First film screening

This Thursday sees the launch of a series of film screenings from Transition Scilly. First up is a big budget film The 11th Hour, written and presented by Lenardo di Caprio.

Film starts at 7.30pm on Thursday 25th February in the Old Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary's. There will be tea and cakes, entry is free and anyone is welcome. Doors open from 7.00pm.

Rather than a description from me, judge for yourself from the trailer:

Orchards and May Queens

Clare and I have just come back from a Transition Scilly research trip to Cornwall and Devon, looking at a number of different things, from renewable energy and community recycling to Transition processes and orchards.

The latter was particularly relevant as we are on the verge of turning the idea of a community orchard on St Mary's in to reality. So we thought we'd go and see some established orchards on the mainland, see how they were set up, are currently managed and what the niggly issues are.

We visited three very different sites. At Milbrook, SE Cornwall, we met the lovely and incredibly positive Debs, who initiated two small orchards in the village - one by the recreation ground and one at the primary school. Whilst both were small (perhaps just a dozen trees at each), they were not only well managed and quite productive, but they had very little damage or vandalism because young people had been involved in the planting and continued to be involved in the management. Ownership of the project is very important.

At Stoke Gabriel in S Devon, we met the very kind and lovely Ted and Ian, who help to manage the orchard of 50 or so mature trees with others. The orchard contains mostly coder varieties, some identified and some not, all very suited to the damp climate and heavy soil. In that Parish alone there used to be in the order of 2o0 acres of orchards; now less than 5 remain. However there remains a strong desire to keep the orchard culture alive in the village, with extremely well attended apple days and Wassailing annually.

At Lustleigh, on the eastern edge of Dartmoor is a different orchard again. The largest of the lot, probably 3 acres or so and at least 100 trees, this is more open and clearly extremely important to the village. In the photo you can see the children's playpark, other mature trees, open grassy areas, benches, lots of mistletoe and lots of apple trees.

What you can't see is an enormous piece of granite, upon which is a beautiful carved seat, embossed with stainless steel - the seat for the annual May Queen. Clearly this is a site of enormous symbolic importance for the community, and what better way to celebrate than in an orchard?

News on progress on our orchard will be here before long - just sorting out the final details.

Transition Scilly open day

On Thursday 11th December we are holding an open day for members of the public to come and find out what we're doing, what we're planning to do and what Transition is all about.

There will be displays, slideshows, books, magazines, tea, cake, seats and a chance to chat, so please come down to meet us.

We will be open for you to drop in any time between 10.30 and 16.00 at the Old Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary's. We will then be giving an evening talk at the same place, titled "Introduction to Transition Scilly". The talk starts at 19.30 and will finish around 21.00.

We look forward to seeing you there; if you can't make it but would like to know more please contact me.

Plastic bag free Scilly

Modbury in South Devon was the first town in Britain to ban the plastic bag. BBC cameraman Rebecca Hosking was so appalled at the devastating effects of plastic on marine wildlife that she decided to go home and make sure every shop in her home town stopped selling or giving away plastic bags. This has been enormously successful, gained a huge amount of publicity and has spearheaded a rapidly growing nationwide campaign.

On Monday August 18th we will be showing the film Message in the waves, in the Old Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary's at 7.30pm. This film was shot by Rebecca Hosking's team in Hawaii and vividly describes the complete carnage that marine rubbish (most of it plastic) causes on the wildlife - yet a tiny amount of the rubbish itself actually comes from Hawaii.

This marks the launch of Plastic bag free Scilly. We want every retailer to stop selling or giving away plastic bags and every food retailer to stop selling food in oil-based plastic consumables such as cups, plates, cutlery and sandwich wedges. To do this we will be giving retailers sources of alternative packaging, whilst educating shoppers.

All this will make these Islands part of the solution, not the problem. More will appear here as the campaign develops. If you want to know more please contact us.

Transition Handbook

Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition concept, has written an excellent book describing the principles and practice behind Transition. The subtitle is "from oil dependency to local resilience" and is a reflection of the process that communities must go through to move towards a low fossil fuel future.

The book is divided in to three sections, 'The Head', 'The Heart' and 'The Hands', which describes the three elements of the personal transition. Essentially this is about understanding the problems, caring for the problems and doing something about it.

It's an inspiring book and is a good read. It's available here, but below is Rob describing the book in this short video:

Plastic Bag Free Scilly

Rob Hopkins' inspiring talk yesterday marks the end of the awareness raising events of Transition Scilly. Some of these will be repeated at a later date for people who missed any of the film screenings.

The first of many projects from Transition Scilly will be Plastic Bag Free Scilly. Modbury in South Devon was the first town in Britain to stop using plastic bags and the campaign has been a success. Many more towns have now taken it on and shunned the plastic bag in favour of better alternatives. Indeed the UK Government have been making noises about taxing plastic bags with a view to getting rid of them all together later on.

Plastic bags are the ultimate sign of a throw-away society and cause untold environmental issues. Just consider these facts:

• 8% of all world oil is used to manufacture plastics
• Plastic bags account for about 90% of all floating marine debris, amounting to 100 million tonnes globally. This causes massive harm to marine life
• Plastic takes 400 to 1,000 years to degrade, leaving a dreadful legacy for future generations

Using alternatives to plastic bags really is very easy, it just requires a slight change in the way we think. Over the course of the next few months we will be working with businesses to build on the good work done by Scilly Waste already and just take it one step further to stop using plastic altogether. We will also be promoting the use of alternatives for consumers and raising awareness of the dangers of plastic bags.

Look out for more information on this blog and on posters put up in the usual places on the Islands.