Past events

Rimu says: "Below is some content that was on the introduction page. I cut it out and put it here because the events are of historical interest only, and the intro page was getting cluttered"

Upcoming Events of Interest

(see also Brooklyn, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Wellington Central and Wellington South for events in those areas)

There is quite a lot happening in Lower Hutt throughout June. Plus World Environment Day!

Energy, Transport and Sustainability - discovering pathways to 2040

26-27 June at Rutherford House, Wgtn

Energy, Transport and Sustainability: Discovering Pathways to 2040 is a two day collaborative effort between National Energy Research Insitute and the Institute of Policy Studies. It aims to bring together research, policy, business, local government and community representatives to identify and explore how New Zealand can achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2040.

More detail: introduction programme (PDFs)

Interested in Intentional Community within commuting distance of Wellington?

Ron and Leanne Eckman have designed a weekend to explore the possibilities of living in an intentional community and to share with you our vision for creating one. This is not a training course but rather a conversation with those interested in and wanting to live in an intentional community.

9 & 10 August Waihoanga Centre www.waihoanga.co.nz

NOTE: please register by 21 July. See below. Places are limited if you are planning on staying at the centre.

For more info see the event on http://nztransitiontowns.ning.com/events/event/show?id=2069185:Event:4337

Permaculture Design Courses 2008

One of the criteria is a suggestion that at least one member of the core team has done a permaculture design course.

Otaki

Amongst the offerings in New Zealand, this one in Otaki seems to be the closest to Wellington. Have a look at the course brochure (also here) and contact Gary and Emily Williams at (06) 362 6684 or email gary. 12 weekends spread throughout 2008, starts 16 Feb.

Recent activity

TToW Open Space Meeting Wednesday May 28th

This meeting was run using the Open Space format and facilitated by Andrew Morrison. People from groups around the Wellington region shared experiences and ideas. We also discussed the value of the Wellington wide group, plus various web tools available.

Submission to Greater Wellington Regional Council

Nicola, Natalie, Juanita and Paul have a 10 minute oral presentation (Powerpoint 1.5MB) to the Wellington Regional Council's annual plan.

RECONNECT: conversations for change keep going!

Reconnect is a networking event for environmental and social justice groups in Wellington. It continues on from Connect - Conversations for change, an event held in Febuary. Transition Towns folk will be attending. Come along!

• Date is 2 May at St John’s Church, corner Willis & Dixon.
• The space opens from 5:30pm Please be there early. Kickoff is 6pm. Formal activities will run until 9pm.
• We have the space for longer, so you may stay and party.

Objectives for this event

• We continue to build and strengthen the community we created at the Connect event
• We focus on collective action around World Environment Day in June
• There is a social element with food & music

Please prepare and bring

• BYO food to share + koha. If you are unable to organise food bring extra koha :). Consider brain-friendly food (not breads).
• Groups that are already preparing activities surrounding World Environment Day should be ready to write a short description of their activity(s).

Overview of the Evening

18:00 Opening welcome by AJ. intro Mary-Alice; overview of the evening

Introductions

18:15 Teams gather over dinner/discussion points
18:50 Groups brainstorm ideas for World Environment Day
19:15 Ideas posted/introduce Open Space
19:30 Open Space session
20:30 Hear back from group
20:50 Closing round
21:00 Social time

Public Meeting and Presentation

EVERYONE KNOWS
MONEY DOESN’T GROW ON TREES
SO WHERE DOES IT ALL COME FROM?

Nowadays more and more people are concerned about sustainability but very few attempts have been ever made to apply this concept to money.

Time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Date: 11 April 2008

Venue: Centre for Global Action, James Smith Building, Cnr Cuba St & Manners St, Wellington.

Key Note Speaker: Miguel Yasuyuki Hirota (Japan)

Author & international expert in local trading systems & complementary currencies

Plus, Don Northcott (South Africa)

For more info visit http://www.ces.org.za

Wednesday 2 April, 6.30pm: Public transport future options to be discussed

Options for public transport in the Greater Wellington region will be discussed at a series of community forums to be held across the region over the next few weeks. People who support public transport, walking and cycling should attend these meetings to push for more support for these modes, and less for roads and cars.

The Wellington meeting is at Wellington City Council’s Council Chamber, WCC Centre, 101 Wakefield Street

Walk the Walk arrive in Upper Hutt, Tuesday 25th March, Rally outside Trevor Mallard's Petone electorate office 12pm, Wednesday 26th March

They're walking from Auckland to Happy Valley to raise awareness of sustainability, climate change and the proposed coal mine at Happy Valley. Walk with them or join us at the rally. Dates to be confirmed. Contact Michelle for more information. michelle@ducat.co.nz

Brooklyn will have its second TT meeting!

Scheduled for March 19th

George Monbiot, live video talk at Embassy, Sat 15 Mar 2008 9:30a.m.

http://premier.ticketek.co.nz/shows/show.aspx?sh=MONIBOT08

Wgtn wide meeting 26th March - 6 to 8pm at Centre For Global Action, 2nd Floor James Smiths Building

We will screen "Money As Debt" with Don Northcott as speaker. This is a great opportunity to learn more about the current monetary system (everything they neglected to teach you at school!) and get some insight from Don as to the alternatives.

CONNECT - conversations for change. Wednesday, 12th March, 5:45pm

VUW Kelburn Campus, Cotton Building, Room 304 Please RSVP by Monday, 10th March, VicEarth

Simon and Andrew from Wellington Central will attend this 'metagroup' event and represent TT Wellington. If you would like to attend or for more information please email VicEarth and Simon. We will promote and ask for support for a 'teach in' day on Peak Oil, Climate Change and appropriate responses to occur on campus within a few months.

Paul Kennett's quick notes: there were 60-ish people there, most were representing at least a dozen different groups all working in TT related areas. Lot's of energy. Lot's of cross connections happening. Very keen to reconnect soon. Simon and Andrew put in a plug for them to come along to the 26 March TT of Wgtn meeting (it could turn in to a big meeting!)

Te Aro Community Gardener's Solidarity Tour March 8th

"This event features an all star cast of lecturers speaking about permaculture, organics, biodynamics, community gardening, revegetation, ecology, and environmental education, and will be staged as a guided walk...." see Te Aro Community Gardener's Solidarity Tour for more info. Looks like this will be an awesome local event!

Go By Bike Day

Wednesday 27th February TT's of Wellington had a stall at the Go By Bike Day breakfast held in Civic Square.

The event was a great success which you can check out on You Tube (and see some of our members) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43tt6zx9NcE

Stop Transit's Tunnels - Public Meeting Wednesday 13 February 6-8pm

St Johns in the City Church, cnr Willis and Dixon Streets

Please Attend - This Is Extremely Important

Transit have begun consultation on the Ngauranga to Airport Transport Strategy - and this could see more tunnels, more roads and more flyovers being built through the heart of our city. The result will be more CO2, more dependence on oil, and a worse quality of life for Wellington residents.

But there's still time to change the plan. Already there's a strong push to make the city more pedestrian and cyclist friendly, and to invest in high-quality bus services and innovative light rail systems. Instead of throwing money away on roads, we can invest in making Wellington a more liveable, sustainable and people-centric city. So it's time to speak out!

The public meeting will give you information on what's happening, Transit's plans, the better alternatives, and how you can influence the process. The meeting will be short, and there will be refreshments on offer. So take a bit of time to participate in the debate - and bring your friends and family!

Jan 30th - Transition Towns of Wellington Meeting

We had a great meeting! We first viewed Jo Duff's Transition Towns presentation, care of Juanita's awesome projector equipment and nga mihi nui to her husband for helping out with that. Stuart from Lower Hutt then ran the rest of the meeting in the Open Space style - we split into 'suburb groupings' of Wellington Central, Wellington South, Western Suburbs, Northern Suburbs and Hutt Valley. Groups discussed what they saw as their resources and limitations in their areas, and most groups made plans to meet again soon in their local area - pages have blossomed on this wiki! See also Wgtn Meeting - 30 Jan 08

19-20 Jan Organic River Festival, Levin

The TT Stall and Workshop were a great success! We had 64 people requesting to join the NZ or Wellington email groups. Thanks to everyone who attended for making it such a positive day.

Juanita and Andrew (from TToK) held a Transition Towns stall at the Organic River Festival with some help from along with Paul from Kapiti Transition Town group. This was a collaborative effort between Wellington and Kapiti and it was great fun to hang out at the stall chatting with people about TT as they came past. Many people singed up for the email groups here also.

As well as the Transition Towns stall, there was a presentation on TT on the Sunday at 3pm. The presentation was a group effort involving Helen Dew, Sonia Corbett (both from Carterton), Laurence from Wanganui, and Nicola from Wellington. Laurence did the honors as facillitator and we all chipped in terms of information, and updates from our regions. Paul gave an update from TToK. We had about 60 people in the tent and it was very very hot - despite that and the inevitable doom and gloom that comes with thinking about peak oil and climate change, there was a really positive vibe and people left feeling inspired to action (judging from comments afterwards).

Jan 17th - Steering Group Meeting - see minutes

Dec 10th - Steering Group Meeting

See the Minutes for the full story. In short, a great meeting - we feel that we have a good mix of talents/resources etc within the core team, and certainly no lack of enthusiasm!

Dec 8th - International Demonstrations on Climate Change

This festival was timed to coincide with the UN Climate Talks in Bali.

In Wellington, there was a festival at Civic Square organised by GECKO of Victoria University. The festival went from 12pm to 7pm and included bands, information stalls and children's activities.

Members from this group went along and handed out flyers - it was a great oppotunity to network with existing groups and activists. There was a really positive response from the stallholders - some of whom had heard of Transition Towns already and some who were keen to find out more.

We got an invitation to have a stall at Bike Week's Go By Bike Day in February and spoke to the extreemly helpful folks at the Dev-Zone stall, Ian Shearer at the Communities for Climate Protection stall, and Tim Jones from the Sustainable Energy Forum stall amongst others.

Climate Action Festival Stage Program

Dec 4th A Wellington Email Group was set up

A Wellington area email group has been set up for Wellington announcements to avoid sending them out nationally via the TTNZ google group.

29 Nov 2007 - First meeting - Wellington Meeting Minutes 20071127

We had a very inspiring first meeting - we expected 15, 20 turned up, and 7 volunteered themselves for the steering group for Transition Towns of Wellington! And this was with no advertising other than the google group and the wiki. People shared their experiences holding film evenings, ideas for the group to pursue and their hopes for their communities. We are definately feeling our way, but without a doubt, we are moving in the right direction. Kia kaha tatou katoa!

Nga mihi nui to Paul for doing the minutes on this wiki and to Juanita for providing refreshments and videoing the meeting, and to Frank for unlocking the kitchen! Facilitation was a breeze with everyone really focused on what we were there to acheive, nga mihi nui ano. Thanks again to everyone.

13 Nov 2007 - The Climate Project

Several of us in Wellington are going to this lecture at Te Papa, which is now unfortunately fully booked out.

Next steps

Add page demonstrating how we meet the criteria

We plan to email a link to this page(when we have fleshed it out) to Ben in the UK, and ask what else we need to do, if anything, to be considered a Transition Town.

Add Governance page

This will be an uncomplicated "what our job is and when we will be replaced" type of document that may possibly be able to serve as a template for other TT's in NZ

Ongoing Awareness Raising

We are committed to showing awareness raising films to neighbors, friends, in our homes, in community centres...this is being covered at the suburb level.

Subgroups

Early days but some are keen start thinking about subgroups.