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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Localisation” category
Showing results 291 - 295 of 684 for the category: Localisation.
31 May 2010
Here is the foreword I wrote for Pete North’s new book ‘Local Money’, which you can now order here. It really is rather fantastic (the book, that is). The book will have its formal launch at the 2010 Transition Network conference (yet another reason to be at 3 days that will blow your socks off). For now, here is my introduction to the book.
The power of holding your community’s own money.
September 2009, Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton. On a beautiful evening with just the first hint of autumn in the air, hundreds of people are packed into the large room for the launch of the Brixton Pound. In the days running up to the launch, the media was full of stories about the currency; it even made the front page of the BBC website on the day. Alongside explanations of how it is intended to work and interviews with advocates were mainstream economists who, somewhat patronisingly, assured readers that this could never really work and that it was all tremendously naive and foolish.
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28 May 2010
Now I’ve been to some Unleashings in my time, but last night’s Unleashing of Transition Malvern Hills (TMH) was a stunner. Unleashings are designed to be the launch event which, historically, people look back to as the point when a Transition process arrived, a celebration of a place and its culture, a big push for wider engagement, and a statement of collective intent. I have been to Unleashings before with music, but not one with three choirs, to Unleashings with input from young people, but not one with such inspiring young people speaking, and to Unleashings with input from other local organisations, but not one with the level of affirmation from a wide range of local organisations, including the local MP. In short, it was an extraordinary event.
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27 May 2010
So the Queen’s Speech has set out the policy priorities for the new government, but were the policies announced a cop-out or do they set out a wartime mobilisation scale of response to climate change and peak oil? These reflections are based on the article about the speech that appeared in yesterday’s Guardian. Plans include setting up a green investment bank, which will make loans available to households for energy efficiency measures and renewable energy installations, the ‘pay-as-you-save’ scheme initially proposed by Ed Miliband. The exact amount of the loans that will be available has not yet been stated, although the Guardian speculates that it could be as much as £15,000. This is a great development, but I wonder if it could yet be taken further? How would DECC respond, for example, if a Transition group were able to get 100 people to take out loans of £15,000 each and club it together as £1.5million in order to finance a community-owned ESCO, an energy company designed to be owned by and financially benefit the community?
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27 May 2010
The Ministry of Food: thrifty wartime ways to feed your family today. Jane Fearnley Whittingstall. (2010) Hodder & Stoughton and the Imperial War Museum.
I hadn’t heard of this until a couple of weeks ago, when a group of folks visiting from the US dropped by, en route from London, where they had visited an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum called ‘The Ministry of Food’ (which runs until January 3rd 2011), gave me their copy of this book. Having read this book, I will definitely make a point of going to see the exhibition next time I am in London. The book is the exhibition catalogue, but it is also a superb stand-alone publication, offering many useful insights on how the British people managed during the war, how the Ministry of Food successfully promoted the Dig for Victory/Kitchen Front campaigns which kept the country from starvation, and, ironically, led to the healthiest population in the country’s recent history.
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26 May 2010
Ian and Margaret Campbell of Transition Town West Kirby recently researched and published, together with the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), a report called ‘Allotment Waiting Lists in England 2010’. The report, which you can download in full here, is an up-to-date detailed look at what is happening in terms of allotment provision. They found that waiting lists have grown 20% just in the last year, and that in some parts of the UK, some people will need to wait as much as 40 years for an allotment, but the average wait is 3 years. They estimate that nationally, 180,000 people are waiting for allotments, and that while Councils have a statutory duty to provide allotments, most are failing to do so. Publication of the report generated a lot of press coverage, including this piece in the Telegraph, and pieces in the Sun, Mirror (see top left) and the Express. A fantastic piece of work, and great to see Transition initiatives getting this kind of coverage.
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