Our AGM this year features Father John Baines of St Georges Church who will talk about the recently launched Foodie Friends Café, a project which chimes strongly with Transition New Mills’ aims of bringing the community together to make our town fairer and more vibrant, whilst reducing waste.

The AGM will begin at 7.30pm, Thursday 30 June at the Volunteer Centre, Union Road. We’ll keep it short and from 8pm or before, we move on to the session with Father John. We’ll be out and finished by 9.30pm at the latest.

The AGM is the time to elect people to manage and facilitate activities for the group. We have an Administrative Group of 3 people, currently Julian Ashworth, Mike Daw and Angharad Hughes. However, both Mike and Angharad are stepping down this year so we have two vacancies. If you would like to nominate yourself for this group, please let us know. We can take nominations up to one hour before the meeting. If you’re thinking about seeking election to the Administrative group, do get in touch and one of us will be happy to talk with you about what’s involved (without any commitment!). Note that we’ll be asking each of the candidates to say a few words about themselves before holding the vote so, if you are nominating yourself, please come prepared.

Once again, the Steering Group aren’t proposing any changes to our constitution but if you wish to propose any, or any other motion, please let us know in advance so that we can make sure time is given to discuss and vote on them.

Everyone is welcome but you will only be able to vote at the AGM if you’re a member.

An agenda for the AGM plus this year’s reports are linked below. Please note that we have had to amend last year’s accounts because we uncovered a minor error relating to how much was allocated to grant expenditure so a new version is also below. The overall balances remain the same.

We hope to see you there!

AGM 2016 Agenda

Activity report 2015-16

Grants Summary 2016

Membership report 2015-16

Transition 2015 Accounts-Revised

Transition 2016 Accounts

New Mills is to host a screening of the film “This Changes Everything”, inspired by Naomi Klein’s excellent book of the same name.

It’s free, everyone is welcome and it’s at 7.30pm Thursday 12th May at Spring Bank Arts Centre, Spring Bank, New Mills, SK22 4BH.

The topic of the next meeting of the Transition New Mills discussion group will be a screening of the multi-award winning film Taking Root. It’ll take place on Monday February 29th at Dee’s.

If you’re interested in coming along, please contact Mike Daw for more info.

Or at least that’s what you might be forgiven for thinking if you read summaries in the mainstream media such as this one from the BBC.

Some see things rather differently, such as this analysis you can read on Kevin Anderson’s blog.

Or, there’s this more reflective piece from Rob Hopkins, founder of our Transition movement.

Whatever conclusions you might come to reading these three very different articles, below are two upcoming opportunities to hear more and discuss the Paris deal, its implications, and the future for our planet.

• Jane Ayres tells us that the aforementioned Kevin Anderson is to attend an open Labour Party meeting at 7.30pm on 22 January in the Royal Hotel Hayfield where he’ll speak. There will also be time for open discussion.
• The Transition Discussion Group is meeting at 8pm on 25 January at Jill Hulme’s house to discuss the outcome of the Paris climate deal. If you want to attend this meeting, please email Jill at jillhulme@gmail.com.