At our AGM in April we reported on all the wonderful projects Transition supporters had made happen in 2017/18, and heard how we could re-engage with local food producers from New Mills Food Assembly and The Old Cowshed.
Now’s the time to start to do even better this year, and there’s lots of opportunities to get involved. Please contact us on transition.newmills@gmail.com if you’d like to know more, or want to start your own project.

Incredible Edible 
Now Spring is well and truly here, attention is turning to Incredible Edible again:

• Come down to our event in Torr Top Car Park 11am-1pm, Saturday 2nd June for some homemade produce and a chat, when we will also be doing some weeding and planting, and raising awareness of the Incredible Edible projects and opportunities. Come and find out what it’s all about first hand!
• We now have a brand new Incredible Edible Facebook page! Join the group to keep up to date with activities here.
• New Mills Community Orchard and Forest Garden will be having maintenance sessions in the orchard starting at 7:30 pm on the 1st Thursday of each month in the summer, weather permitting. No gardening skill required necessarily, and you can help yourself to whatever is in season! Keep an eye on their Facebook page for any further details, and just turn up, with gardening gloves if you have some.
• New Mills Primary School have started on their new Edible Garden project, with the help of a Lottery grant that has allowed them to employ an additional member of staff for it.
• Inspired by this, Thornsett Primary School PTA approached us for help in setting up their Edible Garden project. They are after donations of edible plants, and possibly gardening equipment, so if you have any surplus seedlings or spare serviceable equipment they’d love to know. You can either drop them off at the school office from 4th June, or contact transition.newmills@gmail.com to make an arrangement for collection. Also, they could use the help of any handy DIYers out there who can assist them make some simple wooden planters like those at New Mills Primary. Let us know if you can volunteer!
• New Mills Beavers and their parents had a great time working to help create an Incredible Edible garden at Watford House.
• We hope to expand the planting up and ownership of the Planters for Peace this year – if you are interested in looking after one, please let us know!

These are great practical projects; if you want to get involved, come along to an event, or donate plants to Thornsett School,email us at transition.newmills@gmail.com

Rethink Plastic!
Lots to report here as well:

• we’ve been involved in the One World Festival, with its plastics theme, and will have a stall there
• Liz has been working with the pupils at St Georges School, and raised awareness amongst the other High Peak primary schools
• We’re also working with the festival and councils to try to reduce single use plastics at street events
• look out for an Eco-bricks project, which uses discarded plastic in the construction of useful items
• meanwhile, don’t forget to use the Refill app when refilling your water bottle this summer!

Summer Events
New Mills is all about summer events, and Transition New Mills will be there at each. Apart from the Torr Top Incredible Edible event on June 2nd, you can come and see the stall at New Mills Carnival on June 9th at Newtown Rec, then at the One World Festival on July 7th, when we’ll be focussing on the festival’s plastics theme.
If you can help out on our stalls, even for just an hour or so, this would be really appreciated – please let us know if you can, as it’s a big commitment for the admin committee on our own!
We’ve also got a surprise event in development for the September Festival – watch this space!

Map Jam!
Our Transition New Mills map jam has been updated, and is now embedded on our website.
This maps all transition and related projects in the town that are helping create a more sustainable and resilient future, and includes local producers (including local farms, people selling eggs, and breweries), Incredible Edible sites, local renewable energy producers and balsam bashing areas.
Let us know what you want to see on the map by emailing us at transition.newmills@gmail.com

Balsam Bashing
The balsam is growing, and we are planning a further series of balsam bashing sessions to complement all the informal bashing going on. It is amazing the impact that a group can have in a concentrated area. Look out on the Transition New Mills Facebook page for details of the events.

Discussion Group Next Meeting

Next meeting is on the evening of Monday 18th June, discussing the book Factfulness by Hans Rosling.
Please contact us on transition.newmills@gmail.com for venue details if you want to go.

Local Giving

The Local Giving website is up and running making it easy to donate money online, and offering the opportunity to gift aid it.
We don’t charge for membership any more, so rely and grants and donations. Donations are especially valuable to us as they help us get projects off the ground, and worked up to a position where we can apply for grant funding. Please donate as much or as little as you want at Transition New Mills | Localgiving

@HighPeakFoodHub
The eagerly awaited Food Hub, that we heard about from Esther Morrison at the AGM, is due for launch in June. It will allow you to place bespoke orders direct from local producers for collection from the Torrs Butterfly House on Thursday evenings. Keep an eye on the Food Hub Facebook page for details.

Clean Air Day
Thursday 21st June is Clean Air Day, with various events around the region. It’s a chance to find out more about air pollution, share information with friends and colleagues, and help make the air cleaner and healthier for everyone.

GDPR
No current newsletter is complete at the moment without mention of GDPR. We have taken advice from the Information Commissioner, and were advised that as everyone on our contact list has already given consent to be contacted for updates and newsletters, it is not necessary to have everyone reconfirm this. We have, however, updated our privacy notice: Transition New Mills holds the contact details of those people who have asked to be kept in touch with news, events and opportunities about projects they support. The Administration Team only have access to it, and will not share it with any other third parties.   You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking unsubscribe at the bottom of this newsletter, or emailing us at transition.newmills@gmail.com with the word ‘Remove’ in the title line.