Earth Notes: TTK AGM Overview (2022)

For many groups it's been a difficult couple of years, but, sadly, TTK also had the death of our chair Alison in February to contend with. It came as a great shock and loss to TTK, and retrospectively, together with sporadic Covid restrictions and an unviably small management team (reduced to 3 soon after the 2020 AGM), goes a long way towards explaining a dwindling of TTK activity and profile in 2021.

We knew Alison was ill, and later very ill, and so at the end of January 2022 a group comprising stakeholders, project leads, supporters, advisers and the remaining management team came together to form an acting core group (to be confirmed at this meeting) that would try to keep things going and coordinate our activities. We decided to give TTK a year in which to either revive and thrive or take our projects and our funds to another local green group, and we are now half-way through this make-or-break year. We can find other umbrellas under which to shelter our projects, but there are advantages to TTK that we would be sorry to lose: our links with the wider Transition networks, our commitments to the Transition ethos of positive practical action in the face of climate and energy crises, and our good relationships, built up over many years, with relevant Kingston Council officers and Councillors. Suggestions and volunteers to help TTK flourish and continue into 2023 would be welcome.

[01:30]

Since the 2021 AGM in July 2021

Though quorate, management team meetings and Green Drinks were infrequent and unrecorded in the second half of 2021, Alison continued as TTK chair until standing down at the end of 2021, most practical projects continued as best they could despite lockdowns, and some fruitful events and activities took place, including:

• A Zoom meeting in July jointly hosted by TTK, Kingston Environment Forum and Kingston XR, where we heard how to set up a Climate Emergency Centre from Ruth and Phoenix of the Climate Emergency Centre network.
• Alison and the management team succeeded in attracting funding for and organising another 3 successful events:
  • A visioning event at Kingston Environment Centre facilitated by Alison, used Transition Bounce Forward funding for two events held to create a vision of the values and goals of The Kingston Hive. These were then developed into an inspiring vision statement by Alison Whybrow, and led to the formation of The Kingston Hive CIC, a group working towards a Kingston climate emergency centre which now has a constitution, a legal status, directors, a website and Facebook page, but as yet no premises;
  • A GreenZone next to Kingston Library one Sunday in October;
  • A drop-in Climate Café held with the Kingston Hive in Berrylands in December to discuss "What if... The Royal Borough of Kingston was part of the climate change solution?", which captured a great many ideas and delivered them to the council RBK's Climate Emergency Draft Action Plan.
• Rakesh Rootsman, permaculture designer teacher and forest garden specialist, gave members of TTK, Abundance and XR a fascinating wild food walk through Berrylands Nature Reserve in September and in November he delivered a class teaching us how to ferment fruit and vegetables in salt to both preserve them and help us improve our gut health.
• Green Maps for Kingston: this TTK project is producing maps of key sites around Kingston Borough to support a green community. There is the general Kingston Green Map and the Kingston Circular Economy map. These maps are being primarily created on the Open Green Map platform. Paper maps that could be distributed to key locations are also planned. We hope to coordinate with the council activities in this area.
• In spring 2020 funding of £320 from the Council enabled us to organise a Big Seed Giveaway. We purchased good quality easy-to-grow vegetable seeds (getting a group discount from Suttons) and compostable packaging, and distributed small packs with growing guidance and TTK fliers around the borough for collection during lockdown. All the seeds were collected, but lockdown made a harvest festival planned for later unfeasible and we lacked feedback from the growers, though we hope they were encouraged to continue growing vegetables.
• Other events and meetings that took place in the second half of 2021, included: a TTK on-line book discussion in July which explored the idea of a lock-down book club and discussed Carbon Choices by Neil Kitching; Abundance harvesting and juicing activities in the autumn, regular on-line meetings of the Energy Group, weekly gardening and other sessions at Canbury Community Garden, and occasional Stitch in Time workshops at the Circulatory. The monthly Kingston Environment News and our social media also continued to communicate throughout the past year, reaching well beyond our membership, and TTK core group members continued to participate in various Council-hosted meetings on Covid recovery themes, including subgroups such as Transition to a Green Economy, Mental Health and Wellbeing, and the Voluntary Sector. Regular projects have been reported on the website prior to this meeting.

[05:53]

Green Drinks

Since January 2022, the core team has met monthly at the Spring Grove pub, followed by the revived Green Drinks hosted by Damon. Marilyn has been acting as secretary, Paul has continued as treasurer, Peter and the energy group have continued meeting monthly on-line and offering advice when requested, and Canbury Community Garden has flourished. TTK members continued to participate in various Council-hosted Covid recovery subgroups, as well as participating in meetings of the nascent Climate Emergency Centre and the Transition Network. More detailed reports from the various TTK projects up to this April have been shared already on-line and will be included in the minutes of this AGM.