Poster for 20th May, and more on Permaculture

Please find attached a poster for our next meeting on 20th May. Can I ask you to print out a copy and put it up somewhere in your neighbourhood and/or ar work, in your church or school? We are hoping for as wide a representation of Abingdon area residents as possible.

Below is an email from Cliff, recording the very fruitful and wide-ranging discussion prompted by Sophie and Martin's talk on permaculture last Wednesday. Turns out that permaculture is not only about forest gardening but is a way of looking at all sorts of self-regulating systems, including whole towns! And the first essential is to look at what you've got now, before trying to change it!

Ideas from last night as I recall them (from the talk, the discussion and from conversations going on):

It is important to try to achieve integration of activities as we seek to achieve a more sustainable life for the town.

We need to begin to develop a vision of what Abingdon could be in a 40, 60 or even 80% reduction of carbon emissions world and one which is losing its reliance on fossil fuels (an energy descent plan?)

We need to conduct audits of such aspects of town life as:
* shops - location, products sold, provenance
* people - occupations, commuting patterns, vital skills, craft skills and other community skills
* homes - surveys of heat loss from homes, fuller information on solar energy use across the town, othe eco-novations
* businesses that are already taking initiatives locally to reduce emissions and contribute to sustainable practice
* buildings with roofs that could be utilised to generate solar power, rain water harvesting
* existing organisations/activities that could contribute to the sustainabilty aim - allotments, farms producing food for local consumption, shared garden schemes, community associations, environmentally committed clubs and societies, schools and youth organisations, church groups, etc.,
* the amount of land available within the town / Vale, other than private resident's land, that might be usable for food production when the need comes In order to be able to make a case for any proposals we might wish to make in the future, we might try to quantify the size of the need in terms, say, of local land necessary to be under cultivation to achieve a more sustainable food supply for the town.