Meeting Notes, 11 February 2009

Present:   Steve, Betty, Saleema, Iain, Susannah, Ruth, Afif, Marc

Introduction to growing your own
Steve gave an excellent whistle-stop introduction to the delights perils of growing your own vegetables.  Some people are still interested in going to the LEAF (Local Enterprises Around Food) allotments.

BCAF
Steve Gayle from BCAF has proposed that we take on a closer connection to Burngreave Community Action Forum – possibly taking over the role of the environmental working group that used to exist.  This wouldn’t require major commitments on our part in terms of reporting back etc. and we could benefit from a free venue and admin support.  [I wonder if we can get BCAF to affiliate to Transition Burngreave’s aim statement? – Susannah] 
In any case, we can use their premises for meetings without any commitment to signing up to BCAF.

Burngreave AGM
The Burngreave AGM is on Sat March 7th, 

Workshop
 Federation for Community Development Learning

Food Web Mapping
Saleema, Ruth and Susannah reported back from conversations with Liz Fellows (Council for the Protection of Rural England.  We may need to do our own thing because:
a)	Burngreave doesn’t fall within the area they are planning to map in Sheffield.
b)	Although the data will be made available, it won’t necessarily be possible to pick out Burngreave-specific data.
c)	We may or may not be able to use their questionnaires.
Liz will get back to Saleema about this last point, and we should also check with Grow Sheffield about their plans in relation to the CPRE’s study.
However we do it, we may also need to consider support for community languages, possibly by applying for funding (see below), 

Funding
Two potential sources of funding have been flagged up:

•	
•	Organisations are invited to apply for a small grant (up to 3,000 €) to produce a contribution to the research, policymaking, or urban practice in the areas relevant to ‘Cities and Social Cohesion’.

Publicity
We should set up a web page with info about the group and links to other related Burngreave initiatives.
We have three options:
•	Transition Town Sheffield website
•	Burngreave Messenger
•	BCAF
We can have one main site and link to it from the other locations.
Susannah already has details for the first option.  Burngreave Messenger website probably gets more hits than BCAF.

Aims and identity
The latest statement from Heeley/Meersbrook was circulated. We may use a similar statement on some of our publicity:

We are local people working for happier, healthier, inclusive,
creative and resilient communities in Heeley/Meersbrook.

We are motivated by the challenges of climate change, the energy crisis and the credit crunch, to engage as many people and communities as possible in Heeley/Meersbrook in the transition to a sustainable society, free from dependence on fossil fuels.

Next Meeting
Tues 3rd March, at BCAF premises on (82 Spital Hill, Burngreave); time to be confirmed.