Our fantastic Co-ordinator Mary is leaving at the end of June, and now we are looking for a new Co-ordinator to ensure that our projects continue running smoothly. This is a great opportunity to become the heart of a lively and active charity! Find out more below or on our website.
Questions about eco-renovating your property? Join the Open Eco Homes launch event, Eco-renovation Question Time, on 2 May to meet a panel of experts to answer your questions. We are also still looking for volunteer stewards – get an inside view of the Open Eco Homes! Find out more below or on our website.
Remember – if you are thinking of making a donation to CCF, May 14th is the day to do it and double your money!
Eco Renovation Question Time 2 May
Wednesday 2 May 2012, 7.30 – 10.30pm, St Paul’s Centre, Hills Road, Cambridge
We’re celebrating Open Eco Homes with an exciting Eco Renovation Question Time event chaired by Energy Editor of The Guardian, Terry MacAlister.
The programme:
7.00pm – Come in to view the Open Eco Homes showcase and browse stands
7.30pm – Introductory talk and overview of the Green Deal
7.50pm – Question Time – ask about making your home low energy
8.45pm – Refreshments and an opportunity to meet Open Eco Homes renovators
The panel:
The question time panel will consist of local low energy homes’ experts, as well as Eco Home owners with a range of eco-renovation experience.
• Peter Thom – energy efficiency pioneer, Green Heat Ltd
• Jeremy Ashworth – sustainable architect and custom built eco home owner
• Tim Acheson – environmentally conscious builder, Green Hat Construction
• Howard Rice – eco renovator, St Barnabas Road, 1890s home
• Spencer Hagard – eco renovator, Milton Road, 1920s home
• Mark Houston – architectural technician, The Green House Project, 1960s home
• Free admission – with a retiring collection to help cover costs
• Wine and soft drinks served
Eco Question Time will be kindly hosted by Transition Cambridge Energy Group in partnership with Cambridge Carbon Footprint
A few pairs of hands that can help out with drinks, chairs and microphones would be very useful, so let us know if you would like to play a part in making this event happen. Contact Stephanie, if you can give a hand on the day!
Mary’s Leaving / Coordinator Vacancy
Mary Geddes, our friendly and efficient Co-ordinator, at the hub of CCF, running our office and some projects since early 2010, is standing down at the end of June. She wants to catch up with her own work and to carry on in CCF, but without a work hat on! She’ll continue with our book-keeping as a volunteer.
Mary’s work has a really positive effect on CCF and we’ll celebrate this with her in early July.
So we’re looking for a new Co-ordinator to be at the centre of CCF and to:
- have an overview of our projects, putting the right people in touch
- manage and develop our office and run its systems.
3 days per week, £19,500 pro rata (60%)
You’d work alongside our Volunteer & Events Organiser, Stephanie Ferguson, with support from an Administrator volunteer, Trustees and others.
More details here. Closing date for applications: noon, Thu 17th May
Open Eco Homes: Have you chosen your houses yet? 12 – 13 and 26 – 27 May
Open Eco Homes weekends – 12-13 and 26-27 May – are getting closer, with 25 low energy venues in Cambridge and the surrounding villages – ranging from Victorian eco-refits to 1960s conversions and custom builds. Booking lines are open, so find the houses that interest you the most and get in touch to book you tour.
We still need Stewards for Open Eco Homes! Get your choice of dates and homes to steward by signing up early. Volunteer for any of the OEH dates, May 12, 13, 26 and 27, from 10am to 4pm. Find out more about being a steward on our website and if you’d like to help, get in touch with Stephanie.
A chance to double your donation to CCF at no extra cost to you! 14 May
On Monday 14th May, LocalGiving in Cambridgeshire is offering to double the value of any donation to CCF (and other Cambridge charities) made via their website on that day. If you were thinking about making a one-off donation to CCF, however small the amount, May 14th is the day to do it!
The offer is for a total amount raised by CCF on the day of £1,000, so we could potentially receive £2,000 that day. This comes at a good time for us, as our core funding from Cambridge City Council finished at the end of March and we are now living off our reserves and the regular donations made by a few very generous supporters. As well as making a donation yourself, perhaps you could ask your friends and family to donate a few pounds and it will soon mount up!
Here are some ideas for what your donation might buy for CCF:
£2 pays to calculate someone’s carbon footprint- £5 helps promote our Eating Local project
- £10 trains a Climate-friendly Homes home energy surveyor
- £30 buys a home energy monitor for us to lend out
- £50 provides an interactive stall at a public event
- £100 runs one eco-renovation workshop
- £250 provides a six-session Carbon Conversations group
How to donate
Click here to donate to CCF via the LocalGiving website.
Remember, you will need to donate on May 14th if you are to double the value of your donation!
UK Green Film Festival 18 – 20 May
Friday – Sunday 18 – 20 May, Arts Picturehouse
Back for its second year, the UK Green Film Festival is the UK’s annual environmental film festival. Over a single weekend, up and down the country, the festival screens some of the very best films out there, from around the world, exploring some of the big environmental issues of the day.
Here in Cambridge the Arts Picturehouse will be screening three films:
Friday, 18th May, 6:30pm – The Happy Movie
Saturday, 19th May, 4pm – In Transition 2.0
Sunday, 20th May, 4pm – Taste the Waste
Cambridge Carbon Footprint, Transition Cambridge and CaSFA will be organising after-film discussions or events, details to follow.
Tickets will be available from the Arts Picturehouse.
PlanEAT: Dinner and a Movie 8 June
Friday 8 June, 6.30 – 9pm, Ross Street Community Centre
This June, Cambridge Carbon Footprint presents an evening event that food lovers won’t want to miss.
For the first time in Cambridge we will be screening PlanEAT, a remarkable and award-winning film about the search for a diet that is good for our health, good for the environment and good for the future of the planet. With an additional cast of pioneering chefs and some of the best cooking you have ever seen, the scientists and doctors in the film present a convincing case for the West to re-examine its love affair with meat and dairy.
PLANEAT shows how so many of the problems we face today can be solved, without simply resorting to a diet of lentils and lettuce leaves. To prove it, we’ll be serving a delicious plant-based dinner too, and provide recipies to take home.
Tickets are on a sliding scale, £10, £20 or £30 (pay what you can – £10 just covers the cost of the event, £20 and £30 allows us to fundraise) will be available to purchase shortly.
To find out more and watch the trailer, visit our website.
The Work that Reconnects: a weekend workshop 15 – 17 June
Friday (evening) – Sunday 15 – 17 June, Cambridge Sustainability Centre, Fen End Farm, Oxholme Drove, Cottenham, CB24 8UP
Following our hugely successful day workshop in January, we are happy to offer this chance to go more deeply into our sense of interconnectedness with the world and release our energy to take positive action in our lives. This is for anyone who is concerned about the condition of our world and would like to strengthen their ability to respond? ‘The Work That Reconnects’ is an ecopsychological approach developed by Joanna Macy (seewww.joannamacy.net for info). Deepening our feeling of connection with life, we will open up spiritual and psychological resources needed to face and respond to global issues. Through experiential practices we will explore how to use the energy of our emotional responses, reconnect with our passion to act for life and transform concern for the world into creative engagement.
The workshop will be facilitated by Anna McIvor, Bev Sedley and Liz Serocold and will be hosted by the Cambridge Sustainability Centre. Cost £50-£100, depending on your ability to pay. Most of us will be camping and we will be cooking together. More info here and book here through the Cambridge Sustainability Centre.
This event is offered jointly by the Cambridge Sustainability Centre, Cambridge Carbon Footprint and Transition Cambridge.
Take part in Eco Renovation in Progress
Our Eco Renovation in Progress events are quite popular and we plan to run a few more of them this year. If you would like your home to be used for one of these events, please let us know. We are looking for homes within Cambridge only, and which still have a lot of renovation potential, so our expert team can explain what eco renovations could be done on a tour. if you’re interested email Stephanie with a short description of your house and it’s general location and when you might be able to host an event.
Open Eco Gardens coming this summer!
If you like Open Eco Homes, you’ll love Open Eco Gardens, coming this summer on 14th July. Open Eco Gardens will be run similarly to Open Eco Homes, where a number of different gardens within Cambridge will be open for guided tours and questions. More details will be forthcoming in June but at the moment we looking for more gardens to showcase in the event. To be an “eco” garden it should include one or more aspects of: food growth, permaculture, wildlife or water conservation. It needn’t be large or elaborate but can be of any size, type or character (eg. allotment, containers, community garden, front or back garden, etc) so we have many examples that people can gain inspiration from for their own spaces. Email Stephanie to join in.
Rod’s rag-week photo! (and the darned good idea…)
If you check out the “Living well with less stuff” blog now, you will find Rod’s post on “the allure of charity shops“, complete with a couple of very alluring photos of Rod….
We had a great meeting of the “Living well with less stuff” group last night. (I found it very helpful and already feel a great deal better about stuff and my tangled relationship with it.) We will be meeting up again (and welcome newcomers), but we will also have other meetings around specific themes – for example, a few of us (Rod, Helen, me) want to meet up to have a “make and mend” session – if you’d like to join us, you don’t have to be able to make or mend very well, just come along and bring something you want to work on – we’ll share any skill we have amongst ourselves. Rod called this “a darned good idea”…. (And you won’t be committed to joining the “living well with less stuff” challenge – we’d just like your company!)
Check out the blog and let me, Bev, know if you want to join the group or want to come to the “make and mend” session. Hope to see some of you!
Does “fracking” demean women?
The recent recommendation by government advisers that “fracking” for shale gas is safe to resume is bad news. But the way this issue has been framed is both demeaning to women and likely to act as a hindrance to debate.
Read more at www.rorandall.org
Grow Your Own – Gardening in May
It was great to wake up to a bright sunny morning on the lay day of April, after yet another day of continuous rain. For us gardeners, with wet soil and overflowing water butts, the current drought is certainly over!
Read Keith Jordan’s full article on May gardening on our website.
In Transition 2.0 is coming to Cambridge! 19 May
Saturday 19 May, 4pm, Arts Picture House, Regent Street
This is the new film from the Transition Network and is a great way of finding out what the Transition movement is all about! The film will be followed by a short question and answer session with some current members of Transition Cambridge, and then everyone is invited to help us celebrate our 4th birthday with tea and cake. More details to follow, but save the date, and book your tickets early! (Normal cinema prices apply, and tickets will be available for booking throug the Arts Picturehouse web-site.)
Creating a Vision for Cambridge in 2030 24 May
Thursday 24 May, 7 – 9pm, Ross Street Community Centre
What do we want Cambridge to look like in 2030 and what role will Transition Cambridge play in achieving that vision? This will be the first of two events* leading to the creation of Transition Cambridge’s Energy Descent Action Plan. Bring your ideas and dreams for a sustainable Cambridge to this exciting landmark event! Facilitated by Transition’s own Liz Serocold and Jane Brown. (*the second event is scheduled to take place in June and will deal with backcasting and creating a timeline for achieving our vision).