ???
  • Art event mid-May: writers contest, storytelling, poetry, songwriting, and visual arts timeline. Plenty of lead time for contests – co-ordinate with Arts Council, Writers Conference, Academy of Music, Storytelling group. Have an event day where stories and songs are performed, pictures displayed, visual and written timeline created.

June 2010

  • Make this a quiet month in the run-up to grad, SOAP, Kathaumixw
  • Home movie at ???

July 2010

  • Canada Day – have an info table at the Open Air Market or other event.
  • “Learn from the Elders” event? Sliammon, Italian community, other pioneers. Co-ordinate with museum, old pictures. At Canada Day events or separately.
  • Summer Festival? canning demos or swap, solar ovens and dryers construction and use demos, bikes, water conservation. Co-ordinate with Canada Day or Sea Fair?
  • Sea Fair July 23-25: have an eco-contingent in the parade? Multiple groups walking together? Horse drawn float/car? Horse-drawn Hummer? LOL.

August 2010

  • BC Day Aug 2
  • Edible garden tour – info table at Kevin’s garden – probable date Aug 7th – 50 mile challenge kickoff
  • Art in the Park Aug 14-15 – info table, display timeline created at May art event
  • Blackberry street party Aug 20 – info table at CMG printing

September 2010

  • Probable community info fair/garage sale near start of month – info table
  • Sep 22 World Car Free Day – bike fair event? Co-ordinate with bike clubs, “discover PR by bike” rides (for power riders and gentle riders), picnic and fair at Willingdon beach, bike shops, bike tricks like at street party, bike repair clinic… Also mass bus ride?
  • Home movie at ???
  • Fall Fair probably Sep 25-26: info table

October 2010

  • Home movie at ???
  • Celebration of Local Food / Thanksgiving / Fall festival – as in 2009 plus apple juice pressing, canning swap, bigger silent auction, seed saving demos, food preservation demos

November 2010

  • Eco Action Fair
  • Home movie at ???

December 2010

  • Home movie at ???
  • Powerdown holiday party

January 2011

  • Winter Festival – energy conservation, fruit tree pruning workshop, planning next year’s garden, making music, storytelling, winter comfort food cooking, other home activities.
  • Home movie

More possible event ideas not attached to any date…

  • Theme weeks (eg Change Your Footprint, Housing, Food, Transport…)
  • Reskilling classes (co-ordinate with food & garden classes at CRC)
  • Library display of PO/CC books co-ordinated with a public event, maybe public screening of Transition movie
  • Economy-related event eg showing and discussion of Chris Martenson’s “Crash Course” (could be a home movie series)
  • Paired events: film or talk followed by Open Space
  • get someone from Transition Victoria to come and talk
  • Transition orientation meetings (small, in home or other venue, use Transition movie…)

Other non-event ideas:

  • Buy one or more Kill-a-watt (or similar) meters and lend/rent them out
  • Put on events we’d like to attend (eg Permaculture course, T4T, more…)
  • Target different groups of people with different awareness events

As always, any corrections or additions to this report gratefully accepted!

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Why it doesn’t matter whether climate change is human-caused or not…

December 10, 2009 at 11:48 am · Filed under Quotes ·Tagged , , , ,

This great quote comes from John Michael Greer at the Archdruid Report:

Whether or not the current round of climate instability is entirely the product of anthropogenic CO2 emissions is actually not that important, because it’s even more stupid to dump greenhouse gases into a naturally unstable climate system than it would be to dump them into a stable one.

Hmmm, yes.

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Initiating Group meeting report: 17 Nov 2009

November 18, 2009 at 2:08 pm · Filed under Meeting reports ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Present: Kevin, Liz, Julie, Susan, Graham.

We tried at this meeting to run through the business quickly, so that we could spend the second hour in a more free-form discussion of the group-evaluation papers Kevin brought back from the Transition training in October.

Management

CU account - is set up and ready, waiting for cash to make deposit, waiting for checks.

Move email list onto a listserve. Set up, working on transfer

Official Transition Status – need bios on form. Those present added their bios, Kevin will get more from those absent.

Treasurer’s report: We have money. $50 donated to U-Hall for hall rental for the Celebration of local food, $25 to CU for shares to open account. $50 donation to Sliammon community garden project is pending.

Move meetings to daytimes: this idea was proposed as some people are finding it hard to make evening meetings. Those present said yes it’s possible but not on Tues or Thurs. Feedback from Wendy and Owen needed.

Event Schedule

Nov: End of Suburbia screening, 2pm Sun Nov 22 at the U Hall. Wendy will bring projector, DVD, screen etc and Milo as tech support. Posters have been reposted as needed by Julie. Press release was printed in the Peak on Wed 11th issue. Owen, Julie, Liz, Kevin and Graham will come and help set up and run the event. Julie and Alfred are maybes. Post meeting addition: need more coffee, Kevin or Liz will pick up on Sat along with cream.

Dec: Holiday party at Owen’s B&B. Invitation reviewed, Kevin will send out with email mailing ASAP.

Jan: “Home energy conservation” workshop – date conflicts with Training for Transition in Courtenay, so move it 1 week back or ahead. Post-meeting addition: booked Jan 31st with Brownie at the U Hall.

Feb: Multi-group convention. We looked at the report from the Victoria group about theirs. Susan will talk to Arlette at VIU to see if they would like to co-sponsor this meeting, or simply use a VIU room for it.

Eco Action Fair. Date May 2nd 2010, letter sent to other possible co-sponsors. No from Green Step, no answer from CofC or SD47 yet, no from FI. We discussed either trying to contact more groups as co-sponsors, doing it all ourselves, or dropping the idea and putting our energy into multiple  smaller events instead. Julie suggested that we use the Feb group convention to gather support and co-organisers, and push the date into the Fall. All approved of this idea. Kevin will update CofC, SD47, and release Complex room booking.

Connecting with other groups

Kevin attending Lund to Langdale all-coast Food Security meeting

Meeting with Tla’Amin Community Garden re donation, Mon 23 Nov 11:45 am.

Kev, Liz and Alfred attended ad-hoc meeting with Scott Brison MP, opposition economics spokesman, re local economics. Much good stuff was brought up by many attendees.

Kev and Liz attended GreenStep coffeehouse on Energy and spoke on PO, handed out EoS flyers, quite a bit of interest shown.

Farmers Institute produced/obtained Agricultural planning and Food Self Sufficiency docs – Kevin will circulate by email.

Post-meeting addition: the Seedy Saturday organising committee/Farmers Institute is planning to bring in a seed/garden related speaker in February, and Kevin proposed to them and they agreed that TTPR will co-sponsor this event. More info to come.

Other business

Training for Transition in Courtenay, Jan 23-24 2010. Need numbers to reserve spaces. Julie yes: Liz and Graham maybe. Ask Owen and Wendy

Online library – Kevin has set up a spreadsheet online for lending out books and DVD’s. Link going out in next mailout.

Info leaflet edited, copies now available (thanks Graham for cutting them up!)

Age of Stupid – approached Ann re Patricia showing – she is investigating a Canadian distributor.

Possible “home movie nights” – Kevin suggested home movie viewings, 6-10 people at someone’s home, movie and discussion, less hassle than a big public showing, don’t need public showing license, do one a month (rotating through those who can host it), get others on the email list to host one and one of Initiating Group go to help interpret and lead discussion. First one will be in Jan at Graham’s house. Graham to pick a good date and let Kevin know. Try for a fairly positive movie eg farm/food ones that we have.

“Fresh – The Movie” – new local-food-related movie: approached Giovanni re film festival, he has watched it and thought it good, is recommending to the Film Festival board.Post-Peak Livelihoods webinar Dec 12th with Sarah and Paul Edwards – Kevin has booked and paid, should be good as the presenters are well know “working from home” experts and active in Transition initiative and as Transition trainers.

We discussed getting speakers from outside, and thought we should offer to exchange speakers with the Courtenay/Comox group once they form, or other island groups. It was also suggested that we talk to Lyn Adamson about how we might get money to pay for bringing in speakers.

Break for hot chocolate, biscotti and chat.

Discuss feedback forms on group structure, process, etc.

We went through the first of the assessment/evaluation forms that Kevin brought back. This was the “Awareness Raising Worksheet” (also asset mapping and networking).

What environmental groups are you linked with?

GreenStep Solutions, Pebble in the Pond, Sustainability Charter (Susan), Council of Canadians (Graham), Sierra Club (Graham), Malaspina Land Conservancy

What other groups are you linked with?

Food Security Project, Farmers Institute, Seedy Saturday, Agricultural Association, Seed Saving Project, Toastmasters, SCA, CMG printing, Lifecycle Housing (Susan), Community Resource Centre, Anglican Church (Liz), Chamber of Commerce, Model Community Project (Liz)

What groups can you approach?

Rotary & Kiwanis, Churches (United, 7th Day Advent), PREP, PRREDS, Regional District and City councils, PRACL, Careerlink, VIU, Sliammon Band council, School District, Ratepayers Associations (start with Cranberry and branch out), Unions, BC Hydro, Terasen Gas, BC Forestry, VCH/Hospital, Kale Force

What venues do you have?

Lots – see Google Docs list

Who can give a talk?
On transition towns – Kevin is working on one
Peak Oil - Kevin can do, Liz is working on it
Climate Change - no-one yet, someone needs to work on it.
Other topics? get someone from Transition Victoria to come here?

What local projects or experts can present?

Green Building – CaroleAnn Leishmann
LETS and local currency – ask Owen who organised the previous incarnations of these. Person in Courtenay?
Food security – David P
Stewart Alsgard/Colin Palmer/Regina Sadilikova – local council sustainability / GHG emissions reductions
Murray Dobbin
Nicholas Simons
Patches – permaculture
Wendy Devlin – seed saving, gardening
Helena Bird – SALSA farm project
Scott ?? – PRREDS green economy initiatives

What places to visit e.g. eco house or permaculture project?

Edible garden tour (fall: add a spring one too?)
Nimh Farm for permaculture
ask CaroleAnn re buildings
Cob and cordwood houses
Local hydro and other energy installations
Local solar installations – Savary Island?
Expeditions to V Island to visit other projects?

What kind of publicity can you generate?

Press releases to Peak, PR Living, Immanence, Shaw cable
Word of mouth
TTPR Email list
Online calendars, blog, Peak Live page, Facebook page etc

How are your links to local papers and TV and Radio?

Papers: good and improving
TV: developing
Radio: non-existent

How else can you publicise your TT?

TTPR email list: other people’s email lists (film society, arts council, FI, food security)
Public events and meetings
Develop something visually exciting to attract TV and photo coverage: something with a “hook”
co-sponsor events with other groups
info tables at suitable events and movies (2012?)
artists events: visual arts, writing stories, storytelling
theme weeks: “cut your footprint”, transport (round car-free day in Sept), food (around 50-mile challenge or edible garden tour or Fall Fair)

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