NEXT MEETING: 7pm, Tuesday 9th  February at the Royal Lion, Broad Street, Lyme Regis. New members always welcome!

The main item will be finalising guidelines and plans to launch a GARDEN SHARING SCHEME.

All are welcome to come along and see how we can turn Lyme green. In the meantime, do contact us if you would like to go on our mailing list or have any questions.

Turn Lyme Green Winter Newsletter  2009/10

As world leaders and campaigners met in Copenhagen recently to discuss official commitments to climate change, a small group of Turn Lyme Green activists met in the Royal Lion on Broad Street.  We know who makes more noise, but wonder if we can’t be the ones to make things happen?!

We are nevertheless delighted that ‘Welcome to Lyme Regis’ – our award winning animation made by Biggerhouse productions with St Michael’s Primary School – was screened at the ‘Development and Climate days Film Festival’ in Copenhagen. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1IokqmDi0

Together we can make a difference

Transition Lyme Regis has merged with Turn Lyme Green to form one group. It makes sense to pool resources and energy! For more information about Transition Towns, see www.transitiontowns.org. We are collaborating with half a dozen Transition initiatives in Dorset to get a fundraiser who could help us all, based in Dorset Agenda 21 offices (www.dorsetagenda21.org.uk ).

Gardenshare scheme to be launched in the spring

In particular, there is increasing interest in a garden share / allotment scheme in Lyme, and there are a few examples of this already happening here. Private landowners have a bit of garden to spare, lack time or energy to work the land, and others are longing to grow their own produce but don’t have anywhere to plant. We are planning to launch a scheme in Lyme Regis in March, and to involve other interested parties such as St Michael’s Primary school, the Allotment Society, the Horticultural Society, Environment Group, U3A etc. We envisage taking advantage of www.landshare.net – the site set up by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall with the support from Channel 4.

Joining in with global campaigns

We began the winter programme of activities by joining in the first International Plastic Bag Free day (September 12^th) and raised a few pounds selling our cloth bags. We had massive support again from most independent traders, and the Co-op. Tesco has said it would do much to support our efforts at becoming plastic carrier bag free but we haven’t seen evidence of that yet, despite senior level commitments.  You can now buy Turn Lyme Green bags at the new Eco-store in Broad Street, which will be setting up a community notice-board.

To join in with the international Climate Change campaign to reduce carbon emissions to 350 parts per million (www.350.org) the beach saw a group of supporters face the wind and rain on 24th October, to take 350 footsteps in the sand and sing a song of harmony.

We are encouraging people to sign up to the 10:10 campaign which encourages individual as well as institutional efforts to reduce carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010 (www.1010uk.org ), and also 38 degrees (www.38degrees.org.uk )

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Producing our own food

We have continued to work on local food and food production. We screened Rebecca Hosking’s film A Farm for the Future, followed by a discussion about permaculture and how to farm in a post-oil economy, led by local permaculture teacher Aranya. Most of the apple trees we planted in Anning road thankfully survived the initial vandalism, and we are now planting another six trees on Magna Housing land. We are still pursuing sites for a farmers’ market, and we are in discussion with a likely venue – watch this space!

Other activities

We are continuing to support efforts on recycling in Lyme, including the possibility of compressing the styrofoam used mostly by fishmongers – and takeaways – an idea initiated by Simon the fishmonger. We are researching the statutory household recycling facilities of other local authorities with a view to renewing pressure on our district authority.

We are arranging to show the film, Age of Stupid (www.ageofstupid.net ).

We have many more ideas for community based activities related to climate change, and how we can be greener and more self sufficient in Lyme.  We are a completely voluntary group and depend on your involvement to achieve anything. There is so much to be done, and so many ideas.  We need people to help and get involved – at any level.