How the Copland Neighbours group started

by Maggi Fielder, initiator of the Copland Neighbours pilot group

Since I was a child I have been aware that there were most likely going to be big problems for the planet in the future, and wanted to do  what I could to work in harmony with the Earth, hence most of my jobs have been in the ‘service sector’.  I am also involved in numerous charities (Plantlife, Woodland Trust, Garden Organic, Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society, Greenpeace to name just a few!).

I had a vision of people helping one another: contributing their own particular skills to create a sort of ‘safety net’ to underpin our society for the time when things might start falling apart..  This would involve everyone, young and old alike – and there is much we can learn from old people as to how things were done in the ‘old days’.   I remember how my grandparents lived – drawing water from their well, growing their own food, making their own clothes.  They lived a simple life, as most people did in those days.  So it was the most natural thing in the world for me to get involved in this Transition Together project!

Having come across Global Action Plan's Eco-Teams some years ago, I made a promise to myself at Rob Hopkin's 'Skilling Up for Powerdown' course, to do something like this ... along the lines of an Eco-Team. So last November when  I got Fiona's email (from TTT) asking if anyone would like to be involved in a Pilot Project for Transition Together  …Time to stop thinking about it, I thought (!)… Let’s do it!  So I leafleted everyone in thestreet and we now have 13 people and more who are interested and will become part of the project over time. 

Everyone helps and inspires one another.  As one of the team said in our first meeting, ‘we can grow and develop one another’s ideas to enrich our lives’ – and we do.  Everyone wanted to do what they could to support one another as well as the environment we live in and to ‘build community’, and most people are already doing what they can to save energy and water … but willing to learn more about what we can do … and bounce ideas off of one another …

When we have finished the 14 weeks we hope to have one (or more) neighbours who are knowledgeable about gardening help us to grow our own vegetables (with tips and advice, perhaps a workshop or two in the gardens!) – and hopefully we can then share our produce -.if people have a ‘glut’ of something. Perhaps one day we could create a sustainable neighbourhood  planting plan!  And may be plant some nut or fruit trees in the street?

We are keeping a note of our key points (on the bigger issues) and some of us may be using these as fuel for lobbying in the future.  Some people felt that, in order to have a sustainable society, we need to have more control over what we do and could lobby to try to get the Utilities (for instance) back under public control.

We want to do what we can to support one another over the long term and the environment in which we live.  But we are taking things as they come and letting ideas surface as and when, without forcing anything, letting the process grow organically and see where, over time, it takes us.  Who knows, as one neighbour said, perhaps we can club together and buy a Copland Meadows Wind Turbine one day!  Perhaps too, we could have a reed bed system at thebottom of the road!!!  

But in the meantime, I have noticed quite a few neighbours ‘on their bikes’...