Newsletter Bury LETS July 2007Newsletter Bury LETS July 2007Your presence is requested on 22nd July 2007 2pm - 6pm for the BURY LETS SUMMER PARTY
Please bring a bottle or two and food. Music will provided by Joe and his band, so come and have a dance, to the wonderful sounds created.
Trading tables will operate as usual and Karen will be holding a bracelet making workshop.
Some LETS member should be very well dressed at the party, donned in the outfits they obtained at the Switch & Bitch Evening (May 10th). The June Marketplace with its Summer Produce theme, whilst a little disappointing in turn out, made up for it in a healthy trade in fresh herbs, seeds and tomato plants.
If you have any ideas or comments please contact us, we'd love to hear from you!
for those interested in doing some green community work in the form of planting, pruning & weeding etc. Meet at the Saxongate nature reserve (just off Southgate St, B.S.E, by the public open space). Please wear waterproof clothing & stout footwear. Tools and light refreshments will be provided. For further details please call 01284 757063 or email parks@stedsbc.gov.uk .
Well, don't quote me on any of this but roughly speaking a low impact development can enable you to buy a piece of agricultural land and create a community based "activity" which has a small footprint and enhances the local environment; socially, physically and economically. If you get it right it is possible to obtain planning permission to have "temporary" long term homes on the site, this might include straw bale, underground, wooden, lathe and plaster or recycled materials etc.
"Getting it right" includes providing a management plan that meets various criterion and enables the project to significantly contribute to the occupiers livelihoods, and provide space for people in need ( who isn't!!).
I can envisage a situation where we share transport, use local and natural building materials, implement functional re-use, reduce and recycle strategies, maintain reversibility, have our own energy supply ( geothermal, wind, solar, biomass etc ) , provide sewerage ( reed bed, compost loos etc ) , independent water supply, all activities to be sustainable and to organic standards, significant permaculture influence, grow our own food, cook our own food, and are principally grain based vegetarians ( but no fanaticism here!), tree and shrubs at least 20%, various activities including the sale of excess produce and "adding value to it", chickens, charcoal making .., and to create an exemplary living place where a community of principally independent individuals and families can co-operate to run courses and provide educational facilities for interested people. So, in general for a minimum amount of initial capital, which may be self generated or even donated by the enlightened "not so" filthy rich, we can have a maximum result, the project will be an integral part of the local community but in principal will be independent from it, in the sense that we will producers more than consumers and where possible personality will take preference over profession; we will still need enthusiastic and confident people with knowledge and skills to share. It will be possible to live in style with very little money, thus enabling an escape from the traditional "work and money" traps.
I do not envisage any utopian paradise, - far from it - we will be constantly faced by the vicissitudes of life, we will develop a capacity to have the courage to face all the difficulties, embrace them with enthusiasm and humour and develop individually, with partners, as families and in the community. Well this is little more than a ramble, but people all over the country are doing it and if we can get a little group together here in Suffolk then over a few years, we can too! Anyone got some ideas and prepared to "walk the talk" then contact ritchie tennant. (No. 17)
The BuryLETS site now has a facility for adding links to other sites. If you would like to add a link please send the title of the site example the Children's art company, a bit of blurb about the site, and an email contact. If you like to add a link please send the details to info@burylets.org.uk
Here are the outstanding renewals. Please send a cheque made payable to Bury LETS for either £6 for individuals or £10 for families or businesses to Val Stobbart. If you have decided not to sign up for the next year please give us a ring or drop us an email. If you have already paid please ignore.
all at the quaker meeting house, st. john's street, starting at 7.15pm
Open to LETS members & friends. Karen Cannard (No.2)