Having hosted village hustings in 2015 and 2017, Transition Constantine once again rose to the challenge of organising the event and the candidates for the 2019 general election. As before, the hustings were held in the Tolmen Centre, with Monday 18th November providing the magic date when all the candidates diaries were in alignment. We were fortunate to have Kim Conchie, CEO of Cornwall Chamber of Commerce to chair the proceedings, which was held in ‘Any Questions’ format, with members of the audience writing out questions on arrival. These were sorted by Kim into topics (such as health, education, brexit, etc.), with the aim of getting a broad spread of questions. After each candidate had given a short ‘pitch’ for themself and their party, Kim asked the originators of the chosen questions to put them in person to the panel of candidates. This worked well, with the candidates receiving over an hour an a half of grilling, and being given a very fair opportunity to give their personal and party response. The candidates attending are listed in the final poster:
It can’t have escaped many villagers’ attention that Transition’s 2019 Community Day was held on Saturday 14 September. In thankfully beautiful weather, even more people than at last year’s event came to see and engage with the host of interests, causes and activities on show in the Church and at the Tolmen Centre during the day. Many also sat down for the Big Lunch in the Tolmen Centre garden where every last mouthful of the enormous spread of wholesome foods brought and shared by the diners disappeared! The day started with the Farmers’ Market in the Tolmen Centre whilst in the Church, W.I. refreshments, a Repair Café, Bosahan Woodland Management, Constantine Cottage Garden Society, a children’s clothes swap stall, Extinction Rebellion T-shirt printing, Climate Vision and a chance to try bell ringing in the tower saw a steady flow of interested visitors.
Outside, 1 st Constantine Brownies were being creative with recycled plastic! Meanwhile back at the Tolmen Centre, the Big Village Lunch kicked off at 1.00pm with a fantastic spread of home-made and (mostly) wholesome fare brought by the diners for all to share in the garden under the specially-erected marquee, the brainwave of this year’s Community Day co-ordinator Laura Brittain-Long. Entertainment followed with poetry performance by our own Kerry Vincent, singing from the children of Constantine School, and an accompanied musical performance by Misri Dey.
Whilst activities up at the Church continued into the afternoon, inside the Tolmen Centre representatives from a host of local organizations shared information with villagers about their aims and activities. Clean Ocean Sailing, Friends of the Earth and Transition Constantine all had stalls manned by their volunteers. Cornwall Council Waste Management Team “had lots of positive conversations” with Constantine folk – interested in the new waste management and recycling arrangements that arrive next year. Constantine Primary School and Pre-School had a chance to showcase their exciting outdoor education programmes – the Forest School, and the Bee Project.
Daisy Chapman Gardner had a stand and had many conversations explaining the background to her recent conservation trip to Honduras. Charlotte Barry from the Camel Community Agriculture Project held a raffle of fresh vegetables on her stall which raised funds donated to Helston Food Bank. On their adjacent stall they explained the operation and function of Helston Food Bank, run by volunteers. They were accepting donations to the food bank – and recruited two new hands!
Last but not least, Tracey Clowes raised valuable funds and pledges for the Tolmen Centre Restoration Project through its ‘sponsor a roof slate’ scheme. Lastly, a big thank-you to all the contributors and volunteers who helped make the day such a success: a day worth remembering, and one to be repeated next year!
(Reproduced from Constant Times Volume 8, Issue 5; authored by Robin Curtis)
On Saturday 13th October Transition Constantine held a ‘Community Day’ in the village. This grew out of ideas shared at a meeting of Transition groups at the Tremough Campus in Penryn. The Sustainable St. Agnes group described how they had taken to having a few regular, annual events. The aim was to put a marker in the village calendar (alongside all the other events) for sustainability. The Transition Constantine group decided to give the idea a go, and a sub-group debated the form such an event might take. It was decided to hold it on a Farmers’ Market day, merge it with the successful ‘Big Lunch’ that had been held before, and also combine it with various community and Transition themed stalls and activities. The result was ‘The Constantine Community Day’.
Despite the adverse weather conditions (which meant that some outdoor activities had to be cancelled) it was felt to be a very successful event. It began with the Farmers’ Market in the morning, followed by ‘The Big Get-Together’ – a pot luck lunch for everyone to share; the rear of the Tolmen Centre was packed out for this. During the lunch, the Trengilly Singers gave a fine performance of a range of enjoyable pieces. This lunch was followed by a mix of events and activities spread across the Church Hall and the Tolmen Centre. Some of these were on Transition themes and activities, such as the Constant Times (village newspaper) and Who’s Where (the village directory), plus some focus on what people were looking for in the community in the future.
There were also local stalls such as those run by the Church and the WI, and a theme of plastic awareness, with representatives from Plastic Free Falmouth, Falmouth Marine Conservation, and Ocean Clean Sailing from Gweek. There were many activities for children, with a quiz trail, face painting, and stalls run by the Scouts, Brownies and the Pre-school. We were also pleased to be able to host the Falmouth Repair Cafe in the Church Hall, who were able to perform a number of successful repairs, while raising awareness of the importance of repair, as opposed to simply disposing of non-functional items. The Ambos Co-housing Collective were also represented, promoting a new approach to affordable housing. A display of electric bikes was to be seen in the Church Hall, with an electric car also on display at the Tolmen Centre. The Museum was open during the afternoon events, receiving a good number of visitors. We will hold an evaluation session in due course, to learn as much as we can from what happened – to help the planning of next year’s event!
To help raise awareness of the upcoming COP21 climate conference in Paris, Transition Constantine organised in mid-November a screening of the film ‘This Changes Everything’ at the Tolmen Centre in Constantine.
The film is, of course, associated with the book of the same name by Naomi Klein, and it provides some intense coverage of various groups around the world on the front lines of ‘Blockadia’. From tar sand development in Canada, through gold mining in Greece, and coal power station development in India, the film exposed the impact of global corporations on communities, climate and the natural world.
As an event, it was well supported, with over 30 attending and many new faces in the audience.
On Tuesday 28th April the Constantine Community Land Trust will be holding the LAUNCH EVENT of the new organisation (and it will incorporate the AGM of the initial set-up organisation). For the new organisation, the meeting aims to:
The meeting will be held at the Tolmen Centre in Constantine, with doors opening at 7:00 pm for a start at 7:30 pm (drinks and nibbles available).
For more information and an agenda, see:
What would an election be without the village hustings? With the national election due in early May, members of Transition Constantine (working with other members of the local community) helped to organise an event at the Tolmen Centre to which all the candidates were invited. Rather to our surprise, all six of them agreed to come. Even more to our surprise, the audience was over 100 strong, filling the guild room of the Tolmen Centre to near capacity. The event was designed to follow the Radio 4 ‘Any Questions’ format, in which each candidate gives an answer to a question placed by a member of the audience. According to one of the candidates, Constantine was the only village in the Camborne & Redruth constituency to hold its own hustings.
One of the group’s occasional activities is the screening of a film relevant to our interests and aims. In June 2014 we organised the showing of ‘The UK Gold’ – a documentary about the role of the UK (and the City of London in particular) in global tax dodging. According to The Guardian: “The kind of film to get the blood boiling and the steam hissing out of your ears – an ambitious and admirably clear assault.” I suspect our audience agreed with that assessment.
Members of the Transition group helped to revive the village newspaper when its longstanding editor was obliged to give up to health problems. It now has a new editorial and production team, but members of the Transition group help with the bimonthly ritual of the ‘stapling and folding party’. Some 750 copies are collated, stapled, folded and boxed, with the accompaniment of food, drink and much putting of the world to rights. New occupational heath problems sometimes surface – though I’m not sure that ‘stapler’s wrist’ has been fully characterised by medical science…
Transition Constantine will be supporting the UK’s national Climate Week with a programme of events throughout the week. These will include:
For details and times of events, please see the full programme below:
Not being a habitual Radio 3 listener, it was by chance earlier in the week that I heard the presenter, Sarah Walker, talking with Satish Kumar (interspersed with his music choices) during her ‘Essential Classics’ programme. Satish Kumar has been editor of ‘Resurgence’ magazine for decades. His presence on the programme was apparently associated with the International Day of Peace on Friday 21st September. He has been appearing on all the programmes this week, talking about his life and beliefs. Those local to Constantine may already have heard him speak at the ‘Gather’ festival last autumn at Goongillings. For anyone else who would like to hear him, the programmes are available on iPlayer:
Monday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mnwzx/Essential_Classics_Monday_Sarah_Walker/
Tuesday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mny5s/Essential_Classics_Tuesday_Sarah_Walker/
Wednesday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mny6f/Essential_Classics_Wednesday_Sarah_Walker/
Thursday: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mny72/Essential_Classics_Thursday_Sarah_Walker/
Satish appears about 1 hour 30 minutes into each programme, in a half hour slot. There’s still time to catch the live programme tomorrow!