The First meeting of the Transition Towns group for Upper Hutt at Lighthouse Cinema, 3 March 2008

About 60 enthusiastic people came to our first Upper Hutt meeting on "Embracing Sustainability in Upper Hutt" in the Lighthouse Cinema, on Monday 3 March 2008. They heard about the meeting through an article in the Upper Hutt Leader; email lists held by the UHCC Community Officer; posters in libraries; flyers (see Resources) in cafes and at the Lighthouse Cinema; and through the Cinema’s Documentary Club.

The 41 minute video of Jo Duff's talk was shown (“Transition Towns: Planning for a Low Energy Future”, http://www.youtube.com/user/hawkesbaytrust ). Stuart Edwards spoke about the previous Transition Towns meetings held in Wellington. Paul Kennett spoke about the Moera community garden meeting (held last week) and his cheap wall insulation and rain water collection projects.

Then we broke into smaller groups to discuss our visions for our communities in 10 years time. This was followed by a wider group discussion on what to do next. A move to establish a community centre on council land near the Wallaceville church was discussed.

Other ideas raised:

• cycleways – the river trail

• get rid of packaging

• community gardens & home gardens

• use school buildings after school and weekends – look at overseas examples

• make better use of council land

• grow nut/fruit trees and veges

• farmer’s / vege markets – sell local organic produce

• a permaculture group

It was concluded that we needed more time to digest what we had learned and regroup in 2 weeks time. The next meeting is on Tuesday 18 March at 7:30pm at the Lighthouse Cinema, 8 Miro St, Upper Hutt. All are welcome.

People were invited to think over the following two weeks on what specific projects they think would be good to "get stuck in to". And also to consider what subgroups they think would work best for their situation.