Quarterly General Meeting and Call for Volunteers!
Transition Guelph's Resilience 2011 Community Festival was a huge success, and we want this year's festival to be even better. But we're going to need lots of help! So come on out to our next general meeting, hear what's been going on and all about the upcoming festival, and get involved! There's lots to do, and there's sure to be something that will inspire you!
Tuesday, January 31, 7-9pm, Community Room 112 at City Hall. See you there!
Peak oil. Climate change. Economic instability. Environmental degradation. These are just a few of the most pressing issues of our time. The Transition movement, which is spreading quickly around the world, provides a foundation upon which to build a promising future together that is more fulfilling, creative and sustainable. Transition is a process for strengthening community resilience and building sustainability in a post-peak oil world that is uniquely designed by each community based on their local needs and resources.
Transition Guelph is proud to be Canada's second official Transition Initiative, joining Peterborough, Ontario, Canada's first, on May 14, 2009. The transition movement is gaining a strong foothold in Canada and around the world, with over 275 official Transition Initiatives worldwide and, as of December, 2011, twenty-two in Canada. Thousands more communities worldwide are in the initial organizing stages. (For a complete list, see www.transitionnetwork.org.)
Transition Guelph Quarterly General Meeting - Festival Update
What: Lastest news, and request for volunteers!
When: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 @ 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Where: Community room 112, City Hall
Join us for our quarterly meeting, find out what Transition Guelph has been up to, and hear about plans for our next Resilience 2012 Community Festival! Last year's festival was a huge success, and we want this one to be even better, but we're going to need LOTS of volunteers to make it happen!
So come on out and get involved! There's lots to do, and there's sure to be something that will inspire you!
Surviving Progress
What: Film screening
When: Saturday, February 4, 2012 @ 8:00 pm
Where: River Run Centre
Surviving Progress is an important new feature documentary that connects the financial collapse, growing inequity, and the Wall Street oligarchy, with future technology, sustainability, and the fate of civilization. Inspired by Ronald Wright's bestseller A Short History of Progress, filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks dig deep into human nature and patterns of history to challenge and redefine the very idea of progress.
This Guelph premiere showing is being presented as part of Hillside Inside.
Whither the Windcatcher?. An interesting article in Conservation Magazine about an old passive ventilation technology that's getting some new attention due to its efficiency and zero-energy consumption, the windcatcher.
January 23, 2012
Boom and Doom: great (if disturbing) article from New Scientist. And reprinted in the Transition Initiatives Daily. New Scientist published an interesting article this month about the “Limits to Growth” study from he 70’s. Their studies showed that the current boom will be followed by a collapse of the economy. The reason that the model crashed was because its hypothetical people did not respond quickly enough to avoid problems. And what do we see in reality: we are not responding quick enough to combat global warming. We are not responding quick enough to deal with the economic crisis. So I think the report’s researchers were right in their assessment of human behavior! The other interesting observation they made is that the only way to avoid a collapse is to limit growth. I could not agree more.
For the full article, please click on the above link.
January 20, 2012
Why this is an amazing time to be alive. While I don't always find the articles in Transition Voice to be particularly compelling or inspiring, I must say this one really captures the vast possibilities of our time, and persuades us not to squander this unique historical opportunity to build something better. Inspiring.
The Transition Guelph Fruit Tree Project is a continuation of the great work that has been done over the past 10 years by Guelph's own Appleseed Collective. The project is threefold, to document and map the locations of all existing fruit and nut-bearing trees within Guelph so that we have a comprehensive list (trees on private property would be included with the permission of the owner.)
The project would also promote the further planting of fruit and nut trees in Guelph, in collaboration with the Treemobile Project (see below) to increase our community's food resilience and tree canopy, and finally, to help with harvesting when the fruit is ripe (again, with permission). Fruit is shared with the owner, with the volunteers, and with local community kitchens.
Movies, we got 'em! The Transition Guelph lending library has over 30 titles on the shelf, and you can borrow them, free of charge, for a period of two weeks. Hold a screening in your home for family and friends, discuss the movie afterwards. It's a great way to raise awareness around the key issues of our time, and to examine the possibilities for change. Here are a few random titles for you to check out:
The most recent forum post was titled: "Help create space for alternatives to coal and nuclear", posted in the Green Energy forum on Tue, Jan 17, 2012.
Previous forum post was titled: "Re: Fair Trade meeting on January 10, 2012", posted in the Let's make Guelph a Fair Trade Town forum on Fri, Jan 13, 2012.
The most recent blog posting was titled: "2012 Environmental Sciences Symposium - Resilience and Community", posted on Mon, Jan 23, 2012:
by Ingrid Sorensen
“What makes agriculture and communities resilient?" Go ahead and write down a few ideas… How do those ideas look to someone who lived seven generati...
The first run of the Treemobile in April was a huge success! Our terrific team of volunteers planted over 30 fruit trees, and over a hundred fruit-bearing shrubs! We're planning another Treemobile run in the fall, so stay tuned. We'll give plenty of notice when our catalog is online.
Among the many enhancements will be the ability to pay for your order online via PayPal, and book an online web-chat consultation with one of our tree experts!
The Urban Food Working Group is focused on building resilience into our food systems by supporting and strengthening local food production, and raising awareness around the benefits of a strong local food infrastructure. The group is also active in promoting urban gardening, edible landscape design, and teaching about and applying permaculture principles to our local food resources. We work closely with the Guelph-Wellington Food Roundtable, and with the Guelph-Wellington Buy-Local Buy-Fresh initiative, as well as local food producers and CSAs.
LGBTTIQQ Positive Space