Quite a frustrating day in some ways.
Some interesting email feedback following the WeLoveTheEarthCentre meeting yesterday, some very positive, others less so. But nothing horrible, just stuff which took time to read, and as is my wont, I reply to everything, politely and carefully. Sometimes composing an appropriate reply takes a long time, but my view is that every individual is worthwhile, has a right to their views, and deserves a hearing and a polite but honest response.
Hey ho... was on the computer til midday.
But then I had a couple of Freecycle things to do, one person asking for cacti accepted my offer of a few Bryophyllum plantlets, which grow on the leaves of the parent plant. So I put some into a film canister and got my bike and set off to Burton Stone Lane, which is about 20 minutes cycle away. On the way I met John from St Nicks and had a nice chat, and then went on my way. I got to my destination... and realised I'd left the film canister at home! Duh! So, I cycled all the way back, collecting some logs on the way, so this journey wasn't completely wasted. But halfway back, my chain broke. Oh no! I had to walk the rest of the way home. Grrrr...
So, got home, admitted my error and bad luckto Gill, and borrowed her bike and did the whole journey again. I love cycling but I'd have preferred to do this 40 minute trip once, not twice, and not to have used Gill's bike as it isn't good for my knees.
When I eventually got home, after dark now, I went to pick up a broken colander which was offered on freecycle, which I'll use to do the University of Plymouth and Garden Organic 'compost beasties' survey. The idea is to put some compost in a colander, in a funnel, with the funnel in a jar of vodka. The compost is then subjected to several days of shining a warm light onto the top surface, which drives the beasties downwards, to their alcoholic death and then being sent through the post to be identified. This has never been done before, so I'm happy to be contributing (well, about to contribute to) this scientific research.
When I got in from this, we'd had a visit from the friendly Environmental Health Officer. Before Christmas, someone had complained they'd seen smoke coming out of our chimney, and complained. We live in a Clean Air Act zone so homes may not emit smoke except for the first 10 to 20 minutes of lighting the fire, and householders may only burn 'authorised fuel' or have an 'exempt appliance', which is what both of our stoves are. We hadn't responded to this letter... I had been busy and then the letter had got buried in a pile of stuff, and anyway, we knew we were ok, so we just let it go. The complainant had complained again, so she visited. She was happy to see which models of stove we had and my method of drying the wood, and she said that the occasional aroma of woodsmoke was not a problem, only actual smoke coming from the chimney. She also said that she had a woodstove, and understood why we had them. A good visit!
City of York Council have a leaflet explaining this here (pdf), on their webpage, and there's a list of exempt appliances here. If you want to see what other people think about your stove, or a make of stove you are considering getting, check out WhatStove which is an excellent resource.
Gill was experimenting with making pasta. We had her home-made tagliatelle for tea, with broccoli. It was very good.
I had a quiet evening in, more Earth Centre stuff, and other things including a Fiddlesticks booking in Malton at Easter and confirmation of another couple of bookings in the Summer in Leeds. Good, need the work! However cheaply we live, we do need some money to keep things going...
Showing posts with label We Love The Earth Centre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label We Love The Earth Centre. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Tuesday 19th January 10
A really good day, up quite early and felt full of energy. Rang the bike shop to see if they will mend my dynamo, they'll do it on Thursday.
I spent some of the morning doing assorted things inside and in the afternoon did more chainsawing, quite a lot, and cleared a backlog. Geddit? BackLOG!
The most interesting part of my day was my evening trip to Denaby, to attend the We Love The Earth Centre meeting. I'd been put in touch with a York woman, Imelda Havers, who runs Blue Fish Regeneration and was going to drive to the venue, picking up her colleague Sally Walker who is an architect specialising in sustainable buildings. So I was picked up at 5.45 and we arrived at Denaby Main at 7pm, minutes before the meeting started.
This meeting was less well attended than the first one, but a good cross section of locals, greens, and other interested parties, including one owner of a business named on the WLTEC website. The meeting was slightly better organised than the first one, but considering the huge mountain that has to be climbed if this group is to have any positive impact at all, relatively little got done.
The problem is that there is a lot of passion and strongly held ethics, but little leadership and no-one with much experience of running a successful community group with this size of aim. The interests of the leaders so far are expressed by building benders (temporary structures made of branches tied together) and cob ovens (often used at festivals to bake bread) but these are surely far removed from the interests of the majority of local people, who are probably drawn to green issues if it saves them money, but not for the 'save the planet' ideals of people like me.
Additionally, the document obtained by WLTEC from the RTTG listed a long list of multinational companies and big businesses, some of whom represent the biggest despoilers of the planet. The document describes these as 'partners', and in fact, the list is probably more a 'wish list' or a list of potential contacts. But this list has alienated the local deep greens, who have put RTTG into the same category as Costain, Eon and BASF, who are big builders, coal-fired power station developers and chemical companies. There was some defence of the RTTG, as it is run by 3 local blokes who are pretty keen on green issues and community involvement in this kind of development.
I am not sure if I am able to help the WLTEC group... primarily as I'm not local enough. I have offered my help if they want me, and I'll certainly attend the site meeting on 9th Feb to see if I can help the RTTG's work to get some good workable ideas for the site. I do hope that it isn't sold by Doncaster Council for housing, an open cast mine, bog-standard 20th Century Earth-Despoiling business or something similar. It must continue as a site for education and promoting sustainable development. My vote would be for a 'Northern CAT' type place. I'd love that!
Imelda and Sally got up to go as soon as it was obvious that the meeting had finished (I could have sat around chatting for another hour!) and I suggested we went to see the front gate of The Earth Centre site, as neither of them had been there. After this, we went home, and I was delivered safely back soon after 10pm.
Had a lengthy facebook chat conversation with a friend's wife who works in a school and wants me to help with her science week, with my Fiddlesticks Fun Physics show. Good stuff!
I spent some of the morning doing assorted things inside and in the afternoon did more chainsawing, quite a lot, and cleared a backlog. Geddit? BackLOG!
The most interesting part of my day was my evening trip to Denaby, to attend the We Love The Earth Centre meeting. I'd been put in touch with a York woman, Imelda Havers, who runs Blue Fish Regeneration and was going to drive to the venue, picking up her colleague Sally Walker who is an architect specialising in sustainable buildings. So I was picked up at 5.45 and we arrived at Denaby Main at 7pm, minutes before the meeting started.
This meeting was less well attended than the first one, but a good cross section of locals, greens, and other interested parties, including one owner of a business named on the WLTEC website. The meeting was slightly better organised than the first one, but considering the huge mountain that has to be climbed if this group is to have any positive impact at all, relatively little got done.
The problem is that there is a lot of passion and strongly held ethics, but little leadership and no-one with much experience of running a successful community group with this size of aim. The interests of the leaders so far are expressed by building benders (temporary structures made of branches tied together) and cob ovens (often used at festivals to bake bread) but these are surely far removed from the interests of the majority of local people, who are probably drawn to green issues if it saves them money, but not for the 'save the planet' ideals of people like me.
Additionally, the document obtained by WLTEC from the RTTG listed a long list of multinational companies and big businesses, some of whom represent the biggest despoilers of the planet. The document describes these as 'partners', and in fact, the list is probably more a 'wish list' or a list of potential contacts. But this list has alienated the local deep greens, who have put RTTG into the same category as Costain, Eon and BASF, who are big builders, coal-fired power station developers and chemical companies. There was some defence of the RTTG, as it is run by 3 local blokes who are pretty keen on green issues and community involvement in this kind of development.
I am not sure if I am able to help the WLTEC group... primarily as I'm not local enough. I have offered my help if they want me, and I'll certainly attend the site meeting on 9th Feb to see if I can help the RTTG's work to get some good workable ideas for the site. I do hope that it isn't sold by Doncaster Council for housing, an open cast mine, bog-standard 20th Century Earth-Despoiling business or something similar. It must continue as a site for education and promoting sustainable development. My vote would be for a 'Northern CAT' type place. I'd love that!
Imelda and Sally got up to go as soon as it was obvious that the meeting had finished (I could have sat around chatting for another hour!) and I suggested we went to see the front gate of The Earth Centre site, as neither of them had been there. After this, we went home, and I was delivered safely back soon after 10pm.
Had a lengthy facebook chat conversation with a friend's wife who works in a school and wants me to help with her science week, with my Fiddlesticks Fun Physics show. Good stuff!
Friday, 15 January 2010
Friday 15th January 10
Got up early and got outside to split and stack three big logs I found and brought back last night on a nocturnal sortie! I also did a bit more pruning of the house-height pine tree which is too close to our house and our neighbour wants removed... and we'll be happy too as it cuts a lot of light from our front room. I'm not taking it out all in one go, as the soil will swell and damage our foundations, so I'm removing branches bit by bit, over a couple of years, and later this year I'll take the rest of it out.
So an active morning, followed by a stint of doing emails which was interesting as I engaged in some dialogue with one of the people behind we love the earth centre, about someone on the email contact list who is unhappy about the involvement of RTTG, and has proposed an anarchist 'solution' or response, and has been emailing aggressive rants to others on the list. Several people have asked for their details to be removed from the list because of this person, and I was worried that 'we love the earth centre' was being damaged.
Later in the day I had a good phone conversation with Mike from RTTG, which he said does not yet have any partners for their Earth Centre redevelopment, and that RTTG is a voluntary group with just 3 people at it's centre. Whether he means unpaid (which is what I understand by the word 'voluntary') is something I'll have to check! But what I did ascertain was that half a dozen people involved with WLTEC including myself, are invited to the first open day, where RTTG want to gather ideas for the future of the site. Should be an interesting day!
I also went to see my friend Debbie, as when I got home yesterday, she had given Gill a message about her friend Debbie F, who has died from cirrhosis of the liver; she was an alcoholic. Very sad. I knew Debbie F a bit, and she liked me apparently, but I didn't have time or energy to get to know her better or become a real friend. And as she was often drunk, that put me off trying to be a better friend or try to help. Her problems were just too deep. Anyway, sad to hear the news, and I spent an hour with my friend hearing about the fun times they got up to. I expect I'll attend the funeral next week.
At tea time I shredded the pine tree limbs which were small enough to go into my Mountfield quiet shredder and put the bigger branches in a pile for chopping up and drying.
I managed to get onto the tax website and found that they have to send me a new password in the post. What a palaver!
I went to Bryony's 'leaving drinks' do at the Yorkshire Terrier on Stonegate, and on the way there, met my old partner I lived with for 10 years, and we had a brief but friendly chat. I was really glad to get her email address, as several people from our past have asked me how she is and all I could say was 'she's in York and whenever I see her, she seems OK, but I have no contact details'. But now I'm going to be able to email people's details to her so they can reconnect. I didn't stay at the leaving do for long, as I'd promised Gill I'd get back to assist with the bedtime stuff.
Played a bit of Scrabble in the evening and chatted to Ali on facebook instant messaging. A peaceful evening.
So an active morning, followed by a stint of doing emails which was interesting as I engaged in some dialogue with one of the people behind we love the earth centre, about someone on the email contact list who is unhappy about the involvement of RTTG, and has proposed an anarchist 'solution' or response, and has been emailing aggressive rants to others on the list. Several people have asked for their details to be removed from the list because of this person, and I was worried that 'we love the earth centre' was being damaged.
Later in the day I had a good phone conversation with Mike from RTTG, which he said does not yet have any partners for their Earth Centre redevelopment, and that RTTG is a voluntary group with just 3 people at it's centre. Whether he means unpaid (which is what I understand by the word 'voluntary') is something I'll have to check! But what I did ascertain was that half a dozen people involved with WLTEC including myself, are invited to the first open day, where RTTG want to gather ideas for the future of the site. Should be an interesting day!
I also went to see my friend Debbie, as when I got home yesterday, she had given Gill a message about her friend Debbie F, who has died from cirrhosis of the liver; she was an alcoholic. Very sad. I knew Debbie F a bit, and she liked me apparently, but I didn't have time or energy to get to know her better or become a real friend. And as she was often drunk, that put me off trying to be a better friend or try to help. Her problems were just too deep. Anyway, sad to hear the news, and I spent an hour with my friend hearing about the fun times they got up to. I expect I'll attend the funeral next week.
At tea time I shredded the pine tree limbs which were small enough to go into my Mountfield quiet shredder and put the bigger branches in a pile for chopping up and drying.
I managed to get onto the tax website and found that they have to send me a new password in the post. What a palaver!
I went to Bryony's 'leaving drinks' do at the Yorkshire Terrier on Stonegate, and on the way there, met my old partner I lived with for 10 years, and we had a brief but friendly chat. I was really glad to get her email address, as several people from our past have asked me how she is and all I could say was 'she's in York and whenever I see her, she seems OK, but I have no contact details'. But now I'm going to be able to email people's details to her so they can reconnect. I didn't stay at the leaving do for long, as I'd promised Gill I'd get back to assist with the bedtime stuff.
Played a bit of Scrabble in the evening and chatted to Ali on facebook instant messaging. A peaceful evening.
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