Climate Cafe
Climate Cafe March 2021
Our second Climate Café event took place 2-4pm on 20th March 2021 via Zoom. There was plenty of useful and interesting discussion, and as always, not enough time!
Transition Bude described their many excellent projects, which could be a great inspiration. Growing club, giving plants to schoolchildren. Film nights, citizens assembly, Transition Streets, clothes swap, Repair Cafe, scheme to support local makers. Awarded a £250k National Lottery Grant which they have also used to conduct feasibility studies.
Dan Green reported back from the Council - slides to follow. A new Climate Change strategy is coming soon. Still keen to engage with local groups, maybe a 'Climate Summit'. We need to keep the pressure on RBC!
Great time travelling exercise, imagining Rugby in 2030 and what we would need to do in order to get there. Ideas included cycling safely into a busy town centre; Going to the supermarket and not seeing any plastic; A community which helps each other out by sharing garden space to grow food, and teaching each other; Re-skilling. All this will need strong leadership from the local government and community alike
Links
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Some of the thoughts and ideas from Climate Cafe March 2021 were captured in real time on a Jamboard
Climate Cafe September 2020
In August 2020 we released a survey asking the people of Rugby what they would like to see Rugby Borough Council's Climate Emergency Panel achieve. This then lead into our Climate Café event on September 19th, where we were joined by several guest speakers. Many people from across Rugby and surrounding areas joined us to debate and decide how we can influence it.
Overall this was a really successful event, as it brought people together and there was lots of excellent discussion and ideas. A summary of the discussion is presented below:
Introduction (Amber)
Video: History of Transition Town
TTR up to now: seed swap, support for sustainable markets and community events, citizen climate survey, Pleasance Herb Garden, Viaduct Mound community tree planting, community supported agriculture - Broadwell Turn Farm project, Repair Cafe
Speakers
Rugby Repair Cafe
Martin talked about Repair Cafe, starting July 2019. Runs third Saturday every month in St Andrews Church, plus Coventry ready to go.
Hoping to be back in October.
Lots of encouraging remarks from participants and an offer of alternative venue from Debs de Vries.
Amber added that St Andrews is also planning a tool share and bike repair stand
Community Supported Agriculture in Rugby
Becca runs Five Acre Farm and talked about community growing.
Five Acre Farm came out of Transition Town Coventry.
Advantages are: less food miles, more resilient supply than supermarkets (eg in response to Covid pandemic), connecting local people to food.
Broadwell Turn was going to be a farm for Rugby but the deal for land fell through.
Luke is a researcher at Coventry University CAWR, studying sustainability and resilience in agriculture. Encouraged us to think more holistically, as highlighted by the WEF Nexus Approach, look for interconnections and be aware of knock-on effects.
Graham from Stanford Hall CSA spoke about their work. Main focus is working with schools. They have more available land but few community growers, Graham suggested working together to supply Rugby
Climate Survey
Amber presented results of the Climate Survey. Results to be updated as more responses come in
Breakout Sessions
Energy
Suggestion of using waste heat from Cemex to heat houses in local area. Mark H had heard of some similar schemes being done, Martin suggested looking at things done in Amsterdam
Neil discussed anaerobic digesters and projects to create biogas.
Community funded energy eg solar panels; look at feasibility study for local area, St andrews, PJs churches. Look at buildings with large roof eg schools, hospitals etc
Jerry shared a link to a solar power local company hex-e-gen.live
Food
Can someone fill in what was discussed?
Open discussion
Call for a method of bringing more people together in Rugby to form a critical mass. Graham mentioned the eco village in market harborough. Is there a place in Rugby? Helen suggested approaching Rugby School.
Graham has been looking for a ‘heat source’ for tomato growing and Cemex could be a good synergy.
Here are the results of our local survey on climate issues. This was presented to Rugby Borough Council in December 2020.
You can read the full report here.