Really Planning for Real

Sustainable Transport is coming our way!!

Click image below for registration and more details:
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Making Kurilpa the Heart of Active & Sustainable Transport in Brisbane

A West End Community Association & Transition Kurilpa Initiative

A Workshop Facilitated By Australia’s Leading
Sustainable Transport Planners

President of PedBikeTrans RACHEL SMITH

Convenor, CycleEast & Churchill Fellow, PETER BERKELEY

Workshop Outline

1. Transition Town Leading Case Studies
2. Sustainable Transport Leading Case Studies
3. Site Visit & Observation of Transport Issues
4. Group Work to Develop Solutions for Key West End Destinations

By 2pm on Sunday we will have:

* A Transport Vision for West End
* A Range of Solutions for School Precincts, Boundary St, Montague St, Vulture St, Melbourne St, The Arts Precinct & Access to the CBD
* An Action Plan for Implementation

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Australia’s Open Garden Scheme

The 2009 Community Grants Program builds on the success of ten previous annual programs that have returned over $925,000 to the community. Since 1987 the Scheme has funded 385 community projects around Australia.

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme is a self-funding, not-for-profit organisation that promotes the knowledge and pleasure of gardens and gardening to all Australians.

Each year more than 250,000 people visit around 600 private gardens which open for the Scheme. The entry fees charged fund the Scheme’s operation.

Funds surplus to operating costs are returned to the community in the form of grants for garden-related projects.

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme in association with ABC Radio is proud to offer these grants to community organisations for the creation or improvement of a garden for a public or community outdoor space.

ABC Radio has been a proud supporter of the Scheme since its inception in 1987. From local Saturday morning gardening talkback to ‘Gardening Australia’ on ABC Television, the ABC supports and recognises gardening as one of Australia’s most popular pastimes.

How the Community Benefits

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme is a self-funding, non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the knowledge and pleasure of gardens and gardening.

By opening Australia’s finest private gardens to the public, the community benefits financially in two very distinct ways: by donations to charity by our garden owners, and by the Scheme’s own Community Grants program.

Donations by garden owners

Since 1987 the Scheme’s garden owners have donated more than $4.3 million to charity. Last season alone, our garden owners donated around $330,000 to charities and local causes. These funds were raised through garden entry fees, refreshment stalls, plants sales and various other activities on open days.

Community Garden Grants

The Scheme is committed to encouraging gardening and improving our environment. One of the ways we achieve this is by funding community-based garden projects. Each year, funds surplus to our operational costs are returned to the community in the form of grants.

Since 1987, community projects around Australia have benefited to the tune of $925,000. This is in addition to funding our own national expansion.

Recipients of funds include Botanic Gardens which play a vital role in encouraging plant diversity and education. We have funded the identification of important plant collections which enhance the community’s knowledge and appreciation of plant diversity.

The Scheme’s commitment to the gardeners of the future is aptly demonstrated by the substantial number of school gardens which have received funding, encouraging tomorrow’s gardeners.

The therapeutic qualities of gardens and plants have also ensured that hospitals and retirement villages have been the focus of a number of grants.

A growing interest in the gardening heritage of Australia is also reflected in grants given for tree surgery, restoration of hard landscaping, undergrounding of utilities and research into historic gardens.

Inspired by the enthusiasm of community groups, the Scheme has provided funds for projects which are enhancing towns and cities across the breadth of Australia. Included among these are a number of gardens celebrating specific plant collections.

In recognition of the challenges of gardening in our climate, the Scheme has also been involved in the construction of a Waterwise Garden, the installation of watering systems in historic gardens and a Fire Safe Garden in a bushfire-prone region.The 2009 Community Grants Program builds on the success of ten previous annual programs that have returned over $925,000 to the community. Since 1987 the Scheme has funded 385 community projects around Australia.

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme is a self-funding, not-for-profit organisation that promotes the knowledge and pleasure of gardens and gardening to all Australians.

Each year more than 250,000 people visit around 600 private gardens which open for the Scheme. The entry fees charged fund the Scheme’s operation.

Funds surplus to operating costs are returned to the community in the form of grants for garden-related projects.

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme in association with ABC Radio is proud to offer these grants to community organisations for the creation or improvement of a garden for a public or community outdoor space.

ABC Radio has been a proud supporter of the Scheme since its inception in 1987. From local Saturday morning gardening talkback to ‘Gardening Australia’ on ABC Television, the ABC supports and recognises gardening as one of Australia’s most popular pastimes.

How the Community Benefits

Australia’s Open Garden Scheme is a self-funding, non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting the knowledge and pleasure of gardens and gardening.

By opening Australia’s finest private gardens to the public, the community benefits financially in two very distinct ways: by donations to charity by our garden owners, and by the Scheme’s own Community Grants program.

Donations by garden owners

Since 1987 the Scheme’s garden owners have donated more than $4.3 million to charity. Last season alone, our garden owners donated around $330,000 to charities and local causes. These funds were raised through garden entry fees, refreshment stalls, plants sales and various other activities on open days.

Community Garden Grants

The Scheme is committed to encouraging gardening and improving our environment. One of the ways we achieve this is by funding community-based garden projects. Each year, funds surplus to our operational costs are returned to the community in the form of grants.

Since 1987, community projects around Australia have benefited to the tune of $925,000. This is in addition to funding our own national expansion.

Recipients of funds include Botanic Gardens which play a vital role in encouraging plant diversity and education. We have funded the identification of important plant collections which enhance the community’s knowledge and appreciation of plant diversity.

The Scheme’s commitment to the gardeners of the future is aptly demonstrated by the substantial number of school gardens which have received funding, encouraging tomorrow’s gardeners.

The therapeutic qualities of gardens and plants have also ensured that hospitals and retirement villages have been the focus of a number of grants.

A growing interest in the gardening heritage of Australia is also reflected in grants given for tree surgery, restoration of hard landscaping, undergrounding of utilities and research into historic gardens.

Inspired by the enthusiasm of community groups, the Scheme has provided funds for projects which are enhancing towns and cities across the breadth of Australia. Included among these are a number of gardens celebrating specific plant collections.

In recognition of the challenges of gardening in our climate, the Scheme has also been involved in the construction of a Waterwise Garden, the installation of watering systems in historic gardens and a Fire Safe Garden in a bushfire-prone region.

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The LOCAL Opportunity: Building Resilient Businesses and Local Living Economies

Michael Shuman

Building Resilient Businesses and Local Living Economies

BRISBANE TRANSITION HUB presents A WORKSHOP WITH MICHAEL SHUMAN

If you are interested in positive and viable ways to build stronger businesses and communities in the changing economic, environmental and global context, then this workshop is for you. Learn more about:

* The value of small business to sustainable economies
* The importance of local businesses
* Options for investment in local or green businesses and community projects
* Invigorating local economic vitality
* Ways to bring community development and new business creation together
* Building local living economies

Sunday, 21 June 2009 at West End, Brisbane

For more details and to register your place go to this page.

“It’s not about stopping anything.  It’s about starting something – vibrant local economies that will make our cities and towns the places we very much want them to be.”

Proudly sponsored by: Brisbane Transition Hub, West End Community Association, West End Traders Association, and Food Connect

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Frank Assessment Of Where The World Is At

WARNING : Oil Addiction - causes climate change, funds violent extremism, damages health, reduces wealth!James Howard Kunstler, prominently featured in the peak oil documentary “The End of Suburbia“, has written a frank and chilling assessment of where the world is at for “The Daily Reckoning“.

Unfortunately it is not all rosy, but as usual it’s all in how we look at things. Even though there seem to be many, many challenges ahead of us, James reckons that many good things will come out of the challenges we face, and I indeed concur with James in that. Our world needs to change for humans to survive and peak oil may actually force us to change towards using more sustainable practices in all we do.

The article by James Howard Kunstler is is titled: The Bottom of This Society’s Ability to Process Reality

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‘In Transition’ Movie

On Saturday May 23rd the premiere of the new film ‘In Transition’  will be streamed live on the internet from the UK. With input from Transition communities around the world it tells the story of the people that have looked peak oil and climate change square in the face, and responded with creativity, compassion and genius. In the film you will see the stories of communities creating their own currencies, setting up their own pubs, planting trees, growing food.  You’ll see local authorities getting behind their local Transition initiatives, and get a sense of the scale of this emerging movement.

It will commence at 10:45pm and runs for an hour.

You can watch it online on the night:

http://www.mogulus.com/intransition

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Transition Town Kurilpa Initiative Now Official

Transition Town Kurilpa is now recognised as an official Transition Town Initiative. Along with Sustainable Maleny north of Brisbane, Transition Town Kurilpa was today recognised by the Transition Network for our efforts to make our communities and Australia more sustainable through our localisation efforts.

Transition Town Kurilpa aims to make our little peninsula and its community more resilient. The word sustainable has so many co-opted meanings, we are using the word resilient in the ecological sense – in this case resilient to the twin concerns of climate change and peak oil.

We intend to raise awareness of these issues and to develop an Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) covering the areas of food, transport, energy , community, health, recreation, waste, built environment and housing, infrastructure and tourism.

We (and other Transition Initiatives in the Brisbane area) will be showing films, having discussions and facilitating trainings (see events) to members of our community to maintain or improve our quality of life, increase social cohesion and prepare for the inevitable changes that are occurring through climate change and peak oil. We see planning for these changes as a positive thing if we do it as a community. Our trainings will show members of the community how to reskilling themselves in gardening, building, carpentry, jam making, wall building, using tools, bike maintenance, composting – the sky is the limit.

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An EDAP is Born!

forestrowedapcover1Two years after the group was formed, Transition Forest Row has just published its first version of an EDAP. Subtitled ‘a community work in progress’ it is a combination of storytelling, cartoons, drawings and practical steps to an oil-free 2030. More

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Michael Pollan, “Deep Agriculture”

Cited from The Long Now Blog – May 6th, 02009 by Kevin Kelly salt_020090505_pollan_large

Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan’s talk promoted the premise  — and hope — that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to produce lots of calories cheaply, and they did. They became the most productive humans on earth. A single farmer in Iowa could feed 150 of his neighbors. That is a true modern miracle. “American farmers are incredibly inventive, innovative, and accomplished. They can do whatever we ask them, we just need to give them a new set of requirements.”  More


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Rosey Pekin TT Adventures in NSW

Gathered in the beautiful mud brick home of John & Sharron Champagne, Robert speaks to the TT group about food security

Gathered in the beautiful mud brick home of John & Sharron Champagne, Robert speaks to the TT group about food security

After a request to take the Food Connect roadshow south of the border, we spent two weeks travelling NSW to see what was happening in local transition initiatives down there.  Our first stop was Sydney and after a couple of nights speaking at Permaculture North Sydney and Chippendale Sustainability group, we met with Russ Grayson and a bunch of Sydney-siders at the Fair Trade Cafe to talk about Transition Sydney.  They’ve only just begun, and we had a wonderful conversation with the group about the important aspects of forming a core group and supporting each other along the way.

We also travelled south to the spectacular Sapphire Coast – the Bega valley and its surrounds. While there, we stayed with John & Sharron Champagne, two key leaders in the Transition Town movement.  These guys really walk the talk – living sustainably on a plot of land north of Bega. John built the mud brick home, the very productive permaculture garden and the fantastic cob oven.  He invited around thirty locals to share cob oven pizza and hear what we were up to in Brisbane and we learned heaps from them too.

The Sapphire Coast is already well known for its fantastic initiatives in local energy and food producer groups. Some of the more recent initiatives of TT South East NSW include:

  • the first Friday every month, a 100 km dinner is hosted at a local cafe in Bega;
  • Launch of the Heart & Soul group last Friday;
  • members hosting a TT workshop at a local festival in Braidwood, which initiated a TT Braidwood at the end of the day;
  • Permablitz working bees for residents;
  • production of the Sustain magazine; and
  • the very exciting release of Transition TV which is found on their website. This is a great way for locals to keep up to date and become celebrities in their own right!

It was a great and inspiring visit to Bega and we want to thank John, Sharron and the rest of the TT mob for hosting a great night for us.  See you all soon at the next Hub meeting!

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New Transition Handbook now available

The new Australian edition of the Transition Handbook is now available for sale from the Brisbane Transition Hub at $34.95 per copy. All profits from the sale of the book will go towards funding the Brisbane Transition Hub and individual Transition Initiatives.

The Transition Handbook - Rob Hopkins

If you want to reserve a copy please email rolfkuelsen@gmail.com.

Good afternoon,

On behalf of Finch Publishing, I am excited to announce the
Australian release of Rob Hopkin’s The Transition
Handbook. It’s up on our website today and available for
purchasing there or at bookshops across the country.

http://www.finch.com.au/html/s02_article/article_view.asp?art_id=277&nav_cat_id=220&nav_top_id=70

(For bulk orders, see details below.)

Around the world, societies are facing the prospect of a future
with dwindling oil reserves, an unstable climate and
unpredictable food production. The Transition movement, already
well established in the UK, is now in initial but rapid
development here. It provides an effective model for ways we
might engage our local communities to create a more sustainable
future and move away from dependency on oil.

Our edition of The Transition Handbook includes profiles of
Australian and New Zealand initiatives currently underway and
shows the necessary steps to establishing a transition town in a
local area, providing an achievable model for people who would
like to transform the life of their community. These local
accounts (together with inspiring reports from the UK) show how
individuals have responded with their local communities to the
twin threats of Peak Oil and Climate Change.

This practical book explains how we can ‘transition’
from fossil-fuel based communities to ones that are more
self-reliant and generate less carbon emissions. It shows how
such changes will result in a greater development of local food,
local economies, local water harvesting and energy generation
– and so create more sustainable communities in the longer
term.

What others are saying about The Transition Handbook:

This is a rare book. Not only does it educate and inspire you on
the path to sustainability, it also shows you how to get their
by being a great “how to do it” manual. It has
already had an impact even before it’s release here. Towns
from Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of Australia to Nelson on
the coast of New Zealand are amongst the many communities
already influenced by Rob Hopkins’s work. This local
release is sure to inspire many more.’ PAUL KLYMENKO,
Planet Ark

‘The Transition Handbook clearly sets out the
unprecedented and looming challenges climate change and peak oil
pose for our civilization, and makes it clear that a concerted
community response is our only option. And yet, the book is a
profoundly positive – even joyous – read because
it tells us how working together as communities and facing these
challenges head-on will give us the capacity not just to survive
but to actively build a future that is better than our alienated
and oil-fuelled present. … [It] is your invitation to join a
clear-eyed, community-based, worldwide movement of grounded
visionaries who choose hope and action over denial and
apathy.’ NICK HEAP and DAVID SUZUKI, The David Suzuki
Foundation

Bulk copies: If you would like to purchase bulk copies at a
discount, please contact our distributors direct:
Amanda.Hogan@simonandschuster.com.au/. These orders are freight
free but require payment with order.

Publicity for local Transition initiatives: If you are running a
Transition initiative in Australia we would be pleased to
publicise it when we undertake our media campaign for the book
(in the week beginning 23 March). Please send me a couple of
sentences describing your initiative, and the name, email
address and phone number of someone in your group who would be
happy to be interviewed. We’ll get in touch with them and
then encourage media in your region to cover this local story.

We would be most pleased if you decided to spread the word about
The Transition Handbook to your professional networks and
friends.

Yours Sincerely,

Emmeline Goodchild | Marketing & Publicity Manager

Finch Publishing – Publishers of books on family, health, social
ecology, relationships & society

PO Box 120 | Lane Cove NSW | 1595 | Australia | Tel 61 2 9418
6247 | Fax 61 2 9418 8878
emmeline@finch.com.au | www.finch.com.au

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