- Twin town Die’s upcoming conference on everyday sustainability (Die Ecologie au Quotidian)
- Highlights of the recent Annual Gathering (& link to minutes)
- Derbyshire Divestment Campaign
- Dates for diaries (including our Social on December 14th)
Join us for the Die Ecologie au Quotidian (Die’s annual sustainability conference)
So far, three Wirksworth residents – John Horak, Alastair Clark and Rob Tresidder – have agreed to go to the upcoming annual eco festival in Die, which Alastair told us about briefly at the Annual Gathering in November.
Here is the agenda, in French: PLAQUETTE 2018 ce 24 novembre 2017.
It runs for 11 days with a packed programme about many of the environmental, economic, political and personal issues that we are all concerned about, all wrapped up with fun and cameraderie. A flavour of the agenda is a film/debate on “The Intelligence of Trees”, about the way they communicate and look after each other. There’s another session on Funny Yoga.
The festival starts 24th January 2018. The Wirksworth contingent will go by train on the evening of the 23rd. Alastair and John are returning on Monday 29th, while Rob is staying longer.
Please get in touch asap if you would like to go – they are about to book tickets, then accommodation, transport around Die, and food will be arranged.Travel costs: £55 each way Eurostar from St. Pancras to Valence.
It sounds fun – mostly in a polyglot of languages dominated by French, great scenery and hopefully some local hosting. John went on his first visit to Die in October and says he loved it.
Contacts:
Alistair on 07847 417027 or 01629 824788
John on 07904 284170 or 01629 823236
Rob on 07951 625378 or 01629 823953
If you’re interested, get in touch for more info.
Highlights of the Annual Gathering
We had a good turn out for the meeting on 15 November in Memorial Hall, including guests invited from other local voluntary groups who share the same aims of supporting Wirksworth’s sustainability.
We heard from the Activists, the Energy & Housing group, the Growers group and the Waste & Recycling group about their activities during the year, and also from guest Peter Lewis, who told us of the success being achieved by the national campaign for Eco Churches in reducing their carbon footprints and also developing closer links with their communities and greater use of buildings for community events and land for wildlife. Keith Orford spoke of Shopping Locally, and reminded us that if everyone spent £5 in Wirksworth instead of elsewhere, it would have a surprisingly big impact on supporting our local economy.
Glennie Kindred and Mary Ann Hooper said they aren’t able to continue with the communications officer work. No one expressed interest in taking it on, so it was deferred to the January Open Meeting.
However, after the meeting, two people did express interest – Michele Simms and Nick Bristow. They are now finding out more about what the work entails. Watch this space.
Here are the minutes:TWagmmins17
Divest Derbyshire Campaign
This is a long running collaboration in response to global warming by groups in Derbyshire to get Derbyshire Council pension funds to stop investing in fossil fuel companies. Correspondence and meetings have already taken place between Derbyshire County Council and campaign representatives.
Gofossilfree.org recently published the sums invested in fossil fuel companies by UK council pension funds. Click here for the map and data. It shows that Derbyshire councils invest 6.13% of their £4.2 billion pension fund in fossil fuels companies. Derbyshire is in the highest third of UK councils for % invested, and invests more than the national average (5.5% of £295.1 billion).
Transition Chesterfield, as part of the Divest Derbyshire Campaign, notified the press. See an article here: Derbyshire Times.
Full divestment commitments have so far been made by two UK council pension funds, with a further four making partial commitments. The campaign to divest local council pensions has this year received backing from Unison and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
As divestment gains momentum campaigners have had a teleconference with ShareAction, FoE and other divestment campaigners from the Midlands area and Lauren from ShareAction has set up a meeting with the Chair and Responsible Investment Manager of LGPS Central (the company set up to pool investments from a number of local authority pensions including Derbyshire Pension Fund). The meeting will be at 11am on Fri 15 Dec in Wolverhampton where the Central pool is based. If any of you would like to go to this meeting on behalf of Derbyshire please contact transitionchesterfield@yahoo.co.uk [fao Lisa].
Not only Council pension funds are being lobbied to divest. Check some recent news stories:
Norwegian Government to divest completely from fossil fuel companies
A growing number of insurance companies are divesting
Bishops urge Church of England to divest from ExxonMobil
Faith-based divestment from fossil fuels
For basic climate change facts, see https://350.org/science/
By Hilary Hebron (on behalf of the Wirksworth Activists Support Group) 01629 258914 hilaryhebron@gmail.com
Dates for your diary
Thursday 14th December, from 7pm: Solstice Social for everyone who supports Transition! Come to Hilary & Brian Hebron’s, 21 Pittywood Rd, Wirksworth, for a Bring & Share gathering to chat, eat, and drink.
Friday 19th January, from 6pm: Bring & Share Social (finger foods), then at 7.30-9pm, Open Meeting. (Note that the time of the meeting and the social have been changed around.)
- End of Dec 17 Newsletter.
- Next newsletter in Feb 2018.
- Click here for website Home Page.
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