You are invited to join us at this FREE event to hear Andy Nolan, Director of Sustainability at Sheffield City Council talk about how he wants to make Sheffield sustainable and involve everyone in the community.

Our Guest Speaker will be Professor Ian Rotherham from Sheffield Hallam University who is an ecologist and specialises in community involvement.

Other organisations at this event will include:

• Heeley City Farm
• Sheffield Black & Ethnic Minority Environmental Network (SHEBEEN)
• Sheffield City Freecycle
• South Yorkshire Energy Centre
• Sheffield Campaign Against Climate Change
• Sheffield Campaign Against Climate Change

This FREE event is for everyone who wants to find out how to reduce their carbon footprint Thursday afternoon of 8th April.

Please pencil this date in your diary, let your friends know about it and look out for our online registration form which we’ll announce here when it’s ready.

Following on from the resounding success of our October 2009 Climatewalk event facilitated by Perry Walker at the New Economics Foundation we are delighted to say that participants from that event are helping us organise a follow-up focussed on positive action.

Please pencil this date in your diary, tell your friends and check back for updates.

“The tragedy of the Haiti earthquake is a sober reminder of real need: one of the world’s poorest countries – already fighting poverty on its knees – devastated, with more than 100,000 dead and millions displaced.

Martin Lewis from Money Saving Expert is pledging 50p to the Haiti Disasters Emergency Committee for every  genuine new UK recipient of their free weekly e-mail until midnight Sat 23 Jan which is in addition to their usual charity fund donations.

We are delighted to announce that the followup Climatewalk workshop will be at the Town Hall, Sheffield City Council, Committee Room 5 from 2-4pm on Tuesday 15th December.

Expected Planning Meeting outcomes are to:

1. Brainstorm what we as a group want from the follow uip event
2. Develop concrete plans to see where we can go next to include more action
3. Create a team of enthusiastic volunteers to share the workload of designing, producing and delivering a follow up climate workshop/event early next year preferably late February  to develop follow-up.
4. Design workshop structure, focus and content including creating a space for people to develop their ideas and action plans. 
5. Invite one speaker with a sound understanding of Sheffield’s overall needs and vision so we can use the limited time we have to help people develop their visions and ideas into viable action plans.

We’ve transcribed and emailed the talks from Shaun Quegan, Andy Nolan and Panni Poh Yoke Loh for their approval and we’ll publish the full transcript and an executive summary as soon as we receive confirmed approval of the content.

Thank you to everyone for making Climatewalk the resounding success that it was. As always we appreciate the generous hospitality of DLA Piper LLP which enabled us to contine providing free events, free event packs and free refreshments open to everyone. Shaun Quegan, Andy Nolan and Panni Poh Yoke Loh respectively contributed their outlook and expertise on climate change issues from the global, local to personal development perspectives. Managing introductions and Q&A session, Perry Walker facilitated a lively discussion followed by the Climatewalk challenges which he developed with colleagues at the New Economics Foundation. By the end of the workshop we all better understood the implications of our carbon footprint and things we need to give up just to maintain the status quo including: long haul flights, one long haul flight every 4 years and allowing Government to disconnect our utility supplies as required. The many stark choices and the validity of our existing lifestyle choices included realisations that: * Biofuel is destroying large amazonian forests while the indiginous population is left to die. * Plastic used in retail, manufacturing, medicine, dentistry is an invisible iceberg and consumer plastic bags is just the tip * Reliance on cars and planes for personal transport and global shipping food is no longer viable. Climatewalk strategies to reverse the situation may seem draconian but the implications of not doing so with temperature increases of up to 6 degrees centigrade were considered infinitely worse. As we all agreed that every little helps, AFI is delighted to say the online registration and related charging policies eliminated waste with a close correlation between registrations and attendees.

Lib Dem Council has rejeced the Government’s offer of free grants to provide free swimming for over-60s and under-16s.  Sign the petition which believes Sheffield people are treated fairly – and like people in Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster – should have free swimming for over-60s and under-16s from April 2009.  The petition calls upon Sheffield’s Lib Dem councillors to reverse their decision immediately and ensure free swimming is provided in Sheffield for over-60s and under-16s from April 2009.

Please use this link to support this Petition for free swimming in Sheffield for over 60’s and under 16’s

We are very proud to say that Cllr Paul Scriven invited Wendy to debrief him on Monday 1st December on major concerns, desired outcomes and potentially realistic solutions to Youth Crime:

1. really understand the root cause which made young people feel the only way they can be safe is to carry a knife.
2. Listen to young people more
3. Stop assuming “we know”, better
4. Put younger people at the centre of debate on solutions and give them a pivotal role in planning solutions
5. More effective lines of communication in multi-agency working
6. More trained professionals for the community to call on as required.
7. Ensure the punishment fits the crime
8. Use media to present positive images of young people and eliminate distortions
9. Tailor the education system to meet individual needs
10. Provide more preventative facilities, peer mentoring, role modelling
11. Give young people a safe place to build-up their self-respect and self-esteem.
12. Invest more resources and funds in to properly staffed facilities to improve community liaison
13. Involve victims to help their perpetrators accept responsibility and create clearer boundaries
14. Mixed age Community activities centres involving the business community to enable young and old people relate more effectively with each other.
15. CPS, which takes the final decision on charging for crimes, needs to increase the victim’s sense of relevance to reported crimes.
16. Facilitate opportunities for cross-cultural understanding across youth groups and communities.

I will also be asking Paul Scriven to give us similar feedback for us to then feed it back to you with a view to influencing policy at a local level which is integral to our ethos.

Please do not hesitate to share your concerns on youth crime even if you were unable to join us at our Youth Crime workshop.