We have an exciting CCF fortnight coming up! First we have our Sharing in the Community event this Wednesday. Join us to find new ways to spend less and get to know the community better. Next Wednesday, 27th June, it is time for our summer social. Find out what CCF is planning to do later this year and have great discussions with like-minded people.
The gardens featured in Open Eco Gardens on 14th July are now listed on the CCF website, so take a look and book your tour. The gardens vary from communal to family gardens, but all offer lots of inspiration on how to create a beautiful and sustainable garden.
If you’d like to start planning something nice for autumn after all the summery celebrations and events, CCF is organising a ceilidh this autumn, and in order to make it a success, we’d love your help! If you’d like to volunteer, find out more below!
Sharing in the Community 20 June
Wednesday 20 June, 7 – 9pm, Hills Road, near the station
Join us at Bev’s house for an evening of sharing:
• bring a dish of seasonal food to share
• ‘make do and mend’ – share or learn a skill to revitalize old items
• help us to create a list of useful equipment we can lend each other (eg garden tools – Mary has included her sewing machine!)
This evening, an off-shoot of our ‘Living well with less stuff’ project and blog, is open to anyone on our mailing list who would like to participate or just find out more. To get us started, Fiona is going to demonstrate how she alters and creates new clothes from charity shop buys. (You are also welcome to bring along small making or mending project you are in the middle of.)
This event coincides with a ‘Sharing in the Community’ day organised by the New Economics Foundation (nef) as part of their Festival of Transition, and the nef event is designed to coincide with the first day of the Earth Summit in Rio. If you don’t know thenef website, it is a mine of useful information on how to develop a more sustainable economy.
Do join us, however much or little you feel able to contribute. Email Bev to
* find out more about it
* book your place
* let us know what skills you are interested in, whether to learn or share
Continuing Carbon Conversations meeting 25 June
Monday 25 June, evening, exact time and location available from Bev
If you’ve done Carbon Conversations, coming to a Continuing Carbon Conversations group is a great way of keeping your interest in low carbon living going – it is so much easier to keep up the momentum in the company of like-minded people! A new series of four bimonthly meetings is starting on Monday June 25th. Email Bev if you are interested.
CCF Summer Social 27 June
Wednesday 27 June, 7 – 9.30pm, Sturton Street
Let’s take an evening to kick back and celebrate all the hard work we’ve done so far this year. Meet some other volunteers and CCF supporters and get a sneak peek into what’s in store for the rest of the year.
If you’re interested in volunteering this is a perfect chance to learn more and meet some of our current volunteers. Hopefully the weather will be fine and we can sit outside, maybe light a fire.
Feel free to bring along some nibbles to share. Please RSVP so we have an idea of numbers and can give you the address (Sturton Street). See you there!
CCF book group Monday 2 July
Monday 2 July, 7pm, Mill Rd area
There are a couple of spaces in our popular CCF book group, which meets every two months. The next meeting is on Monday July 2nd at 7pm in the Mill Road area – we will be discussing “Meat: a benign extravagance” by Simon. If you would like to join but don’t feel you have the time to read the book in the next two weeks, we will be discussing “Far North”, a novel by Marcel Theroux on September 3rd. It’s a really sociable, enjoyable way to spend an evening and a good way of making sure you read good books you might not otherwise get round to! We bring food to share. Contact the office if you are interested.
Open Eco Gardens this July! 14 July
Saturday 14 July, 11am – 2pm
Mark your diaries for July 14, Open Eco Gardens is here! Similar to our annual Open Eco Homes event, we are going to be opening up the gates to some of Cambridge’s Eco Gardens for guided tours and questions.
We consider an Eco Garden to be one which includes at least one of the following: food growing, water conservation, encourages wildlife, or uses permaculture design. Community gardens, allotments, home gardens, college gardens and public gardens will all be showcased. Find out more and choose the gardens you’d like to visit on our website.
Booking is essential!
Trip to Hockerton Housing Project 19 September
Saturday 29 September, 11am – 7pm
Join us on a tour of Hockerton Housing Project. The tour lasts three hours, from 2pm to 5pm. It takes about 1hr 45mins to get there from Cambridge so we’ll leave around 11am which will give us time for a picnic lunch. We expect to arrive back in Cambridge by 7pm at the latest (the plan is to car share).
Cost: £24 (payable in advance) plus a contribution towards travel costs (payable on the day). We can offer a couple of bursaries to our volunteers.
Booking essential, places limited to 10. For further information, or to reserve your place, email Mary at info@cambridgecarbonfootprint.org
Volunteers for CCF fundraising ceilidh and other events
Are you interested in helping organise our CCF ceilidh, which will be in the Arbury Community Centre on Saturday October 20th? This will be a big, exciting event with a bar, food, stalls, raffle, as well as a live ceilidh band and we hope to attract 150 people to raise much-needed funds for CCF as well as raising awareness about climate change! We are planning other exciting fundraising events as well. If you are interested, please come to a meeting on Monday 18th June, 7.30pm at Bev’s. Email Bev to say you would like to join us or let her know you are interested even if you can’t make this meeting.
Ideas wanted for a low-carbon Christmas!
We are planning to hold a “Planning for a Low Carbon Christmas” event in the autumn, as Christmas is one of those times of year when consumerism goes wild and even the most conscientious of us can get swept away! If you have any great suggestions or could demonstrate your low carbon ideas for presents, please email us.
Lots of interest in “In praise of second-hand stuff!”
Quite a few of you have expressed an interest in our new idea “In praise of second-hand stuff!” and a meeting is being arranged for either a Tuesday or a Thursday evening in the next two weeks. If you are interested in getting involved, email us. This is what appeared in our last newsletter:
Have you seen the growing number of adverts around Cambridge at the moment advertising new houses, but also shiny new lifestyles? We’d like to create some similar images but using second hand things instead. If anyone is interested in spreading the message that second hand stuff can look just as good, if not better, than new things then please get in touch. Whether you are a budding photographer, a marketing wizz or have a passion for second hand items – we’d love to hear from you.
Green Enterprise: Carl Dodd, founder of Property Revolutions June 25
Monday 25 June, 7.30 – 9.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane
Carl Dodd, founder of Property Revolutions, will discuss “the journey to affordable sustainable housing”. He will share his personal journey, including what he is doing now to make high efficiency, green buildings more affordable.
As his experience includes the inspirational MSC Advanced Architecture and Energy Studies course at the Centre for Alternative Technology, re-training builders, dealing with planners, renewable energy and employing design partners in Moldova (and the UK), I’m sure it will be a fascinating evening for anyone interested in innovation in the building sector, or who hankers after an affordable greener home.
Transition Cambridge Home Energy Fair 5 July
Thursday 5 July, 7 – 9pm, Emmanuel United Reform Church, 72 Trumpington Street, CB2 1RR (opposite the bottom of Downing Street, parking in Trumpington Street or in the Downing Street car park)
Transition Cambridge is hosting a Home Energy Fair, which will be of interest to many in Cambridge Carbon Footprint.
There will be short talks on The Green Deal, LED lighting, PV Panels and Feed-in Tarrifs, as well as stalls from local suppliers of everything from insulation to solar panelsWe’ll have a stall there too, to show how home energy fits into the rest of your carbon footprint, what behaviour changes might make a big difference to your home energy usage, and the resources Cambridge Carbon Footprint has on offer to help you with your home renovation plans.
Entry is free. For further details and a full list of stalls please visit the Energy Fair’s websitehere.
“Women by Name” Green Party National Women’s Meeting 7 July
Saturday 7 July, 10.30am – 4.30pm, Trumpington Pavillion, Paget Road, Trumpington
“Women by Name” meetings take place four times a year, during autumn and spring national conference and on a rotating basis between venues in north and south of the England and Wales. The day includes interesting speakers on issues of importance to women and offers a safe space for women to discuss and develop new policy and add amendments to conference motions; and to share knowledge and skills about standing for election and for taking office. It’s an enjoyable event so please do come.
The meeting in Cambridge will be open to all national and local women members of the Green Party and women who are active voters and supporters of the Green Party.
To book please contact Ceri Galloway on cerig11@googlemail.com for final updated information please follow the Cambridge Green Party web page. £8.50 for the day including lunch.