Stan Evans writes..
A massive thanks go to SoberNewts members who took care of tea, coffee, and biscuit duties, the staff at Rookesbury Hall for running a great facility, Councillor Danny Lee for his input and for taking our messages back to our City Council, and Stu Mills from Winchester representing WinACC and Climate Action Newtworks, who gave us an opening talk and of course, to all those who attended.
It was a wonderful, nicely-noisy, thoughtful, creative, enthusiastic, and productive meeting.
We enjoyed a really good turnout, almost everyone stayed for the full two hours. Many local residents obviously care about climate related issues and opportunities right here on our doorstep.
The hall had discussion tables representing different subject areas such as Transport, Waste, Recycling, Energy, and Food. We rotated around the hall and spent time at each table. Feedback was captured on table sheets, Post-It notes, then tokens in voting jars to identify the groups priorities.
Councillor Danny Lee with Suzanne White (click photos for full size}
There is no shortage of really good experience in our villages, we have a number of quiet experts as our neighbours, many have valuable personal experience on subjects ranging from electric cars, food cooking and locally sourcing, to improving their heating systems. Those experiences were happily shared, thoughts exchanged and advice ideas for the future offered.
The one word I’d describe the meeting is ‘positive!’. It was a pleasure to listen-in to what people had to say and hear their thoughts on how together we might make things better for all of us.
…. and this was just the first meeting!
