1000 Better Stories

Community, Plan, Action! (Part 2) - Camelon and Tamfourhill

In today’s episode we continue our story on ins and outs of creating a Community Climate Action Plan, based on Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work over the last couple of years.
Kaska chats to the most recent participant in KSB’s community planning project, a community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk. We hear from John Hosie, Community Safety Engager who brought together the core planning group, and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya, with their teacher Lilly who took part in the planning sessions.
Their planning group was a partnership between Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill, Tamfourhill Community Hub, Tidy Clean and Green Group, Forth Valley Sensory Centre, Go Forth and Clyde and Falkirk High School.
We end the story with a few tips and KSB’s future plans from Heather.
Listen to the previous episode for PART 1 of the story with the overview from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth and a conversation with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir, about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
Credits
Interview, recording and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
Keep Scotland Beautiful. Community Climate Action Plan project: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-change/climate-change/community-climate-action-plans/
Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill  https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/
Camelon and Tamfourfill climate action plan https://opcamelontamfourhill.co.uk/community-climate-action-plan-camelon-and-tamfourhill/
The Place Standard Tool (with climate lens) https://www.ourplace.scot/About-Place-Standard
Transcript
[00:00:35] Kaska Hempel: Hello, I'm Kaska Hempel, your Story Weaver for today. And in this episode, we continue with the story on community climate action plans based on the work done with communities by Keep Scotland Beautiful over the last couple of years. Listen to part one to hear the overview from the KSB's Heather Ashworth, and a conversation I had with Kate and Christine from Sustainable Kirriemuir about their experience as one of the communities involved in the project pilot.
[00:01:06] Kaska Hempel: Today, we hear from the community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk, who have just freshly emerged from their planning process. Last autumn, I was joined on Zoom by John Hosie, who brought together the planning group and Falkirk High students, Olivia and Maya and their teacher Lily, who took part in the planning sessions. To start, I ask them to paint us a picture of the area and their community.
[00:01:34] John Hosie: Tamfourhill is an interesting community. It's post-industrial central Scotland. Canal network goes through our area and the Falkirk wheel and the hinter land of that is forest and wooded. But on either side of it, there is areas, significant areas of multiple deprivation. I'm John Hosie, I'm the Community Safety Engager, and I'm employed by the Our Place Camelon And Tamfourhill Project, which is managed by the Tamfourhill Tenants Residence Organisation.
[00:02:09] John Hosie: One of the positive parts of the area is a very strong sense of identity. So somebody from Camelons a Mariner and a Mariner is because of the historic relationship of Camelon to the river and the water. And in more recent history that possibly would be the canal. So, it has a strong sense of place and a strong sense of who it is and what it was.
[00:02:35] John Hosie: The populations around about 7,000, and there's maybe about four distinct neighborhoods within that community making up Camelon and Tamfourhill. The area's quite fortunate in that, although it's urban and generally post-war council, housing stock, there's a lot of green species within the area. And there's the two major canals go through it and where they interchange at the Falkirk wheel.
[00:03:03] John Hosie: So there's significant areas of green open spaces and potentially leisure recreation and environmental potential at all of these locations.
[00:03:16] Olivia McDonald: Yeah. I quite like Dollar Calendar Park. I'm Olivia McDonald and I am a prefect here at Falkirk High School. I feel like Calendar Park is actually quite good because compared to some other places that I go, they're quite good with clearing up the area.
[00:03:32] Olivia McDonald: It's such a nice space for children and people to go on walks and just, you know, enjoy themselves.
[00:03:38] Maya Rankin: I really like the Falkirk wheel. I live quite close to the Falkirk wheel, so I'm about like a 10 minute walk away, so I quite like going there. My name's Maya Rankin. I'm a student here at Falkirk High School with Olivia and I'm 15 years old.
[00:03:52] Maya Rankin: They have bins everywhere. That's one thing I do realise. They've got bins everywhere, especially because the amount of people are tourists that come with picnics and stuff. But it's also like a really good educational area, I would say. It's got a lot of history to it. So it's a really good place for families to go and it's very inclusive.
[00:04:10] Maya Rankin: It's got stuff for everyone. It's got play parks, it's got the water, activities. It's got everything. I really like it there.
[00:04:16] John Hosie: I think that probably the greatest challenge of community needs it is fairly typical of Central Scotland post-industrial. And it faces, there's I think, three data zones within the top 5% in the social index of multiple deprivation.
[00:04:30] John Hosie: Poverty's a real issue. Fuel poverty, food poverty. And you know, that is fairly obvious or blatant in a sense. So these are the challenges the community faces. It's from my perspective, a really vibrant and good place to work. A welcoming community. And I live in a foreign country called Alloa and I was always made to feel absolutely welcome and part of the community since the day I first worked there.
[00:04:57] John Hosie: So that is a strength that has informal support networks. But a lot of work is still required around what I would call community development work. So there isn't a lot of people prepared to form themselves into structured committees or development trusts or vehicles for community action and community change.
[00:05:17] John Hosie: But there's a very positive informal network there. I think the climate crisis underpins a lot of these challenges, and they are exasperated by the existing economic and social challenges within the area.
[00:05:31] Kaska Hempel: How come you got involved in the development of a climate action planning? Where did that come out of?
[00:05:36] John Hosie: Two reasons.
[00:05:37] John Hosie: The community had identified environmental concerns as a priority for community safety. And acknowledgement that the climate emergency is a community safety concern. My argument post in 2020, May 2020 in full lockdown, tasked with having to consult and engage with the community around their priorities for community safety.
[00:06:01] John Hosie: The biggest issue that was identified of greatest concern to the community at that time, and by far the biggest concern by a long way was littering. Fly tipping. The state of open green spaces, the amount of detritus that was lying around the community. Although there were other concerns there related to drug use and addiction, and there were concerns around things that won't surprise you around antisocial behaviour.
[00:06:30] John Hosie: The environmental concerns outshone everything else. So a response was needed to that. A community-based response. And we did a number of things. We launched a campaign to keep Camelon and Tamfourhill tidy clean and green. We were able to mobilize some volunteers and we got about the whole process of tidying up, cleaning up, and greening our community.
[00:06:51] John Hosie: Young people in particular were getting involved in canal clear up work, clearing the water, clearing the tow path. There was a lot that was about community cohesion, but also reconnecting the community with the canal. So it was connected to the community's industrial past, but it had become an area that was more perceived to be a bit antisocial behaviour of risk taking and unsafe.
[00:07:16] John Hosie: So the clearing up of that canal reconnected the community with the canal. So there was that strand that was going on. The other issues, the whole cost of living crisis and energy crisis was impacting on a community that was already facing economic and social challenges. So one particular very strong strand was the Tamfourhill Community Hub who sat on the core group to develop this plan.
[00:07:46] John Hosie: They were going through asset transfer of their building from the council into community ownership. And the gas and electric bills are absolutely not sustainable. The bills are going through the roof. You know, we're looking at 30,000 pounds a year to heat and light a building. That's a salary of a worker.
[00:08:06] John Hosie: That's a lot of provision in terms of youth work or adult work or community development work. It's a massive amount of money to a small charity and you know, we can talk about community safety in any kind of context, but if you don't have a community hub for the community to come together, then it's going to be to the detriment of community safety and community cohesion.
[00:08:28] John Hosie: That building's existence has become existential. If we don't find ways of being more efficient with energy, if we don't find alternative energy sources. The building's future is very unclear. Other groups there were piecemeal and disjointed. We were involved with community growing activities and there was some litter picking going on and there was other pockets of activities.
[00:08:52] John Hosie: So bringing these priority issues together and bringing the different groups engaged with these activities together to form a coherent community climate action plan seemed a very logical thing to do, a necessary thing to do. So my role was really kind of as an enabler and facilitator of that initial core group and setting that agenda.
[00:09:12] Lilly: My name is Lilly and I'm a high school music teacher at Falkirk High School. But I'm also doing an acting PT job in wider community and parental engagement. So as part of that, I make quite a lot of contact with John and have kind of been involved in things like taking the pupils out on litter picks and canal clear ups with them.
[00:09:30] Lilly: And as part of that, it's kind of continued on into being part of the community climate action plan. And then I went to a group of pupils in our school. So we have what we call pupil junior management team, which Olivia and Maya are a part of, or were a part of, should I say. Last year. They're in S4 now. But last year I took groups of children with me along to meetings with John and the rest of the team, and Olivia and Maya were at quite a lot of those.
[00:09:53] Olivia McDonald: We started to go on litter picks with Changemakers, which is another team here that, you know, do a lot of things for the environment. And basically, seeing all rubbish everywhere. It sort of made me feel, you know, disappointed and realised how important it is.
[00:10:11] Lilly: As a school we're in the process of kind of working towards our green award.
[00:10:16] Lilly: And so Olivia was talking about the Changemakers group there, and that is, that's our kind of eco group in school. I think just taking the pupils out and actually seeing what damage littering particularly is doing to the community is just quite eye-opening and is an area as a school that we are really focusing on is our litter strategy.
[00:10:35] Lilly: Because we are aware that, you know, littering happens and it's not always just our school pupils. We do know that. But they, you know, they can be a focus sometimes, which is unfortunate. We've also, as a school, we've been trying to put together or we have put together to say...
[00:10:49] Olivia McDonald: The community charter.
[00:10:51] Lilly: Community charter, yeah. Do you want to maybe talk a bit about what that is, Olivia?
[00:10:54] Olivia McDonald: So it's our charter and it's basically about how we can help the environment and what the school could do and what the pupils could do when they're going out for lunch or just how they could be respectful towards local businesses and the environment.
[00:11:10] Olivia McDonald: And we went around during our litter picks actually. To ask some shop owners or local businesses around the area to put up the charter, the posters for it. And, you know, they were very open to doing it and it was good.
[00:11:26] Lilly: So I think our litter strategy at Falkirk High is a big focus this year.
[00:11:29] Lilly: And being part of the Community Climate Action plan is helping us to make an improvement in the community.
[00:11:35] John Hosie: I mean the core group that have taken the plan forward, it's absolutely essential that the young people were involved. And I can only thank the school so much for giving so much commitment to this
[00:11:46] John Hosie: And the school. It doesn't just serve Camelon and Tamfourhill. Falkirk High is what it says, it's Falkirk. But they are a really important part of our community. But the other groups that took part in the core group, the Forth Valley Sensory Centre. They too, by their name. They have a remit that covers more than just our local community.
[00:12:05] John Hosie: And they were another organisation that are an asset to our community, but haven't always been integrated with neighborhood-based work. And they came on board with us and that was really important as well. And working closely in partnership with our Tidy Clean And Green Community Group, which is a resident led group along with the two Tamfourhill organisations.
[00:12:25] John Hosie: So the bringing together of these groups was an important part of this process as well.
[00:12:31] Kaska Hempel: So what was the actual process and when did it happen, and what did it involve for you as a community?
[00:12:38] John Hosie: I can't remember when we actually sat down and started the process. It must have been around about May last year.
[00:12:46] John Hosie: So I put in an initial proposal to Keep Scotland Beautiful, to ask them for support, to facilitate the process. And that came about at a good time because there were some resources available through the Community Renewal fund and a consortium of organisations of which I was also involved in had some resources at the time.
[00:13:08] John Hosie: So that married up quite nicely. The proposal to do the plan and there being some resources to make it happen. So that's where Heather became involved.
[00:13:18] Lilly: One of the main starting points was thinking about what we already do. So, you know, we play a part as a school in the community, and it was kind of thinking about what do we actually do already to give back to the community.
[00:13:30] Lilly: You know, we do food bank donation appeal around about Christmas time. As I was speaking about, the Changemakers group that we already have. And then, you know, the other kinda of involvement with litter picks and things. And then coming along to those meetings was about talking to all the other groups, what they're doing and then seeing, you know, are there any links?
[00:13:49] Lilly: What are priorities as a whole group? What are your individual priorities? And it kinda came together through that way I would say.
[00:13:55] Kaska Hempel: So truly collaborative process. It's wonderful to see. How was it working with adults?
[00:14:00] Olivia McDonald: It's actually really good. They've been really helpful and very inspiring.
[00:14:05] Maya Rankin: They have more knowledge than we do. I'll say that. We're, you know, coming into this. I'm gonna be honest, we were a bit clueless about it. But having John and his team working with us, it's been a real game changer for us.
[00:14:16] Kaska Hempel: So I just wanted to ask you, how did it feel being involved in this as a young person?
[00:14:21] Kaska Hempel: Community action can be seen as sort of adults realm and tackling really big issues.
[00:14:26] Olivia McDonald: It felt well, very achieving. Like we've achieved a lot.
[00:14:32] Maya Rankin: And especially, you know, we've came up with new ideas that we had in the back of our heads and we thought would never be able to be, you know, kind of made by us, if you would. But the fact that we have makes us not only as in ourselves but as pupils and prefects and members of Falkirk High and members of our own community.
[00:14:51] Maya Rankin: It makes us feel very grateful that we're able to do this.
[00:14:53] Olivia McDonald: Very proud as well. I mean, it's all going towards, you know, well, our future, everybody's future.
[00:15:00] Kaska Hempel: How was it working with young people on this project?
[00:15:03] Lilly: I think it's great to have a kind of different outlook on things. There's lots of things that the pupils would say or suggest that I wouldn't have particularly thought of.
[00:15:13] Lilly: You know, all the pupils that we had along, they enjoy speaking about things and their confident skills were kind of growing as each meeting happened. So yeah, I found it great working with them.
[00:15:22] John Hosie: My background is youth work, so I didn't need any convincing that young people were the key to this in many ways, I don't want to sound over dramatic, but this is an existential issue.
[00:15:37] John Hosie: If the planet is to continue and we're to enjoy quality of life, then action is required. The time the full impact of this is realised, I probably won't be here, but the generation behind me will. So they need to be empowered to take control of this in as much way as they can without our guidance. And I think, you know, young people have demonstrated their willingness and ability to do that.
[00:16:05] John Hosie: So I don't think it's an option. I think it's necessary. I mean, I use the strap line often young people have the solution, not the problem. And we need to invest in that. And Maya and Olivia are excellent examples of that young people will really require and need their enthusiasm and insight. You've got to remember when you get to my age and people become quite cynical about things and things can't change and that still frustrates me because things can change. Things must change. And young people have the energy, enthusiasm, and just the ability to do that.
[00:16:42] Kaska Hempel: I was going to ask you about any community actions that you identified as something that might go ahead or is going ahead.
[00:16:52] Olivia McDonald: During meetings, we've talked about food education and how to cook well seasonally and how, you know, it's important for young people to learn more about how to, you know, make decent meals on a budget. Just really realistic things. But also how to do it with helping the environment, recycling, eating seasonally, and also eating maybe your own homegrown veg.
[00:17:19] Maya Rankin: One of our old captains for P G M T was really passionate about starting up a gardening club or something to do with gardening within our school community.
[00:17:28] Maya Rankin: Which we have done. We're currently growing potatoes, I think, and our garden out the back. But we've got some teachers also putting in extra time and work and helping out with that. And we've got loads of pupils who are very passionate about seeing what they eat. I'm sure we've used a few of the potatoes that are growing now in home ec.
[00:17:45] Maya Rankin: So it is a really good garden. Obviously we're not growing much right now because of the weather, but we're hoping to start growing a lot more come the season next year. And use a lot of it, not only in our home ec kitchens, but hopefully also in our canteen kitchens as well.
[00:18:00] John Hosie: The big priority at Tamfourhill is energy efficiency. We now have a more detailed plan of action to look at our energy efficiency audit of the Tamfourhill Community Hub. So that will partly be to look at alternative energy sources like solar heat pumps and so on. But it'll also look at how within the existing structures, as are things that we can do. Better insulation, windows, heating systems. Do we need the whole heating system on all of the time in all of the rooms?
[00:18:36] John Hosie: So we have a process now in place that will start with an energy efficiency audit of the building. From that, we will come up with proposals about what needs to happen to improve that situation, and I think that will probably involve some kind of grant submission to one of the funds. Scottish Government funds.
[00:18:57] John Hosie: It was maybe a medium term action. It's now a short term action. We need to see results and we'd hope to come back at this time next year and say we're in the process of installing heat pumps. We're in the process of putting solar panels on the roof. Going back to the community growing. We've got five new planters created beside the community hub in the woods to go with the existing four planters. Tidy Clean And Green have just taken on a piece of waste ground in the middle of Camelon and they've put planters and seating in there and some artwork.
[00:19:31] John Hosie: And we have things potentially happening up at Easter Carmuirs Public Park. So there's already been an increase in using green areas for growing projects. And there's another old disused park in Camelon that we're looking to develop as possible allotments.
[00:19:52] John Hosie: So I would hope to be, again, come back in the spring and say the tatties are in. We've got some fruit bushes in, we've got some fruit trees in. There's areas in our community that are perceived to be problematic in terms of antisocial behaviour. At least two of those locations are on our sights to be transformed into some kind of community spaces, and that would include seating planters, trees, fruit bushes, and possibly play facilities.
[00:20:26] John Hosie: I don't think the solution is to put barbed wire around these areas and have turrets with machine guns. I think the idea is much more practical and useful as to transform them into green assets and community facilities. That's maybe a longer term aspiration, but work has already started on that.
[00:20:48] John Hosie: We agreed that the core group who developed a plan would act as a steering group, and we had our first steering group meeting last week. So we will monitor the plan. So each meeting would start with an update, what's happened against the actions in the plan, and that would be shared by everybody who makes up the core group. But I think it would also be a forum for what needs to happen, who needs additional help? Is there funding required or are there resources that we could deploy? Or is it just a case of somebody spending some time to offer some support so they will act as a steering group to drive that plan forward.
[00:21:28] John Hosie: I think maybe it'll meet quarterly. It might be that subgroups could meet, you know, if it's just to look at a specific project. Two or three of the partners could get together rather than the full core group.
[00:21:39] John Hosie: It's an organic plan, and I think it's never a finished plan. There's got to be scope to bring more community groups on board. I think one of the challenges is to bring in the bigger players and the bigger stakeholders. Although the plan took cog niceness of this whilst it was being developed and an awareness that some things were the responsibility of government, both local and national.
[00:22:04] John Hosie: There's other agencies that need to come on board to help us make things happen. And that, I think falls on the local authority, Falkirk Council and Scottish Canals who are a massive player in this area. And I mean, our neighbourhood and the area of climate change, we need to mobilize them in a meaningful way and bring them into that plan so that they can enable things to happen in a way that the community on its own can't. And that is going to be a challenge.
[00:22:38] Kaska Hempel: Maya and Olivia, what would be your message to other young people about getting involved in community climate action?
[00:22:45] Maya Rankin: Just get involved with it. You know, some of the ideas that we've put forward we thought were absolutely crazy, you know, never gonna happen.
[00:22:54] Maya Rankin: And here we are. They have happened. Get involved.
[00:22:56] Olivia McDonald: Definitely. Yeah, just go for it. You know, put forward your ideas. One of our meetings that we went to, we suggested about a toy library, and now there is one for the community to use.
[00:23:09] Kaska Hempel: Find yourself somebody like John.
[00:23:11] Olivia and Maya: Yes, that's true. A good mentor.
[00:23:13] Kaska Hempel: John, when can you clone yourself? What would you say to other communities out there to encourage such planning? Any sort of key tips?
[00:23:23] John Hosie: I think it has to be made relevant. And I think it has become in the last six months, even more relevant. You might even go back to Covid. We did a survey before the Community Climate Action Plan started.
[00:23:38] John Hosie: One of the things that was concerning was that a lot of people didn't see it as a big issue. It didn't affect them, it wasn't relevant to them. It was what middle class hippies got involved in and how is it relevant to us? So I think that was a point of realization that actually this has an immense immediate impact, but people aren't aware of it.
[00:24:00] John Hosie: So we have to make this relevant. We need to make it connected to people's everyday experiences. So, you know, your increased insurance in your house, the increased bad weather and what's happening is a consequence to you and your personal economy. We need to make that connection.
[00:24:19] Kaska Hempel: And one last question. Why do you think communities will make the real difference in making sure that we act on climate change in time?
[00:24:27] Maya Rankin: The more communities that get involved with this journey, we think the more other communities will go, maybe we should do that in our area and maybe we should get involved in something similar to that to help our area as well.
[00:24:42] John Hosie: No, I think it's a belief in bottom up change will come from ordinary people in ordinary situations, but there's no getting away from the fact that others need to buy into this. Communities on their own will not find solutions. Communities are very resilient. They'll find ways of surviving and getting by and putting mitigations into place.
[00:25:05] John Hosie: But to move forward and thrive, there needs to be social structural changes, and we need support to do that. The big players need to come on board. There's a willingness in communities to take things forward. We need that support. We need partnerships, meaningful partnerships. You know, we need to all come to the table without agendas.
[00:25:26] John Hosie: The only agenda should be to work together to bring about lasting positive change.
[00:25:31] Kaska Hempel: So, thank you everybody for joining me for this conversation.
[00:25:34] Olivia and Maya: Yes, thank you for having us.
[00:25:37] Kaska Hempel: I can't help but imagine Camelon and Tamfourhill's green spaces and School gardens bursting into life this spring. And I hope the community centre's energy efficiency is getting sorted as well, along with the multitude of other projects they had in mind.
[00:25:53] Kaska Hempel: I wanted to finish with a couple of more questions for Heather about her tips for community groups, starting with her reflection on what makes for a successful community climate action planning exercise.
[00:26:05] Heather Ashworth: So I would say that our combination of online and in-person planning sessions has helped to make a successful planning exercise for different reasons.
[00:26:15] Heather Ashworth: I should mention that for Camelon and Tamfourhill, we were able to go and be with them in person to run their session. So that was really great. But the online sessions were really good too. Because, like I said, some of those sessions were all the communities were together in them and they said that they got so much out of being able to talk to each other.
[00:26:32] Heather Ashworth: And that was really great to see. I'd also say having an open invite to anyone in the community to join really helps because then everyone feels like they've got a voice. Having a couple of people in the community to lead the process is really important. It's really important to have somebody there who's happy to be taking charge at that point.
[00:26:50] Heather Ashworth: Having meetings with structure, feeding back what they've agreed and checking in with them to see how they're progressing and also what they might need help with. I would also say that we help support a process which groups may have otherwise struggled to resource by themselves in terms of knowing where to start. Gaining buy-in and having a tried and tested methodology as well, that kind of thing. I would say that sort of makes a successful planning exercise.
[00:27:15] Kaska Hempel: You mentioned tools and resources. Do you have any recommendations if a group wanted to do something for themselves? Is there some go-to resource they can just take off the shelf and go with it?
[00:27:31] Heather Ashworth: Then we would definitely recommend the Place Standard Tool as a good starting point. And that's openly available at our place dot Scot. And they've also recently released a new version with a climate lens. I think it would be really useful for communities. The Place Standard Tool is really great for gauging what people want in their communities and what they want to see improved and also what they already like about their communities. I think it's a really great process.
[00:27:53] Heather Ashworth: And I would also just recommend Adaptation Scotland's resources when you're looking at how to make your community more resilient to the impact of climate change. They've got some really great scenarios which suggest ideas that your community could take forward. So yeah, they've got some really interesting resources too. I would recommend those two.
[00:28:09] Kaska Hempel: So, what's next for KSB's work on this?
[00:28:13] Heather Ashworth: So I've already mentioned I think that we've received funding in April this year from the Scottish Government to continue to support our communities that we have already for another year. We have set up a peer-to-peer network for the communities that we work with for the Community Climate Action Plan programme, so then they can support each other and their plans.
[00:28:31] Heather Ashworth: We also set up Q&As with experts in the sector, again to support communities with their climate action. We recently had one on green participatory budgeting, and that was really interesting from personal standpoint, obviously what that was all about. As well as the communities were able to engage and ask questions and just find out a bit more about that process.
[00:28:50] Heather Ashworth: And we also organise one-to-ones with communities, so then they can discuss with us about how we can continue to support them and their ideas and their concerns as well. Just to sort of be there for them and to support them as much as we can.
[00:29:02] Heather Ashworth: Just working through this process the last couple of years, we've become more aware of the need and demand across Scotland's communities for structured support to help local people that understand the local impact and implications of climate change. And identify feasible, but also ambitious climate action they can take.
[00:29:18] Heather Ashworth: Many more communities have been approaching us to run this programme. As I said, we had loads of applications, but also throughout the last year or so, people reach out and ask us more about the process. So at Keep Scotland Beautiful, our aspiration is to continue supporting Scotland's communities to learn and understand their role in combating climate change and protecting the places that they care for.
[00:29:38] Heather Ashworth: So that's what we want to do.

Community, Plan, Action! (Part 1) – Sustainable Kirriemuir

Community Climate Action Plans (CCAPs) - what are they, how does one go about making a good one and is it worth the hassle? To answer these questions over the next couple of episodes, we talk about Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work with communities to help them with such planning.
We get an overview of the project from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth, and follow with in-depth conversations with two, very different, communities involved in the scheme.
In today’s episode we chat to Kate Munro, Committee Chair, and Christine Kydd, Biodiversity Volunteer, from Sustainable Kirriemuir, one of the pilot communities in the KSB’s CCAP project. We close with a very wee tour of the Kirrie Community Garden from Fiona Cameron, Project Administrator and Emily Hutchison, Community Gardener.
And in a couple of weeks, in part 2, we follow up with a story from the most recent participant, community of Camelon and Tomfourhill, near Falkirk.
Credits
Production, interviews and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources:
Keep Scotland Beautiful. Community Climate Action Plan project: https://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-change/climate-change/community-climate-action-plans/
Sustainable Kirriemuir Climate Action Plan: https://www.sustainablekirriemuir.co.uk/our-projects/future-kirrie/

No Nurture for Nature - an interview with Jo Gilbert

We cross over from our 1000 Better Stories Blog today as Joana Avi-Lorie interviews another one of our mini-grant recipients, Jo Gilbert. Jo is a spoken word artist and writer from Aberdeen, who writes in Doric and English. They talk about their journey into poetry, class, challenges in connecting to nature, and the importance of diversity of voices in conversations about climate action.
This is a companion interview to the “No Nature to Nature” poem which will be published in full Doric and English versions on our 1000 Better Stories blog in April. 
CreditsInterview and recording: Joana Avi-LorieSound edit: Kaska HempelPoem: “No Nature to Nature” by Jo Gilbert
ResourcesJo Gilbert https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/jo-gilbert Poetry at Parliament event https://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/poetry-in-parliament/ Jo’s poetic inspirations:Loud Poets https://www.iamloud.co/about Katie Ailes https://katieailes.com/ Jen Hadfield https://twitter.com/hadfield_jenKatrina Naomi https://www.katrinanaomi.co.uk/ Alycia Pirmohamed https://alycia-pirmohamed.com/ 

An honest look at one community’s car and bike shares

Hazel Darwin Clements, the project co-ordinator at Porty Community Energy, shares an honest look at what communities can do to share cars and bikes. She has helped start a peer-to-peer car share club and run an eCargo cycle library trial this year with the mission to help people reduce their car use and make local travel more pleasant. We hear from representatives of CoMoUk and HiyaCar as well as professor Jillian Anable, Chair in Transport and Energy at the University of Leeds, and members of the community who have been involved with the projects.  
Hazel's work was supported by one of SCCAN storytelling mini-grants. They are closed to new applicants but will hopefully reopen in April 2023. Get in touch with our Story Weavers on stories@sccan.scot.
Credits
Production: Hazel Darwin-Clements
Music: Coma-Media from Pixabay
 
Resources:
Porty Community Energy: https://portycommunityenergy.wordpress.com/
Porty Community Bikes: https://portycommunitybike.myturn.com/library/
Contact: portycommunityenergy@gmail.com
CoMoUK https://www.como.org.uk/
Hiyacar https://www.hiyacar.co.uk/
1000 Better Stories episode with CoMoUK on community bike shares: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-6we6s-104934e
1000 Better Stories episode with Hazel's story on setting up a community fridge: https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-van9y-11f9eea
Transcript:
Kaska: Hi, I’m Kaska, one of SCCAN’s Story Weavers. In today’s episode we have a story from one of our mini-grant recipients, Hazel Darwin Clements. She takes an honest look at the community car and bike shares she’s been setting up in Portobello in Edinburgh. If you’re interested in community-run bike shares you might also enjoy our previous episode we produced with CoMoUK, released in May 2021. Our storytelling mini-grants are closed to new applicants at the moment but we’re hoping to reopen them again in April. Get in touch on stories@sccan.scot if you are interested in applying for one. Now – over to Hazel!
 
Hazel: Hi, I’m Hazel and welcome to this podcast about what communities can do to share vehicles. I’m going to give the first word today to Professor Julian Annabel speaking at the CoMoUK shared transport conference in December ‘22. I went along, virtually, to look for inspiration on what we can do in our community, in Portobello and this talk really struck me. 
 
Julian: Let's focus on the fact that the UN just last month. Brought some really frightening, but I think to be frank, refreshing honesty, that really ought to be the first line that each of us are using every time we introduce our particular initiatives. They said there's no credible pathways to keeping us within safe carbon limits, and by this, what they mean is that there's no country that has come up with the right combination of measures to do this, to keep us on these pathways.
 
They have said there is just about time for us to do so. But the fact is that none of these packages of policies exist out there and there are no exceptions. The eu, the UK in particular, and for transport, it's very complicated obviously, but there's no pathways left for decarbonizing the transport sector without deep cuts in car use by 2030.
 
In half a dozen years time, and those deep cuts in car use are of at least 20% reduction in the amount that cars are used from today's levels. And this is alongside really ambitious uptake of EVs. More ambitious than, than some of us are going for it at the moment. And the the cuts are unnecessary, in part to compensate for the fact that heavy goods vehicles need a bit.
 
To do their thing.
 
Hazel: Professor Annabel’s work at the University of Leeds at the Institute for Transport Studies focusses on understanding travel behaviour and travel patterns and how we can use that knowledge to reduce carbon emissions. And here is something I did not know.
 
Julian: We’re talking then about a scale of change that has not happened anywhere in the world other than maybe into in some small pockets of best practice cities.
 
And we aspire to places like the Netherlands where they've got 29% of trips on the bike. The Dutch. Are as carbon intensive in their travel as we are. They're per average, per capita. Carbon emissions from traveling in the Netherlands is the same as in the UK because they love their cars, they have big cars, and frankly, car use is not restricted in the Netherlands.
 
So we don't even know how to do what we've got to do. So my main message for you today is for you to all, to be more honest. I'm not accusing you of lying, but I am accusing you of focusing on your individual interventions and growing the patronage, and growing the use of your individual interventions and really ignoring the fact that what we need to do is get people outta their cars onto these interventions and that we cannot do that unless we couple these interventions with significant car restraint.
 
 
 
Hazel: Amazing. So, how are we going to do that? What will really get people out of their cars?
 
I don’t have the answer yet. But you know that. You also see the steady stream of single occupancy cars flowing by right? I can’t hear what my daughter is telling me from her buggy because of the roar of them and you’re all still breathing in the fumes that are steadily destroying any credible pathway to keeping us within safe carbon limits. But you are here listening, I am here talking and you never know maybe we can figure it out.
 
In 2022 I was given the opportunity to work for Porty Community Energy a few hours every week. If felt like an exciting year. We set up a bike library project trial and a peer-to-peer car club. We made a start. But it does feel a bit like being the first person to get up on the dance floor. Are you all gonna get up and join in?
 
Let me tell you about it. We’ll start with the cars, but do stay for the bikes (they are the more fun bit!)
 
Here is Hannah Box from CoMoUK speaking at a community workshop we held last summer.
 
Hannah: So we have car club research and bike share research, which is great for producing statistics that we can use to kind of convince people that we need to do a bit more sharing in our. Hannah gave a presentation about some of the latest research into transport and in Scotland the, our transport emissions are about 35, 30 6% of the total emissions of that cars make up about 40%.
 
So quite a large portion is just us moving about in, in vehicles. So what can we do? Well, we can share. So this is from our research from 2021. So we've published this just last month. This revealed that car clubs in Scotland have the potential to reduce about 17 private cars. So one car club car can replace those 17 cars.
 
Hazel: That one really struck me when I heard that 17 cars could be removed for every car club car I would walk down the street counting the cars and imagining them disappearing. 2, 3, 4, 5. I live on a street where cars park on both sides. It so happens there are 17 cars on either side, so that's the whole of one side of the street clear replaced by just one car, club car. Hannah then told us all about the different types of car sharing models.
 
Hannah: There's not kind of like a one solution fits all. So, you know, we may find through discussions today that there is more than one option that could work here. Two options might work really well together.
 
You've got independent car clubs, franchise working with a franchise, you've got peer-to-peer car sharing, and then you've got, uh, Lyft sharing or ride sharing. So which one of these options would work best in our c. Well, first we needed to start the conversation about how we travel and how it might work better.
 
Hazel: So which one of these options would work best in our community? Well first we needed to start the conversation about how we travel, and how might work better.
 
Workshop: So we're just gonna move around the different stations. There's train, cycle, car, bus, walk, or wheel other. So walk around, just watch. There's a cable here that's a little bit hidden. Health and safety. So if everyone wants to stand up, going to do a big shop. What? How do you travel?
 
No judgment, just for fun. No judgment. Nobody's looking at what you're doing. They're only thinking about themselves. (people moving around)
 
Hazel: At the end of the workshop people seemed most keen on the idea of a peer to peer car club. Some people were willing to share vehicles they already own with a group of trusted people. We got in touch with Keith at Hiya Car which seemed like our best option, here he is explaining some background about what they offer communities at a Zoom Q&A.
 
Keith: Just to give you a bit of background about how we've come to the closed loop car sharing setup is that we were approached about 18 months ago by a lady called Emily Kerr, who was very keen to share cars in Oxford, and she gave us a lot of. Very good feedback about people were very keen to share their cars, but they wanted to do it to people that they've trusted and their neighbors as opposed to people that they didn't know.
 
So we spent quite a lot of time working with Emily in Oxford. Um, and we've come up with this closed loop set up whereby we can set up a, a group who can list their cars within that. And they will only be available to a trusted group of people that are allowed to join that network. But we've managed to do that on the back of the wider peer-to-peer platform that we've been working on since 2015.
 
We've come up with a bespoke car sharing insurance. System. Just a bit of background on that. The insurance company that we've been working with on this for the last four years are now the biggest investor in the company as well. We've also worked on the app, you know, it, it is tried and tested now, and it is working.
 
We now have nine closed loops within Oxford itself and across the uk. We've set up 25 closed loops, and that's include including the, the Portobello one as.
 
So we are using Hiya Car but we also have a WhatsApp group and I will now give you a flavour of this:
 
Ping
We’ve made up our minds, and decided we’d love to be part of this group but we’re not going to be contributing our car. This is because we’ve decided to sell Smifu, our Zoe. It’s great, but we need the cash, not the car.   Know anyone looking to buy?
Ping
What's the reg number (So I can look up price estimates.)
I think 'Zoe' is a nicer name than 'Smifu'
Ping
It's in his original message
Ping
Well, only if you actually read the whole thing
Ping
I hate to contradict, but it's there whether you read it or not. Or perhaps we're getting all "if a tree falls down in a forest, with nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?" LOL
Ping
Ah, I thought this was the car share group, not philosophyLOL
Ping
Welcome Ray! Ray mostly cycles but it would be useful to have a car for some trips like buying plants and escaping to the countryside.
Ping
(Chimzy) Thanks Hazel and thanks to all the people who own cars and are willing to have people like me borrow them!
Ping
(Sian) Welcome Ray! Great to have you in the group.
Ping
We’re off to Mull in April. Would anyone have a car available then? Not too small, ideally.
Ping
Yes. We're on holiday then.
Ping
We've just had our first booking, it's for two hours this evening. Jo’s being charged £22.16. We earn £4.20. Apparently Enterprise is cheaper. Seems a strange pricing system if it produces this.
Ping
Enterprise vehicles the size we have in Porty are ~6.50 per hour
Ping
Ours is a bigger car, which she needs for what she's picking up.
Still seems odd
Ping
Yes it’s very weird. We hired one with this group for three days and we paid £160 (which was a way better price than we’d have paid through hiring a car) but the owner received only £67.
ping
I think we can do way better than this. Bless Hiya car for getting us started, but could we not find out what insurance costs for a day, and then organise via this WhatsApp list?
Ping
Sorry just catching up here. Enterprise charges a yearly fee for the car club also a cost per mile (this is from past experience) I found it to end up quite expensive also the van I hired was so dirty on the inside that we spent at least 30 minutes cleaning it (was moving soft furnishings)
 
So, if we’re honest here it’s not all plain sailing, but there’s a group of people committed to working it out and smoothing the glitches. I was invited to the home of car club members Duncan Wallace and Polly Bennett have a chat about their experiences so far as car owners offering out their car.
 
And how's it, how has it been working so far? Well, we've connected as humans and started to share our assets and worked out our systems and processes and relationships and the problems around it have now been overcome.
 
In the old days, there used to be a lot of problems about sharing insurance ideas and ownership ideas, and the insurance and ownership companies absolutely were blocking anybody to car sharing naturally, whereas humans were perfectly up for it. They just didn't know how to do it. So any challenges, people are obsessed about having their own stuff and the car historically used to represent a status symbol for some reason, and a sense of private good. You know, there aren't really publicly available publicly owned cars. We think it's a private good and individuals have to keep them, obviously according to health and safety, but individuals also have to keep them as theirs and Colour, the colour that they want them and whereas actually it's a shed on four wheels that moves you about, we're a bit obsessed about the privacy of cars. That I think is one of the challenges. I was thinking that it's, um, you know, we see it as a tool. We see our car as a tool and then it's part of this very important move to tool libraries and to, you know, other ways of sharing things.
 
Most of the time that car just sits, just sitting out there. Most of the time we're not using it. You know, we use it occasionally. Yeah. It's like tools in the tool shed. Yeah. And our car is, you know, people don't have to worry. They don't, they can take their dogs in. They can take their kids, they can get sound all over it.
 
They can, you know, we, for us it's a fairly relaxed object. Um, there's no point in cleaning it too much cuz. Just get filthy again in three seconds. You know, ultimately I would be someone who didn't really want private ownership about a vehicle, but would want more of a shared resource that was accessible by all.
 
Because we have dogs, you can't, you are literally not allowed to rent a car. So, you know, there, there are some barriers in the way for us to just do that kind of thing, and that's why we currently have a car. It became difficult for us to function in life. Um, , that's not very good . It's not very good that you have to go and get a car in order to take your dogs to wherever.
 
What you really want is an equipment depot that you have a relationship with the equipment, you know how the equipment works, but also someone can show you how it works and you can choose which equipment you need for what trip, and then you can keep turning adventures. Capitalism doesn't like that kind of cooperation, but actually it's right here in the street.
 
You know how many cars are out there un used. Right now, you know plenty. I know the key holders cuz I know people on my street. That's just a conversation. That's the point is that they could come and borrow us, we could borrow our layers. We trust systems, you know, therefore you've created a system.
 
That's what we need. Yeah. Um, we need an assumption that there's a system and the fact that somebody in, in your role means the system's being regulated and that's what we need.
 
 
Hazel: For a while we hung on to our car because we wanted to sometimes take our canoe for a trip somewhere. You can’t put a canoe on a hire vehicle. In the end we decided we couldn’t justify keeping up a car for that, so we sold it. Then last summer, after setting up the peer-to-peer car club we were able to borrow a vehicle from someone locally for a little cash, and they didn’t mind us putting the canoe on it. But we haven’t needed a car since. But we could use one and that possibility is of value to us. Some people in the group felt like it wasn’t working because the cars weren’t being borrowed enough. But knowing it’s there if you need it seems to be one of the main things people like about their cars! So it may just give some people the confidence to get rid of that car that just sits there, outside the house - which means we start to see our streets and public space differently? Instead of living in a giant car park, we could live in something that more resembles an actual park. And there’s a hassle factor to booking a car so you are more likely to use it only when totally necessary. Therefore there will be less journeys made by car. And now let me tell you about some of the more pleasurable ways to get around.
 
(Music)
 
So another thing we’ve been thinking about sharing in Porty is eCargoCycles. Bikes and trikes with boxes on the front for transporting kids, dogs, and stuff. Have you seen someone casually cycling a freezer along the high street? That was me.
Last year we ran a 6 month trial of a Porty bike library. We borrowed a bike and a trike from Cargo Bike Movement to loan out. Here’s one of our library members, Karen.
 
(Karen bit)
 
We had 365 bums on the bikes during the 6 months, that’s 152 loans but we also did lots of trial opportunities at festivals and the market and so on to give folk a go. People were keen! 100% of borrowers thought it should carry on and here’s an interesting bit: We asked ‘Do you think that regular access to a cargo bike would make you consider giving up your car and 46% said yes, while 32% said maybe. Only 21% said no. That’s encouraging right?
 
That’s what keeps me going down this road – even though if I’m honest, and I said I would be, I’m nervous. And here’s why. We’re encouraging cyclists, including new cyclists, riders with children on the bike, to cycle in a city which has not yet sorted out it’s attitude towards cyclists. We need safe infrastructure NOW. If the policy is there, implement it, if the laws are there, enforce them, if the ambition is there, reach it and if none of these things are good enough then make them better. Otherwise people are going to get hurt. This is not going to work unless the whole wider reaching shift takes place and it needs to happen all at once.
 
Let’s acknowledge the challenge but then work to overcome it. I was given a lovely mug for Christmas by my friend jen that says “Would those who say it can’t be done please stand clear of those doing it.” Here’s Jen writing about using the shared eCargo bike as a volunteer for the community fridge:
 
 
 
So let’s be hopeful in 2023 let’s see what happens. The plans are there to set up something more permanent and wider reaching in the community. Use a little funding and stretch it out as far as possible, like communities do. We need volunteers, we need willing from the community, we need passionate people to drive it forward. And so far we’ve been blown away. Local businesses have offered to sponsor us, different travel organisations are getting behind us, the Porty Travel Hub is planning to launch in spring and be the home for shared vehicles in this community. Thank you SCCAN for the opportunity, and thanks to you for listening and letting me share. I would love to hear your experience of sharing vehicles and start a conversation so please do get in touch with me about this through the SCCAN Vive platform or through Porty Community Energy social media.

Joana’s pick from 1000 Better Stories Blog

In this episode we cross over to our 1000 Better Stories blog, and SCCAN Story Weaver Joana Avi-Lorie shares two of her favourite contributions from last year. 
You will hear:
A trio of poems Nem, Talam, Muir (Air, Earth, Water) read by their author, Erin Rizzato Devlin, followed by a conversation with her sister and collaborator Emir Elisa Rizzato on the philosophy behind their work together as Càrna.
A short story The Egg Hunters, read by its author Gazelle Buchholtz, and a note on the background to the story.
The work of these contributors was funded by SCCAN Storytelling mini-grants. Applications for these are closed but we are planning to re-launch them in April 2023. Get in touch on stories@sccan.scot if you are interested and would like to discuss your idea.
Joana has been taking care of the work SCCAN storytelling showcase on the sister space to this podcast, 1000 Better Stories blog, where you can find work in a multitude of formats, including creative writing, film, reportage, dance. 
 
Credits
Recording: Joana Avi-Lorie, Gazelle Buchholtz, Erin Rizzato Devlin
Editing: Madeleine Scobie, Kaska Hempel
 
Resources
1000 Better Stories blog
Nem, Talam, Muir poems
Short story: Egg Hunters Part 1 & Part 2
Carnamag website showcasing Erin and Emir’s work.

Neigborocracy - an Indian success story in grassroots governance

In our last episode this year, we hear about the success story of Neighbourocracy movement in India, its promise for community driven action on climate and its current expansion into Europe.
Tim Daly recorded a conversation with Joseph Rathinam, Director of International Networking and Development for the Neighbourocracy Network, during his visit to Scotland at the end of September. They introduce history of the movement, its principles, examples of how it’s worked in India, and the ways it could help tackle climate issues. They also explain how everyone can get involved in spreading this way of working here in Scotland and the support available. We also hear brief reflections from three of the participants in Joseph’s workshop hosted by Galgael Trust at Govan in Glasgow: Laura, Gehan (one of GalGael directors), and Kim.
Tim’s work was funded by SCCAN’s Storytelling mini-grant. Applications are open until December 31 for anyone who would like to contribute a story to the 1000 Better Stories podcast or blog.
Tim Daly is a Community Worker in Cumbernauld. He’s been involved with Neighbourocracy since December 2019. He has helped to develop networks in Portugal and the UK, as well as contributing in a small way to the recently released Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles (SONEC) booklet. All this has been done under the guidance of excellent teachers such as Father Edwin Maria John, Joseph Rathinam and Nathaniel Whitestone.
Credits
Tim Daly – interviewing and recording
Kaska Hempel – editing
Resources
Tim Daly contact: magiadocirculo@gmail.com
Joseph Rathinam contact: rathnamjoseph@gmail.com
 
Neighbourocracy in India http://neighbourocracy.org/
Sociocratic Neighbourhood Circles (SONEC) Handbook https://sonec.org/sonec-handbook/
Neighborhood Community Networks https://ncnworld.org/
Sociocracy definition from Sociocracy for All website https://www.sociocracyforall.org/sociocracy/
GalGael Trust, Govan https://www.galgael.org/

Soil and Soul project - bringing soils to life for the people

Our guest host, Katie Revell, invites you to hear a sample of stories from the Soil and Soul project.
The stories explore the importance of soil as a precious and threatened living resource for growing our food and how local community groups in Glasgow have worked to connect to and care for their soils.
Soil and Soul was a collaboration between the British Society of Soil Science, a Glasgow-based group of artists called Open Jar Collective and Propagate. Propagate are a worker-led collective focused on local, community and sustainable food projects, and the podcasts document soil workshops they run with Glasgow community groups over the last year. The project was supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The Soil and Soul podcasts were part of the exhibition at the World Congress of Soil Science, held in Glasgow in August 2022, to highlight to the delegates that “ordinary people” care deeply about soil if they are given the chance.
Katie Revell is a podcast producer, a member of the Open Jar Collective and SCCAN’s Storytelling Circle.
If you’d like to hear more of the Soil and Soul podcasts, you can find them on
Propagate website
Spotify, Google Podcasts or Soundcloud (search for Open Jar Collective)
On Izi Travel audio walking tour app, where you can see a map of the different groups and their locations
Credits
Production and editing: Katie Revell
Music: Blue Dot Sessions
 
 

Seeding New Climate Hubs - SCCAN Regional Networking Project

In today’s episode you will hear Kaska Hempel’s interview with Gill Davies, a Manager of SCCAN’s Investing in Regional Networks Programme, which has been funded by the Scottish Government.
For about a year now, she’s been recruiting and supporting regional network coordinators, working to strengthen relationships among community organisations within Scottish regions. This work will feed into the roll out of Scottish Government Regional Climate Action Hubs over the next year. You can listen to our last episode to find out more about the two hub pilots which are already in place.
You will also hear brief introductions from five regional network coordinators:
Julian Holbrook from Midlothian, Gordie Campbell from Scottish Borders, Steven Clark from Dumfries and Galloway, Marie Stonehouse from Argyle and Bute and Alison Stockwell from Western Isles.
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel with help from regional coordinators.
Resources:
New SCCAN website: https://sccan.scot/
SCCAN’s Investing in Regional Networks Programme – coordinators and contact details:
https://sccan.scot/network-building/
Community groups mentioned by regional coordinators
Argyle and Bute: Grow Food Grow Dunoon on Facebook https://m.facebook.com/Grow-Food-Grow-Dunoon-107142828547484/, Dunoon Area Alliance https://www.dunoonareaalliance.org/
Scottish Borders: The Hornshole Greenway Project in Hawick https://www.hornsholegreenway.com/
Western Isles: Uist and Barra Foodbank on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/Uistandbarrafoodbank
Dumfries and Galloway: Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership https://gallowayglens.org/
Mid-Lothian: Penicuick Community Development Trust https://penicuikcdt.co.uk/  

Climate Action Hubs pilots - connecting local communities for change

In today’s episode SCCAN Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to managers of Climate Action Hub pilots funded by the Scottish Government. Alison Stuart is the manager of North East Scotland Climate Action Network (NESCAN) and Joan Lawrie, the Project Manager for North Highlands and Island Climate Hub and the development manager in Thurso Community Trust. The hub pilots have been in place for around 2 years now and they represent a new way the government plans to support community climate action across Scotland.
Tune in to the next episode for an update on how SCCAN is helping grow regional networks in preparation for the next phase of Climate Hub devlopment.
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel
Resources
NESCAN hub website https://www.nescan.org/
Northern Highlands and Islands Hub https://www.nhclimatehub.co.uk/
Transition Fund and Green Participatory Budgeting via NESCAN https://www.nescan.org/pb
Climate week North East festival (Next edition 24 March-2April 2023) https://climateweeknortheast.org/
Highland Climate Festival https://www.nhclimatehub.co.uk/highlandclimatefestival
Orkney Climate Festival  https://www.nhclimatehub.co.uk/orkney-climate-festival
Carbon Neutral Islands Project
https://www.gov.scot/news/zero-carbon-islands/
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/six-scottish-islands-announced-carbon-26994830
Regional land use partnership NorthWest2045 https://www.northwest2045.scot/nw2045-land-use-partnership
Climate Action Towns (see our previous podcast interview for update on year 1) https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-3jfiv-12c216e
Golspie and green growth accelerator funding nature-based solution to flooding https://www.gov.scot/news/accelerating-green-growth/
https://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/climate-action-group-to-hold-public-sessions-in-golspie-281046/
Scottish Government Investing in Communities Fund https://www.gov.scot/publications/investing-in-communities-fund-round-two-draft-guidance-note/

The power of traditional storytelling to shift our community narratives

In today’s episode Kaska Hempel, SCCAN Story Weaver, speaks to Alette Willis, one of the researchers involved in the Shifting The Narrative project funded by the British Academy, and carried out by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, with SCCAN as a partner. The project investigated how traditional storytelling can help communities achieve place-based climate action.
Alette shares her wider experience around using narrative work to drive change in communities along with the key findings from this recent project, ahead of the publication of the official report in October.
Credits
Production and edit: Kaska Hempel
Project collaborators:
Alette Willis https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/alette-willis
Jule Hildmann https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/jule-hildmann
Arno Verhoeven https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/profile/dr-arno-verhoeven
Ramsey Affifi https://www.ed.ac.uk/profile/ramsey-affifi
Additional information/workshops:
List of story recommendations will be posted on Alette’s Restorying the Earth website along with BA project report and ongoing updates: https://restoryingtheearth.com/
Global Lab: Shifting the Narrative: Story Work and Nature Crises. Workshop at the International Storytelling Festival, 25 Oct, 2pm online Registration: https://sisf.online.red61.co.uk/event/913:4444/913:18197/
SCCAN Stories for Change workshop: Place-based storytelling using izi.travel app audio tours online, 9:30am-12:30pm, 13th and 27th of October https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/407887411227  
Dancing with Trees Eco-tales from the British Isles by Allison Galbraith and Allete J Willis: https://restoryingtheearth.com/about/