South of Tyne Community Green Fest

South of Tyne Transition Town’s are organising the South of Tyne Transition Green Fest at Bill Quay Farm,
Hainingwood Terrace, Gateshead on Saturday 25th June (11am – 4pm).

The idea for the festival emerged at a South of Tyneside Transition Town meeting when we were talking
about how to engage local communities. The basic idea was to bring environmentalist groups and small
businesses with an environmentalist edge together with a local community. However the idea has now
grown to encompass the environmentalist groups inviting a wider community of supporters who are already
interested in environmental issues for a region-wide get together and celebration of all things green.
The farm has asked the event not be publicised as a public event this year (except in their own local
community), but if all goes well they are happy for the event to be bigger next year. So this year is kind of a
trial run but should also be a great day in its own right! But we are welcome to spread the word as widely as
possible among groups and individuals who already have an interest in green issues.

Although the event is being organised by Transition Town South of Tyne, Bill Quay Farm are going to support
us by providing a tent and seating for the talks and entertainment (to be supervised and provided with
electricity by Bill Quay Farm staff), reserving the car park for stalls, offering us the classroom for educational
activities and catering for our needs in their cafe (by providing vegan, vegetarian and organic meat options
and an extra outdoor drinks and snacks stall for children). They have asked that the event be kept gentle,
family friendly and alcohol free.

Activities for children will include making boxes to attract various forms of wildlife such as solitary bees and games organised by woodcraft folk.

11-12am: Bill quay farm beekeepers
•
12-1pm: Live music from The Corn Sisters
•
1pm – 2pm: Live music from Summer Tumblers: emily.blyth@sunderlandgreenparty.org.uk
•
2pm-3pm: Sally Reckert, Transition Town Richmond, talk on forest gardening: sally@transitionrichmond.org
•
3pm-4pm: Derek Wall, former green party principle speaker, talk on Internationalism, Survival and the Environment
•

Volunteers are still needed, especially for stewarding.  Please contact annaheyman2006@yahoo.co.uk or shirley.ford@stgreens.org.uk.

 

Welcome to South of Tyne Transitions

Latest minutes from last meeting…

Hi everyone

Topics discussed at Bill Quay Farm meeting Oct 17th:

1.  Community gardens – TT South of members to help Shirley write up and promote the community garden set up at Marine Park Primary as something that could be done in other schools.  Anna to chase up what is happening about the community gardening and local food shop proposals that were in the Bill Quay Farm bid.  Shirley noted that there are several volunteers interested in working a plot that has become available in South Tyneside and that these people are happy for surplus product to be shared with the community.

2. Locally grown food box schemes – a couple of people at the meeting were willing to become distribution points.  It was suggested that the TT could help schools and community centres to get matched up with suppliers and produce leaflets promoting a list of local schemes.

3.  South of Tyne Green Festival – it was suggested that we could try and tag onto Jarrow Fest in May and share their publicity.  Or as an alternative, the Saltwell Park flower show.  The fest could included the low impact living initiative, woodcraft folk, circus stalls, and interactive activity showing the likely effects of various government interventions on the environment, a fun consultation stall (e.g. flags and sand), a talk in a tent from the perma-culture network, a fun test of people’s knowledge of what comes from oil, a sports recycler, Boldon Solar Energy.

4.  Ultra-local activity – TT could support people to set up very local websites for people who want to swap free stuff within walking distance.  Alternatively we could promote the idea of a day of the week when people leave out free stuff for others to pick up, which is what they have in Germany.  We can also promote a list of environmentalist films that can be screened free of charge in pubs and community centres (as they have been doing in Gosforth).

Anna

“Welcome to Transition Town South of Tyne.  The Transition Town initiative is a national wide network of community groups working together to make our cities, towns and villages more self-reliant and less dependent on oil.   Transition Town South of Tyne is the coordinating group for South Tyneside and Gateshead.   We are very new but we have already successfully completed the first stage of one project: the tranformation of the food group coordinator’s garden into a food garden (see the video link below for how we went about clearing the ground, and then constructing and planting the first raised bed all within five hours including a tea break and a lunch break).

We have only had one planning meeting so far, but a few key principles are emerging:

1. We want to concentrate in a big way on the growing and picking of food – there is a shortage of allotments in South Tyneside, so over production and storage are not a big problem at the moment as they are in other areas.  However we are also interested in transport, cycle paths, make-and-mend-do skills and home technology.

2. We are probably going to link in with existing organisations for anything that requires handling funds and raising money, rather than creating another beurocratic organisation, at least until we get bigger.  For example we already have links with Bede’s World, Bill Quay Farm and Marine Park for the purpose of getting some land.

3.  We are very interested in creating projects that are accessible to families, since many of our core members have young children themselves and already work or volunteer in school and youth groups. One of our first distinct groups might well be a children’s transition group.

We are planning a second planning meeting very soon - if you want updates or general information, please contact annaheyman2006@yahoo.co.uk .