I'm so nosey - transition towns aboyne - questions....

Maria · I'm so nosey - transition towns aboyne - questions....

Sorry - can't help it - I'm awful nosey! I'm keen to find out what you spoke about. WG - you sound energised and mobilised after the meeting....so what happened? Either it was fab and full of inspiring stuff...or spring has got to you at last.

Could you folks give us the lows and highs of whats in store for transition town aboyne? Purty please.

Oh, and where for art thou Gus? Horray for co-ordinating this. Have you been involved in any other transition initiatives?

wildgarlic

Certainly doesn't feel like spring Maria, it was the company last night and the thoughts of people working together, sharing together, and bringing BACK the community spirit - ideas and lots of them. Very easy to get carried away but it is at a very early stage at the moment. There will be another meeting in a few weeks time.

I feel that Gus would be the man to talk about this and hopefully he'll be here soon to tell us all about it.

Meantime I'm reading up and learning as much as I can. I'm going to order a copy of the Transition Handbook for the Neeps library too.

Maria

annepan001

Bill suggested that we find a project early on which was very visible to the community, and which would also by-the-by be great for PR with lots of photo opportunities.

Some community fruit or nut trees seemed like a good possibility, if they could be planted very publicly with no access problems. This would get people talking and asking why it was being done, which would immediately open the doorway to talk about Transition Towns in the broader sense of the word, and hopefully encourage new ' recruits ' with lots more ideas and energy.

We talked about where this might be possible - the big green space in the middle of Aboyne looked like an obvious place, but apparently it's fiercely protected by the 'games committee'. Most of the land round Aboyne is thought to be owned by just a couple of people, but we presume there must be some council-owned land, and possibly even some common land. Does anyone have any info on this??

At the very least, those roadside verges are presumably council-owned, which was why I was eyeing them up on the way home! Though I imagine there could be health and safetly issues to consider if people were trying to pick apples on the road-side of the verge!! The issue of what might be considered 'petty' rules and regulations came up, as a hurdle to be overcome to get things moving, and also the fear of change.

From what Gus said, one of the first things that should probably happen is to 'map' the area to understand who owns which bit of land, where are the current community spaces, local businesses, services, schools, health centres, food producers etc and to start identifying what's missing that would make a resilient local community/economy, and to talk to some of the elders in the community to get their take on how it used to be before the heavy reliance on oil, long-distance travel and globalised everything.

Wildgarlic, Coire, does that sound about right to you?

Maria

Thanks Anne - really does sound good stuff!!!! Bout time I pulled my finger out here in Huntly. Since finding transition towns, via a friend in the town (her friend is involved in the transition towns Kirby initiative) I've been hooked. My problem was, not knowing enough towns folk as I know mapping what's already there is the key to a good beginning. I don't have that problem as much now - hooray for not working and getting to know the town and folks in it.

Oh - not sure i found out - how many folks went to the first meeting? What ever the number - if your lively chat is anything to go by, there'll be double the number at the next meet.

For anyone researching Common Land - here's the place http://www.scottishcommons.org/index.htm it's an interesting read!! downtoearthkim mentioned something about attending a meeting on this soon - if i hear anything I will let you know.

Maria

Is this common near you - it looks aboyne-ish? http://www.caledonia.org.uk/land/birse.htm

annepan001

There were 9 of us there last night. I'm planning to start a transition Midmar/Torphins group when I get back from the transition conference/training in London later this month, so I'm really interested to see how new and established transition towns are putting it into practise.

From what I learned last night, to get started as an 'official' transition town there needs to be a committee of a minimum of 3 - chairman/coordinator, secretary and treasurer, with a constitution and a bank account. Aboyne now has it's committee of 3, is working on the constitution, and is now starting to spread the word. So it's very early days. But once those basic steps are taken, that opens up the opportunity to apply for some funding for community initiatives - eg to book hall space, hire inspiring documentaries about related topics, pay for advertising / flyers, and perhaps to buy trees/ stakes etc.

Much to learn, but it's great to see it happening!

Thanks very much for the common land link... will definitely check that out!

coire

Yes, I think that's about right Anne. There were 5 of us at the first meeting, I think. And Birse is near Aboyne - I knew vaguely about the Birse Community Trust but not about its common land interest so thanks Maria. Had looked up Aberdeenshire on the common land website previously but the county scores 0/10 as it did not respond to the survey.

I like the idea of the community allotment - there's a lovely walled garden in Aboyne Castle estate which is wild and over-run which would be wonderful. I think energy and rural transport are my main interests, as well as common land, rather than food.

Not much mention was made at this particular meeting about carbon footprint reduction and lifestyle change. I guess the idea is to concentrate on the positive aspects such as community building so that the rest comes automatically 'cos climate change is scary. Gus' attitude towards the sort of folk who have the 3 big gas guzzlers in the drive (just let it be and concentrate on where they might be happy to join in and contribute - increases in fuel prices may bring about a change in behaviour and perhaps attitude eventually) was refreshing. Well, unless we all substitute environmentally-unfriendly biofuels for fossil fuels.

Jane

wildgarlic

How strange - I had replied to this but it hasn't showed up. Oh well, that sums it up pretty well Anne

Yes, Gus has just the right attitude I think - people don't take well to being told what they can and can't do, so if they can do what they want to do and still be part of the initiative then chances are they'll start doing more and more in due course.

I'm looking forward to the next meeting - perhaps I could pick you up en route Coire?

coire

gussyboy · Transition Town aboyne

Well, and gosh even!

I'm very impressed by the response to our meeting the other night and welcome anyone from the Neeps forum to come along to the next one.
( I feel that it should be the 28th of May, since George Cameron , our secretary, won't be back from Brazil till then and he has already missed one meeting ).

There are dozens of small and big scale projects which we could at least talk about at the moment, however, we do need to go through the basic steps before we can make then a reality. In the meantime the things we CAN do include;
spreading the word as far as possible,
reading and teaching ourselves to a point we can at least talk to others in an informed way,
think hard about what transition really means - remember, without a vision, we have nothing to be practical about. At the same time, if we can't be practical, all we have is a vision.
exchange as much information as possible, whether we feel it is relevant or not!
don't be dependant on outcomes - I want to be a transition Gus before a transition Aboyne!!

I've just re-registered with Neeps so I'll be catching up with you all in more detail soon. Great to hear such enthusiasm.

chowfornow, Gus

wildgarlic

Glad to see you here Gus

gussyboy

Glad to be here...give me a few days to catch up on the site, there's SO much stuff on here and ( of course ) I want to have opinions about ALL of it by the end of the week!

Hopefully see you at the next meeting where I recken we are going to have to hire the meeting room by the looks of things, and mibbe I can shut up for a while

All the best, Transition Gus

I'm so nosey - transition towns aboyne - questions....

Transition Town aboyne