Local food-buying group
Gina has set up a local food buying co-op in South East London and aims to help other people set up and run similar schemes. She has found it easy, cheap and enjoyable to reduce her dependence on food grown and transported with needless waste of fuel. She found this article in The Ecologist magazine very useful.

There are food deserts all over Britain, where the only 'local' food shop is a supermarket and there are no good small independent local shops, farmers’ markets or box schemes. By grouping together with other like-minded people living in the same block or neighbourhood and buying in bulk, anyone can eat organic, sustainably produced food at affordable prices and help sustainable local businesses to grow.

Home energy evening
Ann organised a home energy evening for neighbours in June 06. She targeted about 100 houses in her street. She asked people she knew until about 6 people expressed an interest, and then invited someone from a local energy advice organisation, Creative Environmental Networks (CEN) to speak. More people were invited, and about 10 came altogether. The plan was to do a tour around her house showing where changes should be made – in fact everyone was so interested and asked so many questions that the tour didn't actually take place. The organic wine helped, and some snacks were provided. People arrived at 6pm and some stayed until 8pm. The talk was tailored to the specific type of 1900s house. There were free low energy light bulbs from CEN and samples of insulation and other information available. For more details click here (43k pdf).

Everyone who had been contacted about the event was later given notes from the talk and Ann plans to extend activity to the rest of the street and nearby streets starting where she knows people. Next there will be a survey to find out what people already do and know, so as to help plan further activities.

For notes on 1 November 2006 Energy Evening click here.