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:

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.

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.