Hello folks, I am back on the scene after long months plugging away at the Big Green Challenge which ultimately led to Tarbert failing to make the last 10.
In many ways I am pleased because we now have the chance to apply to the Scottish Climate Challenge Fund.
Also, I have been inspired by a number of events and happenings: regular (kind of!) mindfulness practice which I’ve been doing since Easter, a weekend of Transition Training in Dundee in June, a family holiday in Sweden in July, the start of this year’s Permaculture Design Course which I teach at Kilmartin House and, most recently, a smallholders’ gathering at Clachan, a village 11 miles S.W. of Tarbert. This event was organised by Gareth, a community activist like myself who got the event together without any funding from anyone. As he said to me, “we could wait forever, man.”
The event, whose main focus was the swapping and sale of the surplus harvest from people’s gardens, offered – to my eyes – a glimpse of the future when this great upheaval we call “Transition” has actually happened. Bathed in late summer sunshine, I felt that this is how things will turn out: people will pull together, hold their own markets, make their own entertainment. In the evening a celidah was held featuring local musicians and a barbecue using local produce. Call me an optimist, an idealist even, but I have a very real positive feeling about the future. As for the reasons behind my optimism, please look out for future blogs which will explore further the events I mentioned above.
September 12, 2008 at 12:53 pm |
Just wondering if you could point me to an email address for the smallholders’ gathering at Clachan. Read the article in the sqeak today and I’d like to meet other smallholders locally but there is no contact details in the article. Feel free to pass on my email address to the organisers.
Thanks,
Dave, Lochgilphead