Building resilient communities

During our recent holiday I had a chance to stop in at a favourite cafe, the Mondragon, which happens to be a worker co-op.  They have a bookshop, green grocery, and coffee house (and downstairs in the same building is an awesome bicycle shop, Natural Cycle, also run as a worker co-op, and where my sister happens to work).  I always like to browse the book selections, and picked up the most recent issue of Yes! Magazine.  I have always liked the concept of Yes! Magazine, whose byline is "powerful ideas, positive solutions" and I believe it used to be called "the journal of positive futures".  It's a magazine with a critical voice, yet always offering hopeful stories and solutions.  This issue is about building resilient communities - exactly the kinds of things we are hoping to do as urban homesteaders, as transition town groups, as barter networks, as food co-ops, as bicycle co-ops, and so on.  I highly recommend getting a copy of this magazine!

The Power of Community - Film at Princess Cinema

The "transition town" movement is growing - Guelph and Peterborough are two designated transition towns in Ontario, and a new group has recently formed in K-W to work toward this goal as well. Transition towns look at aspects of life that a community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change). The transition town communities also recognise two crucial points:

• that we used immense amounts of creativity, ingenuity and adaptability on the way up the energy upslope, and that there's no reason for us not to do the same on the downslope
• if we collectively plan and act early enough there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.

This coming week, Transition KW is presenting a film screening at the Princess Cinema. We believe this is going to be a very exciting and inspiring evening, so please pass this on to anyone you think would be interested.

Plan C: The Power of Community

Lecture, Film, Q&A - with author, film makers and directors Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan

Thursday November 12th

Princess Twin Cinema, 46 King Street North, Waterloo www.princesscinemas.com

Doors Open at 6:45 Talk at 7:15, Film at 7:45 followed by Q&A session.

Admission $2 (Barterworks and OUR Community Dollar will be accepted)

Pat Murphy is executive director of the Institute for Community Solutions in Yellow Springs, Ohio, a nonprofit organization devoted to small community living. Author of Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change, he lectures widely across North America on energy, Peak Oil, geopolitics and lifestyle solutions. Focusing on community resilience and long-term sustainability, his main interest is on the techniques and strategies for a steady reduction in the per capita use of fossil fuels.

Faith Morgan is the director and co-writer of "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil".

They will be in Hamilton to address city council and to present the 2009 Spirit of Red Hill Creek Lecture, and they have graciously agreed to speak in several other local communities as part of their Southern Ontario visit.

Co-sponsored by:

For more information call Stephen at 519.888.6917 or email: info@transitionkw.ca

Baking for barter dollars!

I've been slowly reviving my old baking business "Wildflour Bakery", and am now offering monthly selections of breads, cookies and squares to barter members. I email a list of baked items to the member list, and deliver the pre-ordered goods to the barter fair on the last Saturday of the month. The beauty of the barter system is that one can offer things that are hobbies, and develop new skills or fulfill creative outlets through this manner. Doing this baking satisfies by desire to run a bakery, which is not feasible in a larger way right now. We'd love to have a neighbourhood cafe or bakery from our location, but would need to do some reorganizing and rezoning of our property. Maybe possible in future? Certainly this is a walking/cycling neigbhourhood, where there would be a decent amount of pedestrian traffic, and it's a neighbourhood that would benefit from a cafe in it's midst. We've seen lovely examples in cities like Winnipeg (Tall Grass Prairie Bread Company, which is a thriving bakery out of a tiny one room space, and we always make a stop there for their famous cinnamon buns. This bakery started by families using a church kitchen in the neighbourhood to bake breads, and delivered them by little red wagon to households that had pre-ordered. Demand grew, support grew, and they eventually set up a bakery shop...).

Anyway, for now, I can prepare baked goods and trade them through the barter system (BarterWorks), test out my recipes and provide wholesome, mindfully prepared baking using organic local ingredients to members. I offer vegan and wheat-free options as well. This month the breads included: 4-Grain Sunflower & Flax; Cranberry-Pumpkin Seed Millet; Local Oats & Honey. I've been reading Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions, as well as thinking about sprouting for winter, and realize that I really need to invest in a solid heavy-duty grain mill. She write that most grains, nuts and seeds, and beans need to be soaked, sprouted and/or fermented, before eating. This helps to digest them, but also enhances their nutritional value. Foods that are processed quickly lose nutrition, nuts, seeds and grains go rancid. A grain mill allows us to grind jsut what we need, to sprout the grain before hand (or at least soak it overnight), and gain optimum nutrition in our baking. I suppose baking itself should be minimized, and this school of thought would promote sprouted breads or dehydrated foods that are only minimally heated (baking or heating also kills helpful enzymes needed for digestion)....more on Sally Fallon's book as I read on. We'll be offering a sprouting/living foods workshop here at Little City Farm in November, just in time for everyone to get started on their own indoor living food "gardens" for winter.