North Howe

While promoting our Toolkit of energy saving measures for the CaRB Project there have been a number of people express interest in wood burning stoves.  Installing a wood burning stove can help cut winter fuel bills and reduce carbon emissions.  There is a lot of choice though, and they won’t suit every home, so we were wondering how we could best assist the households that are interested.

You may have already installed one, or decided it is not the right thing. On the other hand you may be wondering what kind would be best, who could install it, how much it all would cost and where to get fuel from.

We thought that if enough people would appreciate some help on these sorts of questions, we could organise a short event one Saturday in one of the village halls. We would get a few good local suppliers to bring along information and some stoves, have information about fuel and flues.

We would only want to do this if there was enough interest, otherwise, we could simply recommend reputable local firms who could supply and install stoves and wood fuel.

While you may not have expressed interest we would like to find out how many people out there would be interested in such an event.  If you would then please get in touch with Louise.

The Local Food Group have some great events planned over the next few months:

September-Wild Food Forray with Tony Wilson, Sunday 5 Sept starting at 2pm, Tentsmuir.

There will be a minibus running to this event so let Louise know by Friday 27 August if you are interested in using the bus.

October- Fife Diet Talk, Wednesday 20 Oct at 7.30pm in Collessie Hall

November- Tree Pruning Workshop, Saturday 6 November from 10am til 3pm at Monimail Tower Orchard.  More information will follow soon but if you would like to book a place get in touch with Louise.

The Food Group have arranged a wild food forray with Tony Wilson, Fife Ranger Service followed by a family BBQ on Sunday 5 September at Tentsmuir Forrest & Kinshaldy Beach.

The wild food forray will commence at 2pm. It was suggested that NHTT organise a bus to take folks, if you are interested in attending please contact Louise Barron louise@nhtt.org.uk or call 07879996845 to book your place. Bus times will be out in due course so keep an eye on future bulletins.

Tony Wilson on the mushroom walk at last year's Food Festival

On Saturnday 10th July about ten people, mostly from Fife Transition Groups, met in the Tower at Monimail with Findhorn facilitator Gill Emslie to explore the inner journey of transitioning, using the long-established Joanna Macy Deep Ecology approach. This approach is called ‘The Work that Reconnects’ and aims to support people in opening initially to the pain of the world and that of facing the slow and gradual collapse of our culture, and then to connect with a sense of grounded empowerment from which we can then act and connect with others.
In the morning we learned about this approach and did a couple of experiential exercises designed to help us connect more deeply with our senses and our bodies. This was followed in the afternoon by what is called the Truth Mandala – a supported, structured community ritual allowing individuals to connect deeply and express their emotions around the pain of our culture, and our place in that.
The experience of the day, for some, was both challenging and moving, and we appreciated Gill’s steady facilitation.
Three of the members of our local Heart and Soul group were present at the workshop, and will feed back in more detail at our next meeting.

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Our Family Food Skills Day was enjoyed by all who attended. The food workshops included seafood and bird preparation, food smoking and bread and pasta making. Fife Diet and local small holders were on hand to provide advice while Andy kept everyone fed with his puddledub and vegetarian BBQ. A heavy downpour in the middle of proceeding left a few of the burgers damp but failed to dampen our spirits.

The children enjoyed decorating cupcakes and Marianna’s fantastic natural dying workshops making beautiful bird pictures. See  images.

The Books at the NHTT Tombola proved to very popular but thankfully we managed to avoid fights breaking out over who was going to win Andrew Whitley’s ‘Bread Matters’ and Pier’s Warren’s ‘How to Store Your Garden Produce: The Key to Self-sufficiency’. Pier’s book is available for loan in the Green Library for those not as lucky as Lesley. Ask Louise for more details.

A big thanks to all stall holders and volunteers who made the day possible.

Click on the below icon to find out about the Secret Garden’s very own short film to be shown at DCA Dundee on Saturday 21st August.
I hope you can come and join the Secret Gardeners for this very special day.
Dress code: no waterproofs!!

On Wednesday 21st July the NHTT was visited by Stuart Stevenson, the Scottish Minister for Transport Infrastructure and Climate Change. We welcomed the minister at Letham Village Hall where we explained what the different action groups are doing in our area in order to reduce Green House Gas emissions. We also screened  a short film made by the Energy Saving Trust. After this we visited the Community Vegetable Garden, the Garden Bulk Supplies Project and the Green Library – all based at the Monimail Tower Project. We discussed how, in the light of Climate Change, it is important to rebuild community resilience by encouraging the growing of food locally and addressing energy conservation. The minister was very appreciative of all the work we are doing but also recognises lots more is to be done at both community as well as government levels.

Stewart Stevenson visiting the NHTT Community Vegetable garden and receiving a local eco-basket from some of the children

A final reminder that the Local Food Group have organised a reskilling event on Sunday 1 August from 11am-2pm in Letham Hall.  Those who attended the Food Festival last year will remember what a great day out it was. This year’s event is on a much smaller scale and the focus is on learning the food skills that local people have expressed an interest in.  The group have organised workshops in poultry, seafood processing and preparation, food preservation, bread making, pasta making and food smoking. There will be small holding advice, with Fife Diet offering growing advice.

The NHTT Cafe, Travelling Tavern and BBQ will all be present to provide refreshments throughout the day. After the success of the Collessie Gala there will be another free NHTT tombola offering cupcakes and more.  For the children local artist Marianna Lines will be running natural dying workshops and there will also be some creative cupcake icing just for fun. It will also be a great opportunity for local producers and growers to share their goods at the ‘Very Mini Food Market’.

All are welcome so look forward to seeing you there!

Emily from TSS and Scott Tait of weeflee productions are coming to capture a bit of the spirit of Transition in Scotland at North Howe TT’s Family Food Skills day. They will be capturing a feel of the event and interviewing a range of people about why they got involved with Transition/ sustainabiltiy and why it’s important to keep going.

Emily from Transition Scotland Support will be asking us to share our Transition experiences

This footage will feed into a 15-20 min film which will provide groups and interested individuals with a snapshot of Transition across the country, inspiring, motivating and sharing. Parts of the footage will also be used on the Transition Scotland website to provide a media rich resource for people wishing to take part in and learn about Transition.

We look forward to meeting you and hearing your take on what’s happening.

The Energy Group will be meeting on Monday 2 August in Giffordtown Hall at 7.30pm. All welcome.

THE  108th ANNUAL FLOWER SHOW and INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION of LETHAM and DISTRICT HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY will be taking place on Saturday 14 August in Letham Village Hall. Click on link for  full schedule of sections.This is a great community event for all the family. Whether you have home grown veggies to show, home baking to share or perhaps some handicrafts there should be something for everyone. Details of how to join and enter are on the attached schedule. If you just want to come along and see the entries doors open at 2pm.

The Transport Group will be meeting on Monday 26 July at 7.30pm in Letham Village Hall. We are now ready to move into the funding stage for some of the proposed path development and will be discussing this at the meeting. Also on the Agenda will be our proposals around Bike Parking, and Tripstop.

Our food smoking officiendo will be doing a food smoking workshop at our Family Food Skills Day on the 1st August @ 1pm and if it is a nice day we would like to do it outside, does anyone have an outdoor stove we could use for the workshop? A Camping stove would be ideal. We really do need one, if you can help please contact hayley.mills@phoneccop.coop or call 01337 810342

The Big Tent Festival will be taking place this weekend and NHTT will be in residence in the Climate Champion’s Zone. Hope to see you all there.

Click on below to see the programme for our Reskilling Day coming up on Sunday 1 August 11am-2pm, Letham Hall

On Wednesday 21st July 2010, Stewart Stevenson the Scottish MSP for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change will visit the NHTT area in relation to the receipt of our Climate Challenge Fund awards. If any NHTT members would like to meet the minister please contact Hamid van Koten as soon as possible on: h.h.vankoten@dundee.ac.uk

The coordinating Group will be meeting on Monday 19 July. To take advantage of the light summer nights the group will be meeting on Monimail Green at 7.45pm.

Some may have missed the new Forum on the site.

NHTT e-Xchange

Its a place where users can exchange ideas, thoughts and perhaps most importantly food, goods and even manure.

To support this we’ve decided to have a daily email which will send subscribers a list of any new posts. No new posts- no new email.

We’ve had to find a balance between informing subscribers as soon as a fresh produce is available for sale/barter and inundating people with emails. Its a difficult call and if you think we’ve got it wrong (ie too m

any emails, please let us know through the forum’s Help and Support Section).

This is a separate mailing list to the NHTT Bulletin so if you’d like to subscribe to it please follow this link www.nhtt.org.uk/-xc

All the posts are displayed on the front page (in the sidebar) of the website and if you are familiar with the concept of RSS feeds you can subscribe to the feed url: “http://nhtt.org.uk/foodforum/feed.php”
Any questions or problems drop me an email to admin@nhtt.org.uk

Our food smoking officiendo will be doing a food smoking workshop at our Family Food Skills Day on the 1st August @ 1pm and if it is a nice day we would like to do it outside, does anyone have an outdoor stove we could use for the workshop? We really do need one, if you can help please contact hayley.mills@phoneccop.coop or call 01337 810342

Our Family Food Skills day is shaping up to be a really good & interesting day, further details will be out soon. We know that alot of local folks have bits and bobs of home grown produce that they are keen to sell or barter like excess veggies, fruit or eggs. Please feel fee to bring along your produce to the day to sell or barter, you just need to price it up, list what you are bringing & help man the stall and take what you don’t sell away again!  If you have any queries, please contact hayley.mills@phonecoop.coop or call 01337 810342