Next meeting: Wednesday 28th March 2017
Location: Ideas Hub

We can't have too many transitioners, so if you've yet to come to a meeting you'll be sure of a warm welcome.

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Local Food Survey

We want your feedback to help guide our local food initiatives for 2016. Please help us out by taking our short on-line survey.

Allotment

The spring allotment work has been underway for some time now and with the last frost out of the way (hopefully!) we will start more extensive planting soon.

Apart from our usual horticultural tasks we are in the process of putting up a shed/community hut. Additional construction tasks for summer will be the construction of compost bins and a hugelkultur bed.

We run regular sessions on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons at our site just off Avon Road. Newcomers are always welcome to join us. If you wish to do some work on the allotment at a different time, please contact us and we should be able to arrange alternative and/or additional sessions.

We also organise regular work parties, usually followed by a pot-luck celebration. These are a great opportunity to get a taste of allotment life and meet like-minded people without the pressure of a regular commitment.

Community Energy Scheme

A number of us are working on starting a community energy scheme within Chelmsford, along the lines of REPOWERBalcombe and Green Energy Nayland.
 
Community energy schemes typically provide free electricity to those willing to host an installation and pay 5% annual dividends to investors. Many operate as social enterprises, investing a percentage of profits into alleviating energy poverty or arranging work experience for local people.
 
We’re looking to build a core group of founders capable of getting this project off the ground. This is likely to involve:

• Formation of a legal entity and drawing up a constitution;
• Identifying and securing a suitable site for a commercial size solar installation;
• Obtaining planning permission;
• Drawing up contracts and negotiating with suppliers;
• Securing financial investment, perhaps from within the group itself, the wider community or institutional investors.

Stay up-to-date

Sign-up to learn about upcoming events and initiatives from Transition Chelmsford. You can expect to receive:

• News on local food initiatives
  
• Details of upcoming talks and films
• Reminders of monthly Repair Café events
• Notifications of our monthly meetings
• Community allotment progress reports, notification of gluts and volunteering opportunities

We want to stay focused on local activities, so we won’t be forwarding emails from campaign groups or links to on-line petitions unless they effect our activities directly.