Event fully booked – waiting list in operation!
I’ve circulated the meeting notes of our recent Sustainable Transport event follow-up meeting RAE Ingenious Transport Event followup meeting 26th January 2012 Meeting Notesand gratefully appreciate the help of Gordon Ferguson and Joachim Dreimann in preparing such comprehensive notes.
There are some interesting ideas here. I am therefore delighted to say that Tim Hale, Chairman of the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce Transport Group has very kindly offered to bring our organisation and its work in this respect to the attention of members of the Chamber’s Transport Forum. Tim will raise some of the points mentioned in our minutes with the relevant Transport Forum organisations and will also let me know if there is any relevant feedback received which I will obviously circulate to everyone for information.
Action for Involvement operates in an informal way. At the present time our core activities focus on bringing people in our communities together and working with key policy-makers, decision-makers or stakeholders to tackle issues affecting all of us.
Event follow-up meetings are an informal gathering of people inspired by our events to make a difference by taking on issues raised at our events and intended to be fun.
Although I am happy to offer further meetings on transport-related issues, it also needs to be viable for me to operate. Owing to increasing demands on Action for Involvement and my time I would appreciate help with taking notes which will reduce my workload and inspire me to continue providing this voluntary activity.
Book now to avoid disappointment. Nearly 60 bookings since registration opened on Monday – only 13 places left.
I have just received a rather sad email from SCEDU – (Sheffield Community Enterprise Development Unit) which wrote with regret to inform us “that SCEDU is closing its operations at the end of February. An arrangement is in place to oversee the closure process for the period March – May. A number of interested parties have expressed their desire to establish a new social enterprise entity in Sheffield with membership drawn from social enterprise practitioners, private sector partners and leading agencies in the field. It is anticipated that the new entity will continue supporting the social enterprise sector. The Sheffield Social Enterprise Network meeting will still go ahead at SCEDU on Thursday 15th March as the site will remain open in March. It is intended that the potential new organisation will take on the network as one of its priorities.”
All that expertise built up and thrown away!
Spectrum Futures, a social enterprise, the Voluntary Action Rotherham trading arm has received funding from Coalfields Regeneration Trust to deliver FREE training for anyone Rotherham who is unemployed and living in Rotherham. Go to their website: www.spectrumfutures.co.uk or call Suzy Cornwell Ball – 01709 726 891 or 07900 217 819
It’s been quite a while since I’ve had the time or pleasure to write a newsletter, however brief, so I’m delighted to attach our Report on Crowd Wise Ingenious Transport event Sheffield 061211 for RAE Ingenious funded Transport event.
PLUS a reminder that our Transport event follow-up meeting is 3pm, Thursday 26th January at OneEleven Building, Sheffield Hallam University – building opposite TJ Hughes at Castle Market. Although it’s free, donations appreciated – whatever you want to pay – to help with costs.
This project has opened my eyes to the vital role engineers play in our society as they quietly go about their day-to-day work.
I feel deeply honoured, as a lay person, to have had access to so many influential engineers from all disciplines. I would like to thank you all for giving so unstintingly of your time to support us in delivering this project to the expected standards.
Without engineers we would live in a different world without the luxury of heating, hot clean water, housing, safe rail or road systems, food supplies, fuel, robotics, metals, waste disposal, information or intellectual property to name just a few areas touched on or to be covered at our events – in fact everything we all take for granted.
We’ve had a lot of feedback ranging from an excellent, highly interactive process right through to need to do better – all of it’s been taken on board, in particular:
A major RAE Ingenious project aim is to raise the profile of engineering among lay people and especially young people.
As you can see from our Transport Event report, copy attached, it is a matter of critical concern for our future survival and economic success that:
Our final two events for the RAE Ingenious Project on the Sustainability agenda both run from 1.30pm – 4.30pm for event participants followed by a de-briefing session for event experts until 5.15pm and open to event participants will turn the spotlight on:
Online registration for our remaining two RAE Ingenious events going live shortly.
TED lectures on Plastic Pollution and social deprivation it causes worldwide.
TED Lecture: Mike Biddle – We CAN recycle Plastic; Edinburgh October 2011. Less than 10% of plastic trash is recycled – compared to almost 90% of metals because of the massively complicated problem of finding and sorting the different kinds of plastic. Frustrated by this waste, Mike Biddle has developed a cheap and incredibly8 energy efficient plant that can, and does, recycle any kind of plastic. www.ted.com/talks/mike_biddle.html
Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation first discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — an endless floating waste of plastic trash. Now he’s drawing attention to the growing, choking problem of plastic debris in our seas. www.algalita.org/index.php
Artist Dianna Cohen, co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition and shares tough truths about plastic pollution in the ocean and our lives — and some thoughts on how to free ourselves from the plastic gyre. REFUSE, REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE www.ted.com/talks/dianna_cohen_tough_truths_about_plastic_pollution.html
Van Jones lays out a case against plastic pollution from the perspective of social justice. Because plastic trash, he shows us, hits poor people and poor countries “first and worst,” with consequences we all share no matter where we live and what we earn. At TEDxGPGP, he offers a few powerful ideas to help us reclaim our throwaway planet. www.ted.com/talks/van_jones_the_economic_injustice_of_plastic.html
