Projects
Abundance
The Abundance Belsize project is about mapping and harvesting the fruit around Belsize Park and the surrounding area that would otherwise go to waste.
Below is a map of trees we know about. If you know of a tree that is not on the map, do get in touch at abundance@transitionbelsize.org.uk.
Draught Busting
Free Draught Busting Workshops and Tailor Made Draught Proofing Installation
The Transition Belsize Draught Busting Team - Lauren, Sarah and Patrick began running free Draught Busting Workshops in November 2009. The Workshops were inspired by Sue Sheehan and Hyde Farm CAN who researched the products and created the original 'Draught Busting Saturdays' in South London.
Food Growing
Belsize can’t grow all of its own food, but we can produce some of it. With a tiny scrap of growing space such as a window sill you can grow your own salad leaves and stop buying air-freighted herbs and salads in plastic bags from supermarkets! With a small balcony you can grow delicious tomatoes, peas and beans that can be eaten throughout the summer and autumn. There’s also tremendous pleasure to be gained from watching nature perform its magic and reconnecting with the seasons and the soil!
We now have two public food growing sites in Belsize, one in the Premier Inn Hotel Car Park on the corner of Ornan Road and Haverstock Hill, and the other on the Swiss Cottage Open Space.
Foraging
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Foraging brings happyness as a result of being usefully employed and having a purpose to life, as follows:
- Connect (with family, friends and neightbours, and invest timein making relationships);
- Be active (walk, run, garden, dance);
- Take notice (be curious, notice the changing seasons);
- Keep learning (try something new)
- Give (do something for a friend or a neighbour, smile)
So why not get involved. Join the Food Group or email food@transitionbelsize.org.uk
Permaculture at the Royal Free
Permaculture is the solutions toolkit and philosophy underpinning the Transition movement. It's about using our brains to design energy and waste out of systems, and about working with nature rather than seeking to subjugate it. See here for Rob Hopkins on what permaculture is and how it's linked to Transition.
In November 2011 Transition Belsize launched their first "Introduction to Urban Permculture Design" course. One of the aims of the course was to create a forest garden food growing site on the Royal Free Hospital estate. The design work is now underway and the site will be "permacultured" in spring 2012.
If you’re interested in future permaculture courses, or in helping out with the Royal Free site, then please email food@transitionbelsize.org.uk.
Swiss Cottage Food Growing
The Fruitery
The Fruitery is a project to create a forest garden in an unused space at the back of St Peters Church. We plan to plant two regular sized apple trees, a number of apple cordons and a range of fruit bushes and ground cover plants. Also creating a more open space with decking and grasses will create a space that is more usable for a range of activities.
Do join this project if you are interested in following the progress!
Transition Kids
Here are some of the things Transition Kids have worked on in 2011:
Transition Streets
Transition Streets helps neighbours get together to save money on bills, heat their homes more cheaply and make friends. It's also a way to live more sustainably by helping our community reduce its carbon footprint.
Transition Streets makes it easier to
- Cut your energy, water and fuel bills
- Get to know your neighbours
- Cut your carbon footprint
- Take positive actions on issues that concern you
Participating households save, on average, about £570 per year off their household bills and around 1.3 tonnes of CO2.
Transition Streets (previously known as Transition Together) is a winner of the 2011 Ashden Awards. Just follow this link then click on the 'Video' tab to watch their five-minute film about the project.
How does it work?
Groups of friends and neighbours follow an easy-to-understand workbook that has lots of simple ways to change how we use energy, water, food, packaging and transport. It’s easier to make the changes with help from your friends.
We send a facilitator along to help get things off to a good start, then the group runs itself. Each group meets up seven times over an average of four months. Usually they take it in turns to meet in each others' homes.
Many of the groups choose to continue meeting, and are coming up with an ever-growing range of projects and activities, from community orchards to local film clubs. We will shortly be posting here a film about some of these follow-on projects.
Transition Streets in the NW3 area
Transition Streets began in Totnes in Devon and has since spread across the UK. If you'd like to try to introduce the scheme in your street, then please get in touch via info@transitionbelsize.org.uk.
Veg Bag Scheme
In summer 2011 the Transition Belsize Food-Buying Group set up a pilot project working with Bart the farmer at South Farm in Hertfordshire to get a weekly delivery of fresh, seasonal, organic vegetables for around 20 households. Scheme members had the chance to visit the farm during the growing season and help with planting, weeding and harvesting, forging a close connection to where their food comes from.
The hope is to develop the scheme in the future into a full community-supported agriculture project, with community members investing in a farm.
The project blog, transitionbelsizevegbag.wordpress.com, serves as a forum for sharing information about upcoming deliveries, price comparisons and recipes.
There are currently no deliveries, but for more information and to be included on the mailing list for any further developments in the scheme, e-mail veg@transitionbelsize.org.uk.
