Craftisan Markets in Norwich March 15, 2012

As a Director of Skill Sphere Ltd, it always delights me to see the range of things people of Norwich and Norfolk are able to make and produce themselves, often from their own homes or from local workshops.  Furthering our ability to maintain traditional crafts and skills is vital to ensuring community resilience.  It’s an idea that forms a part of the Transition ethos (Reskilling), and to my mind it makes for good common sense.  I always go back to the thought that if something mechanical were to no longer be available to us, how would we adjust to adapt to that?  For instance, if the machine that makes mass-produced clothes conks out on a global scale and is irreparable, what can we, the human race, do to carry on?  This is a multi-billion pound industry with massive demand due to modern shopping habits, the ‘throwaway society’ we have become.  We have become dependent.  Could you start making your own clothes?  I can sew by hand and hand-cranked machine, but have never attempted a garment intended for wearing from scratch, and can visualise the mess it would no doubt be if I were to try now (note to self, learn to make own clothes!).

You see, there is such dependence on industry as a whole that most people confidently assume the shops will always supply these things we have becomed so accustomed to having provided to us ‘on a platter’.  With the low-levels of some shop prices (and often, quality) we dont even have to work that hard to attain them, though things are turning, slowly.  Austerity measures, i.e. the result of mass redundancies, unemployment, budgetary cuts and son on, are apparently causing working and middle-class people to be more careful with their cash, and this brings me to the matter of purchasing choices people are now making.  It would seem, if the 2011 Christmas trading figures of M&S (up) and Asda (down) are to be believed, that  people are increasingly opting to spend the little money they have on things that constitute better quality, better value in terms of being more likely to last, and those one-off or unusual items being purchased as gifts with a little more care and thought of the recipient behind them.  People no longer have money to waste, so the money we do have is being spent more wisely.

It has long been my desire to see a regular event in Norwich where people who make things can sell them to people who are looking for something you cannot buy in the shops, serving as a showcase for local talent, of which there is abundance in Norwich.  Such an event would include a range of products, with as much emphasis on locally handmade as possible.  It is also important that the prices be right.  Overpriced is off-putting, right?  So an event with all this.  Hmmm.

For the reasons given above, and as a creative person myself, it really excited me to find Crafty Bird, who began running a successful string of events in 2011.  They are now running monthly at a variety of locations across Norwich (see below for upcoming event list).   One of the most popular is in the very heart of the Golden Triangle, a stones throw from the increasingly popular Green Grocers at Earlham shops, held at the delightful St Thomas’s Church Hall.

Curious to see how my own textile and art creations would be received, I tentatively booked a stall.  A very straightforward process, I set up my table, and found I had some time before doors opened to the public, so I was able to chat with the other stallholders.  What a fabulous experience it was!  Not only did I get to enjoy the variety of creativity oozing from the other stallholders, a really lovely bunch of people by all accounts, but I almost did an actual cartwheel on making my first ever sale!  I even gained a commission for another item.  The money is great, of course, but there is also much enjoyment to be had when observing people as they comment on and appreciate my handmade creations.  BY the end I was very happy with the items sold, the people met, the creative buzz spurring me on to make more things, and also to try and learn to do more different crafts myself.

Now I attend regularly as a seller, offering my wares to discerning shoppers who arrive fairly steadily from the moment the doors open – people are often eagerly waiting outside the door, keen to get first dibs on the often one-off goods, and who can blame them?  I’ve seen absolutely stunning things made using crochet and knitting, traditional things and really funky modern things in vibrant colours.  Beautifully made papercrafts.  Sweets, fun kits and delicious treats.  The most amazing cakes which are almost too good to eat and should instead be considered art (though I’ll admit to having eaten mine).  There’s been a spinner/weaver, a man who makes toys from wood, another who produces chillis locally, all manner of sewn things using beautiful, fun, and recycled fabric and materials.  Original artwork, prints and cards.  Toys.  Clothes.  Jewellery of every style you can imagine, and some you cannot.  The list of talent in this county is truly endless.  But we knew that, didn’t we?  If you’re saying no, you really need to experience the Crafty Bird events, known as ‘Craftisan Markets’ (an amalgum of craft and artisan) in Norwich.

The events are extremely well organised by Michelle, the creative brains and energy behind Crafty Bird.  She is one of the most accommodating and hard-working people I have met, working tirelessly to ensure stall holders and customers alike are happy with their Craftisan experience.

Contact Michelle with enquiries and bookings:

craftybirdme(AT)gmail(DOT)com

Crafty Bird is also on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Etsy.

Current list of Crafty Bird events (more dates yet to be confirmed at Royal British Legion):

31st March – Artisan/Craftisan Market @Royal British Legion Halls, Aylsham Road

April 7th – Easter themed event, the day after Good Friday @St Thomas’ Church

April 14th – Artisan/Craftisan Market @Christ Chruch Centre, Old Catton

April 28th – Artisan/Craftisan Market @Royal British Legion, Aylsham Road

May 5th – Artisan/Craft Market @St Thomas’ Church

May 12th – Artisan/Craftisan Market @Christ Church Centre, Old Catton

May 19th – Charity Market @St Margarets Church, Old Catton

June 2nd – Artisan/Craft Market @St Thomas’ Church

July 7th – shorter event, doors open 10-12noon stalls £10 each at this event @St Thomas’ Church

August 4th – Craftisan Market @St Thomas’ Church

September 1st – Craftisan Market @St Thomas’ Church

October 6th – Craftisan Market @St Thomas’ Church

November 3rd – Craftisan Market @St Thomas’ Church

November 17th – Artisan & Craftisan exclusive Market @St Thomas’ Church

December 1st – Artisan & Craftisan exclusive Market @St Thomas’ Church

December 15th – Artisan & Crafters exclusive Christmas Market  @St Thomas’ Church

I CIC February 29, 2012

To explain the pun title (“I see I see”), in the UK there is a new (2005) legal form called the Community Interest Company, or CIC.  Wikipedia explains: “CICs are a new type of limited company designed specifically for those wishing to operate for the benefit of the community rather than for the benefit of the owners of the company. This means that a CIC cannot be formed or used solely for the personal gain of a particular person, or group of people.”

In 2011 my recycling company, Wombling, became one such Community Interest Company.  I became a Director, and the company was awarded the Social Enterprise Mark, the first new CIC to do so.

Prior to this, Wombling had been running as a part-time, hobby-like business/social enterprise.  It ran very much as a not-for profit since the beginning, the idea initially stemming from my intense dislike of waste in any form.  Seeing the incredible ‘nothing-wrong-with-it’ things people were disposing off at the local dump, sorry, recycling centre, would drive me mad with frustration.  So I started ‘Wombling’ as a way of trying to keep useful things out of landfill.  I began collecting from people the things they wanted rid of, things they were planning on dumping.  Then I would find a new use for these things, often it was furniture, electricals, toys, clothes, bric-a-brac.  Most things were sold and the money went toward running costs, fuel being the biggest.  Other things were donated to local charities, like the fabulous Wing and a Prayer owl and bird sanctuary.

In truth, a lot of it was junk, but one persons junk is often an artists dream.  I made use of a lot of things others would consider rubbish – it’s all in the eye of the beholder – so with a bit of creative imagining useless becomes useful.

The company was successful.  Not financially, it was never ever about money, but I was able to rehome loads of ‘stuff’.  I had repeat customers and the feedback was terrific.  This meant more to me than any financial rewards.  Demand was huge so I took on a lock-up in Norwich, which allowed me to store larger items of furniture and so on.  All the while I was working in a full-time job and wishing there were more hours in the day.  Then, as though someone had been listening, I was made redundant from my work in mental health, so I decided to make a proper go of Wombling.  I liked the sound of the CIC idea, there seemed to be a lot of buzz around it and, from my own research and advice from others, it appealed.  So I went for it, registered with Companies House, and off we went.

There was much excitement around Wombling CIC, which was still running as a non-profit, a social enterprise working for people and planet, but something had changed and not for the better.  I found that there was very little recognition of the CIC status.  I was able to explain it to customers, and they understood the principle behind it, the ethics, the environmental impact, how it differed from a profit-making company and also how it differed from a charity.  However when it came to explaining the concept of the CIC to the local council and to prospective funding bodies, oddly there seemed to be less of an understanding.  CIC fell into some kind of abyss between being a for-profit company and being a charity.  A CIC is neither.  What bugged me was that I knew it wasn’t impossible to understand, if the listener is sufficiently interested, it could be comprehended.  I’d spent a lot of time talking to people, customers, laymen, so how could it be that those non-business-minded people grasped it, but not the people who actually had some degree of impact on the progression of the company?

My conversation with the local council went something along the lines of “Wombling CIC is a Community Interest Company, which is a new type of company which runs as a non-profit, the money all goes back into the local community”.  The council representative appeared confused, so I went on “it’s a social enterprise.”  Not a flicker.  Further detailed explanation, with examples and reference to #socent informative websites.  Nope.  Finally “it’s like a charity, but not”, a glimmer, but the answer is no.   Very similar encounters occurred with funding bodies who, in the end, told me a CIC was not eligible.  I came away feeling this was an answer given when they do not understand the question.  Others had criteria Wombling CIC was unable to meet due to having a sole director.

The local council, whom I had approached regarding the use of an empty shop either free or extremely cheap (with it being non-profit, and unfunded, Wombling CIC had no money to pay rent), I suggested that Wombling CIC could put the vacant space to good use on a temporary basis, then if a paying renter were to come along, it was perfectly reasonable that Wombling CIC would be prepared to move out at short notice.  Unfortunately I found Norwich City Council to be entirely uncooperative on this.  I enquired about a number of properties, the intention was to operate as a recycling shop and a volunteer-run centre which would also run recycling workshops and house a eco-library and more.   Apparently all of the properties were due to have a paying business move in ‘soon’.  Which is fine, great, I warmly welcomed that, the sight of so many desolate shopping parades deeply saddens me.  Trouble is, this was a year ago, and ALL of the properties I highlighted are STILL standing empty and unused.

I’d argued that it was surely preferrable to have shops in use, by community organisations such as Wombling CIC who would keep it tidy, less prone to vandalism, and would help to bring life back to the desolate high streets.

In 2011 Mary Portas was appointed by the Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to lead an independent review into the future of the high street.  In December 2011 she published “The Portas Review“, containing her 28 recommendations.   Number 27 being ‘Support imaginative community use of empty properties through Community Right to Buy, Meanwhile Use and a new “Community Right to Try”.

Sadly, Norwich City Council stopped replying to my emails.

As time went on I found the barriers seriously outweighed the benefits of CIC status.  So last week after much deliberating I, as sole Director, took the decision that Wombling CIC should cease trading as a CIC.  The company has not been trading for many months due to ill health of staff (i.e. myself), so I last week proposed to strike off Wombling CIC from Companies House.  To clarify, this decision is purely relating to no longer wishing to trade as a CIC, the company has NO bad debts, is financially in the black, and is not being liquidated.  The entry on the Companies House website says ‘Active – Proposal to strike off’ which I assume means the striking off I requested last week is being dealt with.

This will mean there is no more more Wombling CIC.  It does NOT mean the end of Wombling.  I recalled that the company was far more successful (and somewhat less complicated!) prior to becoming a CIC, and I aim to return Wombling to that simplicity and renewed success.

The website is currently down, but will be back with fresh vigour.  The company will still run as a social enterprise, back to Wikipedia: “the accepted Government-backed definition of social enterprise used by the UK social enterprise sector bodies such as Social Enterprise UK comes from the 2002 Department for Trade and Industry’s ‘Social Enterprise: a strategy for success’ report as:

A business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose.”

Wombling intends to do exactly that, just as soon as we’ve officially put this CIC thing behind us.

Same ol’ same ol’ February 13, 2012

A couple of nights ago I put an old video cassette on to watch a film, I realised that this particular cassette must have been recorded in late 1991 or early 1992, judging by the news items.  It wasn’t recorded by me so I didn’t know what I would find on it other than the film it was labelled as (See No Evil, Hear No Evil, if you’re wondering).  I do love those blasts from the past of home recording.  For me, watching the adverts of the day is amusing and allows some reminiscence of younger days.  I was a student then, and wore clothes just as hideous as the people in the ads.  One was advertising coffee (the actor went on to fight vampires in Buffy as I recall!), another sang the blues on his porch while twanging a guitar.  His wife leaves him, the dog whimpers, it starts to rain and he puts his foot throught the flooring.  This was what sold Heineken twenty years ago.  Strangely I could remember the words to his song word for word, which I was half enjoying it and half cursing the power of advertising.  A twenty year-long earworm!

The film came on eventually, but not before the Channel 4 news.  As a student I had no interest in politics whatsoever.  News and political programmes bored me to tears so I never watched them.  They were usually on in our house though because my father followed them avidly, Question Time, Newsnight, and would try to engage me in conversation on the latest current affairs, to which I would grunt in a teenagerly manner and shrug.  I didn’t want to know, I had more important things to think or worry about, like learning to drive (very stressful times!), clubbing with friends in St. Albans, and of course, my studies.

However something of the political and news surroundings must have sunk in because, for one thing I am very politically-minded and active nowadays and I follow the news perhaps far more than my father ever did with the wonder of internet and constant, as-it-happens 24 hour news reporting.  In watching this section of tape back, I discovered that it too was a small tale of reminiscence for me.  Not as fun as the Milk Tray ad where the guy is in a speedboat, all dressed in black and looking (what I imagine people of the time considered) hunky, having successfully delivered his box of chocs.  But it was the time of the ERM (Exchange Rate Mechanism).  I remember lot of talk about it at the time but never had the faintest idea what it meant.  There we see Norman Lamont, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, arriving at Downing Street, ignoring the questions from the press.  Recession, recession, recession.

Next up is a piece about dangerous pitbulls.  People are scared, they’re all turning on their owners as though they’re in some sort of Dogs of the Damned movie where they’re all friendly playful pooches one minute, and the next, they turn into evil beasties.

On to Iraq’s concern at the approaching firepower from the US and missiles.  Threats and fear, more threats and counter-measures, slipping in a reference to oil, and then, increased firepower and troops on both sides.  That’d be Iraq part 1.  At the time we knew nothing of the sequel to come years later.

Then over to a piece that particularly grabbed my interest as research material for a book I’m writing.  The news piece talks about Russia’s ‘secret towns’ which aren’t marked on any map and stand abandoned (they were in 1991 anyway, I gather some are being reopened, rebuilt and reinhabited).  Often named after the nasty stuff it’s residents worked to produce, for example Uranium 235 – the featured town has 235 on it’s vast swirling iron gates but is known as ‘The City’.  Inside it is a derelict shell of buildings, tall barbed wire fences and look-out towers.  Ahh, the cold war.  Next we get to see giant vehicles transporting radiated material and dumping it in the nearby lake, which they’ve been doing for decades, this plant having been several times more radioactive than Chernobyl, the reporter tells us.  The drivers can stay there no more than three minutes due to radiation levels.  However children often play nearby and Leukemia is on the increase.  And now let’s take a look at the weather…

And it all feels so very familiar.  Not just because I lived throught the era that all this took place, but because it’s what we’re still hearing on the news today, the only things different are some of the names, though apparently not the countries (Iraq.  The Falklands).  Recession headlining, same.  Oil headlining, same.  Names of the people (replace Chancellor Norman Lamont with Chancellor George Osborne, and the ERM with the Euro); the type of dangerous dog… apparently dangerous pitbulls have somehow reduced their danger-streak – don’t hear much about them on the news anymore.  That’s because they’re old news and newscasters have moved on to several other reportedly dangerous breeds over the years, currently the Alsation is favoured danger-dog.  I appreciate that dogs have attacked people and their wounds are horrific, but there is no one single breed responsible, as the media will lead people to believe.  Yet if you listen to the news it’s as though it’s a fashion for the Dangerous Breed of the Year, so a wave of animals of that breed being put down happens, until the next one which says ‘Rottweilers are bad’, and so it goes on.  And dangerous nuclear disaster areas… Fukishima, anyone?

Honestly, it was really quite spooky to watch, and to relate those twenty-year old events to the events of today so closely.  And what was worse still, even the blooming weather report was the same!  Seriously though, I now feel quite 1984 about it, like we’re just continually watching/being fed some sort of déjà vu channel, on a loop!

Videos and photos: Heineken advert video.  Norman Lamont.  USAF aircraft of the 4th Fighter Wing (F-16, F-15C and F-15E) fly over Kuwaiti oil fires. Photo credit: U.S. Air Force.  Fukushima image: Magnificent Revolution.

The Great Reskilling January 19, 2012

Many traditional skills are being lost as they no longer get passed from generation to generation in the same ways, families are often less geographically or emotionally close.  This could become disastrous in terms of community resilience.

In 2008 I was involved in starting up a specific Reskilling group with Transition Norwich, it was during my first ever Transition experience, a Heart, Soul Arts, Culture & Wellbeing (later shortened!) meeting where I had heard the group had previously been asked to bring an item of importance/significance this week, so I brought a really old and very well used hammer along, not sure what people would make of it or of me, or what I was getting into.  That meeting marked a life-changing momen for met.  To this room of strangers I produced my old hammer and said “I’ve had this a very long time, but it has occurred that if it were to break I wouldn’t know how to fix it, or how to make a new one”.  I thought it was important to relearn these things, because we’d lost so many abilities through having things mass-produced overseas into a throw-awa-and-buy-another-one culture and so many of our traditional and basic skills were becoming lost, if we weren’t careful they could be gone forever.  Normally very reserved, I thought I must sound like some kind of extremist, I’d never expressed anything like this aloud before, let alone to people I didn’t know.

There ensued excited discussion about the things we wanted to learn and didn’t know how to do (with the odd cry of ‘”oh, I can do that, I’ll teach you”).  So a dedicated group was set up, and when we next met we talked about cycle repairs, sewing, knitting, weaving, dying, growing, seed-saving and so on, all very exciting stuff to a new Transitioner with a long-held interest in prepping and deep concerns about becoming too dependent upon technology.

In 2009 we helped out with a Green Christmas Fair as a way of building community, relearning old skills and affording Christmas at the local church hall in NR3.  We ran a number of festive demonstrations and workshops, including sewing, and handmaking christmassy ornaments.  I had a table where I was showing children how to make things from recycled stuff like loo roll inners, egg boxes, plastic cups, the Blue Peter stuff – they loved it.

2010 saw a series of textile workshops including knitting, spinning wool, clothes mending/altering, clothes making, and rag rug making and I joined in a visit to the annual Weird and Wonderful Wood in Suffolk, where we could see and take part in demonstrations of wood turning, carving and so on (I was in heaven!).  There was also a clothes swapping session and crochet rag-rug making sessions which were very popular.  Last September I noticed that even scything courses were being offered!

Sadly the core Reskilling group appears no longer to meet (unless I am mistaken?  Please correct me if so), however I notice that Transition Circle West will be meeting on Wednesday 25th January 2012, 7pm.  I’ll be attending, partly because it’s pretty local, and partly because the topic of the meeting will be skills sharing.

While all this has been going on I have been busy with a much-welcome redundancy which led me to start up a social enterprise called Wombling CIC involved in recycling and reuse consultancy, and a new company, called Skill Sphere.

Last year I began to think more about reskilling, but in terms of a ‘Great Reskilling‘ as discussed in the Transition Handbook, i.e. Reskilling on a bigger scale.  I feel strongly that there always ought to be some form of exchange, such as with the LETS scheme, you help this person by loaning them a ladder or the use of a lawnmower, or help with their CV and you receive help with something you need.  I love the barter principle, and would love to see a system overhaul where money as we know it today no longer exists.  However I also know that this is not exactly ideal for everybody, there is a trend where Transition or other climate or environmental movements are not often taken up by those living in the more deprived areas, and this is something I would like to see change sooner rather than later.

Everyone has bills, some are able to reduce them more than others by spending on extra insulation, or installing solar or even a wind turbine for the lucky few, while others have nothing left after paying those bills, increasingly the dilemma of whether to pay for heating or food during these times of harsh ‘austerity’.  Ultimately in the world as it stands today, money is the currency people require to live within the system we are engulfed by.  The moneyless sharing of skills is an aim, an achievable goal, but we are by no means there yet.

Here i’m referring to need rather than greed, a crossover with the Occupy Movement, where people do not have the basic funds needed to cover basic living costs.  Which is why, when I started thinking about how to put together a robust skill sharing programme I realised that the only way to be as inclusive as is necessary for this to work to the best potential and to help steer things toward the dream of less reliance on money is for people to receive what they need now in exchange for what they are offering.  The answer, inevitably, is money.  This may not make sense, but to use more money now is to use less money in the future.   Money is not the only issue of course, but with the increase in resilience and the smaller communities I believe we will come to see, I hope will come a natural decrease in reliance on cash.

Transition, in my experience, is still a primarily white middle-class movement.  But not everybody has the luxury of spending time going to meetings, some may even struggle to bring a pot luck dish to a meeting, that meal could be what would feed themselves for three days.  I’ve seen noses-looked down and heard underbreath comments at a transition meeting concerning a food selection brought by a member which had been purchased from a Tesco.  The snobbery makes me mad.  I don’t like Tesco’s, I dislike their policies and their ethics, but I am very fortunate because I have a choice not to shop there.  Tesco is cheap, there are people who depend on being able to buy food at low cost.  It is easy to forget when you have money and can afford to shop at The Greengrocers on Earlham Road, or other very ethical and comparitively pricey places that not everyone enjoys the same position.  Ignorance is one thing, condescension is entirely different and distasteful to me.  On the whole Transition is most definitely the most positive movement i’ve experienced, and I am thankful for that, but would prefer to see that people are congratulated for bringing to it what they can, in food but also in abilities and backgrounds.

It is this very gap I hope to bridge with Skill Sphere.  People on low incomes, minority groups, disabled, homeless are often over-looked by environmental groups, but are among some of the best experts on resilience in a variety of forms, from experiences overseas and in the UK.

When I conceived Skill Sphere in 2011, it was on the basis that people would be employed to share their skills, and in return they receive monetary remuneration.  By operating this by no means new way, people are not giving of themselves then waiting for something they need to be offered (as can happen with the LETS scheme), and they receive something the majority of people can use, cash, much needed in the current recession.

Skill Sphere Ltd is based in Norwich and aims to provide a wide range of back-to-basics learning opportunities.  These can be in any subject people wish to learn with just one base criteria – that they meet the company eco ethos, pretty much in line with the Transition principles.

There is a small fee to take part in the workshops however these are kept to a bare minimum i.e. covering running costs and the wages of the tutor to allow course accessibility to as many people as possible.  Concession prices for all!

Are you keen to increase self-reliance, for yourself and your community?  Perhaps you are connected to a Transition Town initiative, or just want to learn something new, for fun or your own personal development.  Featuring post-peak-oil crafts and every day skills in a sustainable way, focussing on reducing reliance on fossil fuels and increasing local resilience, Skill Sphere promotes eco-friendly reskilling with natural materials and traditional methods, and with much emphasis on accessibility to people of all abilities and backgrounds.

Skill Sphere aims to help people cope with the prospect of an energy-scarce future.

Tutors Wanted!
Employment opportunities for experienced or hobbying artists, crafters, artisans and traditional tradesmen and women to offer a range of practical and personal resilience skills within and for our local community.

Please note that recognised qualifications are NOT essential, since we place higher importance on practical abilities and demonstrable skills.  You will be paid the going rate for freelance tutors in your field.  No formal qualifications required, just be able to demonstrate your ability in the subject you are offering to teach.  Interested?  Send us a copy of your CV if you have one with pictures of your work.

We’re hiring!  Tutors wanted in a number of areas, for more information or to apply please– enquire within!

Skill Sphere Ltd – http://www.skillsphere.co.uk

The Big Opt Out – The NHS Confidentiality Campaign January 17, 2012

The following information is taken from the Big Opt Out website, relating to the NHS Care Records System.  I could rewrite it, but as their text is so concise and clear there seems little point, so here is a quoted snapshot from the site, but I strongly recommend visiting the website for more information on this so you can make an informed decision on whether opting out is for you:

The NHS Confidentiality campaign was set up to protect patient confidentiality and to provide a focus for patient-led opposition the government’s NHS Care Records System. This system is designed to be a huge national database of patient medical records and personal information (sometimes referred to as the NHS ’spine’) with no opt-out mechanism for patients at all. It is being rolled out during 2007, and is objectionable for many of the same reasons as the government’s proposed ID database.

Your medical confidentiality is at risk from this new database, as over a million NHS employees and central government bureaucrats will have access to not only your medical records but also your demographic details name, address, NHS Number, GP details, phone number (even if it’s ex-directory) and mobile number.

There is no opt out whatsoever for your demographic details.

You will eventually be allowed to ‘lock down’ some of your medical details (though the security mechanisms haven’t been built yet). But although you can keep some of your medical details confidential from some of the doctors involved in your care, they can override this if they think it’s necessary, and there is no way for you to keep your information confidential from civil servants. You will no longer be able to attend any Sexual Health or GUM (Genito-Urinary Medicine) Clinic anonymously as all these details will also be held on this national database, alongside your medical records. For the first time everyone’s most up-to-date and confidential details are to be held on one massive database.

Read in more detail about your medical records.

Go here to read about how to OPT OUT.   I handed my opt-out letter in to my local GP surgery reception a few months ago.  When I next spoke with my GP, a few weeks later, I asked if he could check that the opt out had been actioned on the system, he confirmed that it had.  I have since found (using NHS services at another department) that this is definitely the case, my recent details (since opting out) were unavailable to the staff-member.  It works.

Why is this important? Read the article ‘NHS IT manager guilty of snooping on patient records‘.

I will also add here that people with a life-threatening condition for whom it could be potentially hazardous to their status as a living person if their medical details were to be concealed from medical professionals, I would seriously recommend NOT opting out of ‘The Spine’!  Privacy and data theft needs to be protected – but so does life.

Handing Your Life Over on a Plate – Erasing David January 17, 2012

Some of you will be unsurprised by much of this documentary, however I believe there is always SOMETHING to learn, and if you can take away just one new piece of awareness, knowledge or enlightenment, then the film is worth watching.

Erasing David is a documentary following director David Bond as he tries to find out what information is held on him by private companies, official organisations etc.  He hires two private investigators and sets them the task of locating him once he tries to ‘disappear’.  His attempts to go off grid for one month highlight how hard it is to reverse the level of intrusion, and demonstrates what it means for any individual or company to have or be able to access his (and YOUR) information.

No spoilers here, but David is a fairly ordinary guy.  He has a Facebook account, he has credit cards, he has a bank account, a job, a family.  Pretty much everything that happens to him could and, in reality very probably does, happen to you.

“A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT PRIVACY, SURVEILLANCE AND THE DATABASE STATE”

David Bond lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance states in the world.  He decides to find out how much private companies and the government know about him by putting himself under surveillance and attempting to disappear, a decision that changes his life forever.  Leaving his pregnant wife and young child behind, he is tracked across the database state on a chilling journey that forces him to contemplate the meaning of privacy and the loss of it.”

Watch the trailer here: Erasing David trailer on YouTube

The Invisible Poisoners January 9, 2012

“Councillors have a responsibility to uphold the basic Human Rights of the people they represent to choose what medication they and their family wish to take, and not have it enforced through their water supply.”

(Councillor Adrian Underwood, South Ribble District Council,
First Chairman of North West Councils Against Fluoridation, 1989)

I came across the UK Councils Against Fluoridation website just a few months ago, and felt some relief to find that I am not the only one concerned about the fluoridation of our water supply and believes it should stop.  In the UK it is routinely added it to our main water supply, we have no choice in the matter, we must either accept it or go out and buy bottled water.  In what way could this ever be okay?

Actually I suspect the majority of people never question it, because it’s one of those things that ‘have always been’.  Since the dental profession endorse the inclusion of fluoride in toothpaste and as a dental aid for decades, and we trust them because they are the experts and therefore must know what’s best for us, for most people it’s considered a good thing.

One of the main problems I have with fluoridation of water supplies in the UK is explained well here by Stephan Cooter, Ph.D. though he refers to the US: “Calcium fluoride and fluorine are nature’s mineral salts as found in some natural waters, in tea, and other foods. But sodium fluoride comes from aluminum ore, and it is a byproduct of the modern aluminum industry. Unfortunately, sodium fluoride interferes with one of our most important neurotransmitters, acetylcho-line. (See “Fluoride: Governmentally Approved Poison,” http://www.arthritistrust.org)” (Source: Sodium Fluoride: The Obedience Drug).

But that’s not the worst of it, Dr Cooter goes on to say “During wartime both the Germans and Russians added sodium fluoride to the water of prisoners of war. Were they interested in preventing tooth decay? According to the documentation of the Australian Ian E. Stephen (1987), both Germans and Russians used fluoridation because they had discovered that it made their prisoners “stupid and docile” (Well Mind Association22).

Eustace Mullins in Murder by Injection, claimed that the originators of fluoridation in the United States were informed about the Soviet uses of fluoride salts to induce sheeplike, obedient, unthinking behavior, not only in prisoners, but in the general population at large. This “human” experiment was not original. Apparently, the obedience drug-like effect was borrowed from animal studies that showed that breeders of intractable bulls had routinely used sodium fluoride to successfully tranquilize bulls for easier handling. Since the 1940s, the prison camps in the Gulag Archipelago in the Soviet Union were experimental laboratories for discovering just how much sodium fluoride was necessary for producing an easily managed, obedient human population.”

A Freedom of information Act request ‘Mass medication without consent FLUORIDE‘ was made to West Midlands Strategic Health Authority by Adrian Waller on January 28th 2011, the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority responded.  Please read the full piece on the What Do They Know? website.  These are some sections I felt were particularly interesting/disturbing:

“Q: How much does it cost the Health Authority to add fluoride to our
water annually?

A: Water is fluoridated on behalf of the SHA by local water companies.  The cost of fluoridation reimbursed to water companies in financial year 2010/11 was £1,020,949.29.

Q: When will the difficult issue of fluoridation be next reviewed and how do we add our input to that decision making process?

A: Water fluoridation is expressly permitted by Parliament in the Water Industry Act 1991, as amended by the Water Act 2003. Under that legislation, decision-making is currently the responsibility of Strategic Health Authorities. The SHA regards water fluoridation as a safe and effective public health measure.  Nevertheless, the SHA and Department of Health keep the evidence about water fluoridation under constant review. Members of the public may make representations to the SHA at any time by writing to the Chief Executive at the above address.

Q: a) You regard fluoridation as a “safe and effective public health measure” please provide the evidence that you have to back that statement. Has the SHA investigated possible harmful side effects of fluoride ? and has the SHA researched the effects of interaction of fluoride with any other medicinal products ?.

b) You state the issue of fluoridation is under constant review, please provide a list of meetings and minutes where the case for fluoridation has been reviewed. The last two years will suffice.

A: NOT ANSWERED

Q: Under Article 35 of the Charter, the right to health care includes the right to refuse health care, for whatever reason. It establishes the individual’s right to receive particular drugs or treatments – or to prevent them from having such treatment administered against their wishes.

I do not wish to be medicated with fluoride and all consent implied, assumed or otherwise is hereby withdrawn forthwith.

Does the Health Authority agree that the above legislation applies in the instance of fluoridation ? If not please explain your legal stance in full.

A: Water fluoridation is expressly permitted by the UK Parliament. The relevant legislation for England and Wales is the Water Industry Act 1991, as amended by the Water Act 2003. Water fluoridation in the West Midlands is undertaken in accordance with that legislation under a number of legal agreements between the SHA and local water undertakers.

My question was Does the Health Authority agree that the above legislation (Article 35 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights) applies in the instance of fluoride?

a) Please answer yes or no.

b) Please provide copies of the aforementioned “legal agreements.

c) After having examined the legal issues regarding fluoridation myself I do not consider the above response to be satisfactory, please elaborate. A good start would be to advise me as to whether fluoridated water is considered to be a medicine or a food by the SHA.

A: NOT ANSWERED”

Another gentleman, Trevor Allport, commented on this request with further information relating to his own attempts to aquire answers from Anglian Water Services Ltd, and states “This means that the Water Act of 2003 DIRECTLY contravenes The European Charter of Fundamental Rights.” and says (on 25th April 2011) he intends to build “a case that the action of fluoridating the water is illegal under the European Charter of Fundamental Human Rights which gives us the right to refuse medication.
If they claim that fluoridated water is NOT a medicinal product, I have the European Pharmaceutical Directive that claims in black and white, that it is.

This of course, also means any indemnity issued to water companies are not only illegal but are also null and void. This could open the floodgates to huge damage claims as even mild dental fluorosis is evidence of a damaging systemic effect in the body. “

I’ll be sending both Adrian and Trevor messages to see how that is progressing, as I leave you with a very enlightening UK website run by Liz Vaughan and Doug Cross, UK Councils Against Fluoridation.

Please read as much as you can about this, and then decide for yourselves.

http://www.ukcaf.org/

Made-Up-On-The-Spot Recipe #1 January 5, 2012

Go for a day trip to Great Yarmouth (or the coastal destination of your choice) and buy a bag of chips.  Find they have been over-generous in their portion size and wrap the remainder to take home.

Leave until you are hungry, but really tired and with little inclination to cook.

Break up the now cold chips into a bowl.  Add corned beef pieces (or tinned substitute of your choice) with a good dollop of homemade spicy runner bean chutney (or pickled preserve of your choice, or none if preferred).

Chuck the lot in a frying pan with a little, but not too much, oil.  You may like to shape it into a patty and flip it once, you may even like to drizzle a little olive oil on top to give the feeling of producing something more fancy.

Cook until you think it’s about to burn, or the moment prior to it spitting oil up into your eye, and serve.

Voila!  Enjoy while hot, and feel good about the food-wastage you have averted.

 

Actually, this really is quite tasty, and any, or all of the ingredients can be substituted for pretty much anything based on what you happen to have, which is kind of the point.

 

 

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Don’t Consume! Don’t Conform! – Break Free! January 2, 2012

This morning I learned the date of Buy Nothing Day – 24th November 2012 – an event started by Adbusters (a Canadian-based not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment organisation) in the early 90′s, now running globally by and for the people.  It fits that the originators of Occupy Wall Street, which was initiated by Adbusters on 17th September 2011 (now a global action in 1,480 cities as I write, and growing steadily) would also be behind the international Buy Nothing events.

On their website they say “Everything we buy has an impact on the environment, Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism.“  I totally agree, and would add that there is also a political aspect to consider when deciding to reduce consumption (because it really is a choice, folks!).

There is nothing the Powers-that-be like more than for us to go and spend more money we don’t really have, Governments actively encourage it, telling us it’s ‘good for the economy’.   In practise people have no money so buy using credit cards or store cards and end up sinking further into debt, accruing exorbitant rates of interest for the giant corporations with billion-pound profits, all of which keeps us on that downward spiral into further debt from which there is no easy return (there is a lot of very good advice and pointers toward free advisory services on the Money Saving Expert website Debt-Free Wannabe Forum, and through the Consumer Action Group).  This is a system of control, and millions of people are stuck in the middle of it.

The whole system puts me in mind of the 1988 John Carpenter movie ‘They Live’.  Whatever your thoughts on the overall movie plot – aliens living among us, brain-washing us into submission, and the merits of Roddy Piper’s splendid mullet – the anti-consumerist message is entirely relevant today.  The film draws attention to, well, our lack of attention toward the things in life that really matter.

We have allowed ourselves, over a slow and gradual process spanning many decades, to be distracted in to a bizarre world where money and greed rule, and the superficial is used to manipulate and keep us in line.  Exacerbated massively during the Thatcher-era (1979+) which saw an increase in extreme greed, corruption, dismantling of community and family.  We’re distracted by shiny bright things and sucked into believing that the things we see on tv, in magazines, on the internet, are aspirational and lie to us by claiming they’re achievable.

Advertisements tell us, unconsciously and subliminally, that we need to change XYZ about ourselves to feel good and for people to like us.  We’re too fat, too thin, too blonde, too dark, too anything – and we believe them.  Why?  Because it’s their job to make us believe in their fantasy, and they’re extremely good at it.  They tapp into the human psyche, playing on our emotions, guilt, insecurities, all so they can sell us a particular toothpaste, shampoo, car, sofa, skin product, clothing brand… brands are shoved down our throats at every turn and we’re told they are important to us.  Greed.  Overpriced and unethically produced ‘stuff” that we, in reality, don’t need at all.

Break it down to the things you absolutely cannot live without.  I mean literally.  You as a human being need food, water, shelter and warmth.  Everything else is desired, not because you are necessarily a greedy human, but because you have been brain-washed since you were born.  Now more than ever before children are targeted by advertising, most parents know only too well how ‘pester-power’ is extremely effective, get ‘em young and then they’ve got ‘em forever.

Of course it’s not just products.  We’re sold a constrant stream of elaborate tall tales by our governments and the media, instilling fear to justify their actions toward increasing control measures over us.  We’re taken into wars we don’t agree with, while we support the troops.

We’re surrounded by CCTV and believe it’s a good thing because the Government told us it’s a good thing, for our safety.  If they tell us we’ll be safer, we start thinking how unsafe it must’ve been before they installed the CCTV, after all they wouldn’t spend all that money to install it if it weren’t needed, right?  We’re very susceptible to persuasion.

People are getting used to it being all around, our Government have made it a way of life for us to be watched.  So, what else are we prepared to get used to, while our civil liberties are gradually eroded right in front of us?  To me this is one very good reason for waking people up, opting out, going off-grid.  I don’t hold with the argument that if you’ve ‘nothing to hide then you’ve nothing to fear’.  These guys explain pretty well why that is no argument for reducing my civil liberties, so I won’t duplicate.  You might also find NO2ID interesting.

If we are to get our lives back, reclaim our humanity and take our rightful place in this world, i.e. as animals living in harmony with the natural world, we must first recognise that we are in currently living in a false world filled with illusion and distraction.  We are controlled from the moment of our birth to when we die.  The first step is to realise that we are reliant on this system, that is how it functions.  The next is deciding for yourself, as an individual human being, that you want to do something about it.

It can feel a bit scary, thinking about the world so very differently, viewing your familiar environment (here I don’t mean the green stuff, but the day-to-day stuff, the systems, establishments, the cities, economies, people, monetary structures and so on) with fresh eyes.  You may want to recoil back toward the shiny bright lights, the x-factor, the supermarkets, celebrities, believing everything you see on the news (or not thinking about the selectiveness of what is reported), and the shopping malls.  That’s perfectly understandable since it’s almost like breaking from a long-term addiction.  When you feel brave again, you do not have to be alone, in the UK alone there are currently 191 Transition Towns established which consist of diverse groups of people, many of whom are on the same journey.  Everybody’s got to start somewhere.

 

 

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People & Environment Achievement Business Awards – We’ve nominated you for an award! January 1, 2012

Imagine my surprise when, yesterday evening, this email plopped into my little inbox:

“My Green Directory has recently joined as a partner & supporter to the People and Environment Achievement (PEA) Business Awards 2012, and felt that you would fit perfectly for a nomination for their Community Interest Company Award – so hope you don’t mind, I’ve nominated you!

The Awards were created to honour real people that are making a difference, have no agenda to a bottom line, and seek to champion the individuals within companies who demonstrate exceptional leadership and vision in implementing Britain’s ‘greenest’ business initiatives.

Judges include star of BBC2’s Dragons’ Den, Deborah Meaden, Jo Wood (TV personality and organic entrepreneur), Josephine Fairley (co-founder of Green & Black’s), Alex Lambie (founder of Green Helpline) and Tony Juniper (environmental campaigner, author and editor-in-chief of GREEN magazine) and Leo Johnson (Head of Sustainability at PricewaterhouseCoopers).

The Prize fund includes £300K worth of advertising in GREEN Magazine (distributed with the Guardian quarterly) and a once in a lifetime London 2012 Games experience thanks to headline sponsors Lloyds TSB Commercial.  The overall PEA Business Awards winner is set to receive a double page spread of advertising worth £40K in GREEN, as well as two hospitality tickets to London 2012!  Fourteen additional award winners will receive a full page of advertising worth £20K in GREEN.  The prizes will handed out at the inaugural awards which take place at The Orangery, Kensington Palace on the 26^th January 2012.

A member of the PEA Business Awards team will be in contact with you shortly to run through the nomination – wishing you the very best of luck!”

………

I have yet to respond directly to the person who (kindly) nominated me, but my initial thoughts go something like this:

Recognition of achievements is really nice, so it’s a real pity that my conscience screams ‘nooooo!’ at an award where one of the top prizes includes the words ‘London 2012 games experience‘.  Any credibility is diminished totally by the fact that BP is sponsoring the 2012 Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival.

The BP name is linked with a multitude of ecological and environmental disasters, remember 2010: Deepwater Horizon oil spill?

BP is also one of numerous firms who are extracting oil from Canadian oil sands, a process that produces four times as much CO₂ as conventional drilling.  The Cree, one of the largest groups of First Nations/Native Americans in North America, with 200,000 members living in Canada, describe this as ‘the biggest environmental crime on the planet’.

It’s not often I quote him, but George Monbiot said in a piece relating to BP “Corporations will take what they can: when there is a conflict between profitability and the environment or human rights, the profits come first” (Trouble in the Pipeline).  And this is a GREEN award?

Okay, now to the marvellous ‘headline sponsors’ Lloyds TSB!  How ethical, erm, well not really.  You see in December 2008 the British anti-poverty charity War on Want released a report documenting the extent to which Lloyds and other UK commercial banks invest in, provide banking services for and make loans to arms companies. The charity writes in its report that Lloyds holds shares in the UK arms sector totally £717.5 million, and serves as principal banker for BAE Systems, the UK’s largest arms company. The report also details Lloyds’s dealings with known producers of cluster munitions and depleted uranium.  You might also like to Google ‘Lloyds TSB’  and ‘Money laundering’ and ‘Tax avoidance’ too.  n.b. Other rip-off scummy banks are also available (in the interests of balance and fairness etc).

Really it’s Wombling CIC that has been entered for this award and if, as a Social Enterprise, it gains some recognition for its environmental and recycling work, then that is fine and dandy by me.  As a ground-level community project it really needs all the help it can get.

UK funding streams still have little or no recognition of Community Interest Company as a non-profit status, falling into the abyss of ‘you don’t qualify and what you say is just confusing to us’ somewhere between Charity and Limited Company status – but if there is any chance of winning to be had, you know I would decline the aforementioned prizes on principle.  And then I would carry on doing these things I do; raising awareness of the impact of humans on the planet, helping to increase community resilience against the effects of global corporations on the climate, raising awareness and giving examples of blatant hypocrisy.

By the way, Happy New Year everybody!  I hope we might make this a year of awakening, of resilience, and of fearless commitment to change.

 

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