This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Thought of the Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Transition Towns come to Wimbledon
From oil dependency to local resilience
A group of local people has started bringing people in Wimbledon together to address the major challenges of climate change, the end of cheap oil and other environmental changes.
They hope to engage the wider community in facing these challenges, and together make Wimbledon into a Transition Town – a resilient local community which depends less on fossil fuels and has a more sustainable lifestyle.
The group is planning a series of events through 2010 to raise public awareness, including a showing of the environmental film The Age of Stupid, at St Mary’s Garden Hall, Arthur Road, on Monday 8th February from 7pm; an outdoor event at the Broadway Piazza on 20th March; a stall at the Fete of the Earth, in the St George’s Road Community Centre on 15th May, and from time to time a bookstall at the Wimbledon Park farmers’ market. They also hope to set up small groups looking at local food production and at energy issues before long. Their showing of In Transition , a film about transition towns, packed out the Bishop Gilpin school hall in October 2009.
Linda Murgatroyd, a member of the Wimbledon group, said ‘It is very important that we tackle these issues now; we can’t wait for governments or industry. Local people working together can get a lot done. And as well as developing local food and energy security, this process can also improve many other aspects of community life.’
Tom Walsh, of Sustainable Merton, said ‘This is a very welcome initiative, which we support. We really need to help one another understand and tackle these big issues, and the Transition Town approach is a great way to work towards a more sustainable future for our neighbourhood and our children’.
The Transition Town movement is based on local people seeking practical local solutions to these global problems. It started in 2006 in Totnes, Devon and there are more than 100 transition towns in the UK, including groups in Brixton, Tooting, Wandsworth and other parts of London. Further information about transition towns is available at www.transitiontowns.org
To find out more or get in touch with the group, email ttwimbeldon@yahoo.co.uk or call Gavin on 07930570568. Individual events will be advertised on www.projectdirt.com/group/transitiontownwimbledon
Press release – January 2001
Leave a Reply