Minutes of TWiG meeting 2/3/16 at White Swan
Minutes of TWiG meeting 2/3/16 at White Swan
Present: Gwen, Nick (chair), Garry, Mick, Lesley (minutes), Di (had to go early).
Apologies: Gweno, Laura, Steph.
Minutes of last meeting agreed.
Matters arising not on agenda.
Wiggio: Up and running. Everyone has done their training.
Rowlands Gill Table Top sale: Raised £76.04 and some useful conversations.
Garry’s proposal: Garry wants to pursue the idea of a Reuse shop at the recycling centre. He’s looked at other schemes – some run by Suez/SITA who are Gateshead contractors. We said that this project should be discussed when we look at future ideas from our review. In the meantime we’re happy for it to be progressed in TWiG’s name and Garry and Mick will look into it further.
Lift share scheme: Gweno has still been looking into this. For liftshare.com we would need a dedicated group of people and there are not enough of us. Gweno suggest putting a link on our website to other liftshare schemes in the area (and nationally) and encouraging people to use those. Mick said not to forget about improving public transport, and suggested one idea for the future would be a West Gateshead Public Transport map. We don’t think that exists at the moment.
Hookergate housing development: Nick still interested in using this as a way of introducing some transition-related space, e.g. orchard, permaculture project etc.
Action: He will e-mail re section 106 of the plan.
Agenda items
1. Local Food Fair: Poss. problem with proposed date of 16th. July as Steph and Ike might be away. They will know by the middle of March. Agreed did not want it on 23rd July as G and G away and it’s the school hols. Wondered about 2nd. July?
Actions: L to contact Laura and Steph to see if this is possible as a back-up. 3rd preference would be 9th. July but Laura can’t make that and she is very involved with this.
2. Logo/leaflet/general “image”: Much discussion. Agreed everyone happy with logo with small i.
Actions: Lesley will take away amendments to leaflet and then finalise it and send to printer. Gwen will design a draft maquette for the pop-up banner. We need to change the Facebook image to the TWiG logo. Other thoughts re image/design to be left pending for now.
3. Solar array: The feasibility study is going ahead. We need a separate meeting with Ross etc. to plan and exchange information. This would not be a public consultation. Mick thinks we need to keep local councillors informed so that they can spread the word if there are concerns. He will inform them once we have a meeting. We looked at some dates to meet.
Action: Garry will liaise and then set up a meeting.
4. Discussion of themes from end-of-year review: We agreed that at this point we were exploring possibilities, none of which were likely to happen until after the Food Fair and the solar array work. . So none of these actions were priorities, more in the spirit of doing research.
We looked at the first theme – working with others.
a. Work with other community groups – e.g. roll out 4Rs event. We decided to start with those groups who have already expressed some interest in working with us. Gwen suggested it’s better to chat with people than send e-mails etc. She will talk to contacts from the Greenside Environment Group. Nick will contact High Spen Community group. Lesley will contact Barmoor Hub.
b. Making community buildings more sustainable. Newcastle got European money to do this. Mick has contacted Gateshead Council but no progress. He will contact someone about West Gateshead being involved in the next bid.
c. “Green” course. Some interest expressed at Blaydon event. Could work with WEA again, or Quakers – Ruth Thompson has tried this in Stocksfield. Or some combination? Suggested Nick could chat with Ruth about Quaker contacts in our area etc. (He emphasised that this is unlikely to happen in a hurry).
5. Finances. Nick reported we have around £500 to spend. We will need some of this for expenses for food fair and running expenses.
AOB:
Gwen: receives Permaculture Works newsletters. Nick said he would like to receive them too. Garry said that there will be a local Permaculture Convergence at Scotswood Community Garden on July 30th.
Lesley: has seen advert for Blaydon Cycle Club and they seem to be catering for absolute beginners. Could be a useful contact for the future. She will explore more.
Next meeting:
Tuesday 5th. April, 7.30 p.m. at Blaydon Burn Farm