Seasonal Greetings from Friends of the Earth Falkirk

Don't waste Christmas  Seasonal Greetings from all at Friends of the Earth Falkirk

Don't waste Christmas

Don't Waste Christmas!

Reduce and reuse wrapping paper.

Why don't you be creative and make some

personalised gifts for friends and family.

Avoid food waste-don't buy too much food.

Visit Love Food Hate Waste website

www.scotland.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Buy locally grown, organic or fairtrade produce

for your Christmas meal.

Take your own shopping bag when Christmas

• refuse plastic bags

Exchange recycled, home-made or charity

Christmas cards

Be safe and save energy by switching off Christmas Tree Lights overnight.

Our Community Gardens recieved the highest level- OUTSTANDING from the It's Your Neighbourhood Award 2014. Jean went along to the presentation to collect the award on behalf of all the volunteers who have made all four of our gardens a success. Thanks again to everyone who made this happen.

Global Frack Free Day

The Mariann Lloyd-Smith Falkirk Talk

The Mariann Lloyd-Smith video taken during the meeting in Falkirk is available online.  To view, follow this link:

http://foes.do/1dSXX50 

Watch "If You See A Piece of Litter Pick It Up!" on YouTube

 Litter message from Falkirk kids video click this link to watch the video. Jessica shared the story of this little video at out September meeting. Hope it lights up your day.

Doune the Rabbit Hole August 2013

Friends of the Earth Scotland took two important campaigns to the Doune the Rabbit Hole music festival. There was a campaign FOR community owned power generation and AGAINST unconventional gas- coal bed methane and fracking. As part of the weekend stall there was a workshop on the issue of unconventional gas extraction with updates from across the UK including the DART planning developments in Falkirk and feedback from the Balcome protest in England. There was a solidarity photograph taken and sent to the campaign down south.

September Meeting and AGM dates

The next meeting of Friends of the Earth Falkirk is on Monday 9th September.  Meet at our Bean Row garden at 7pm and or 7.30ish at the Wheatsheaf Inn, Baxters Wynd, Falkirk. We will planning out our local food celebration and AGM on Saturday 21st September and getting updates on all our Gardens, the CBM developments, local environmental justice concerns and planning for our winter programme.

Latest Mosiac at Arnot Street Community Garden

If you haven't passed our Arnot Street Garden, here is the latest mosiac to be added to the bollards. The next opportunity to get involved in a mosiac workshop is Wednesday 12th June at 6.30 at Arnot Street. All welcome!

Pedal on Parliament

Friends of the Earth Falkirk were represented at the well attended Pedal on Parliament event on Sunday 19^th May. Watch our video which we recorded the event at the link below.

PEDAL ON PARLIAMENT MANIFESTO

• Proper funding for cycling
• Design cycling into Scotland's roads
• Slower speeds where people live, work and play
• Integrate cycling into local transport strategies
• Improved road traffic law and enforcement
• Reduce the risk of HGVs to cyclists and pedestrians
• A strategic and joined-up programme of road user training
• Improved statistics supporting decision-making and policy

watch our video of the event at Video

Coal-Bed Methane: What it Means for Falkirk and Stirling

Talk and discussion with toxics expert Dr. Mariann Lloyd-Smith
Wednesday 22nd May 2013, arrive 7.15pm for 7.30 start
Falkirk Old and St. Modan’s Parish Church
Manse Place, Falkirk, FK1 1JN.
 Watch video footage from our Coal Bed Methane event here
Plans for 22 new coal-bed methane wells and an extensive gas pipeline network have been submitted for planning consent to Stirling and Falkirk Councils. As well as having a considerable impact on site at Airth, the Australian company, Dart Energy, has elsewhere made plans to frack for shale gas.

With many documented risks to the environment and human health there is considerable concern about the impact of new gas drilling and fracking in Scotland. Senior advisor to the Australian Government Dr. Mariann Lloyd-Smith is visiting Scotland to share her work on the impacts of coal-bed methane on communities in Australia. Advisor to the National Toxics Network and IPEN, Dr. Lloyd-Smith has also served on the Technical Advisory Group of the Australia's industrial chemical regulator and the UN Expert Group on Climate Change and Chemicals. She will be outlining potential risks to Scotland and taking part in a chaired discussion.

If you're interested in taking part it would greatly assist the organisers if you could let us know by filling in the form on our website, www.foe-scotland.org.uk/events .

• Find out more about new gas drilling and fracking in Scotland here http://www.foescotland.
org.uk/fracking.
• To read more about Dr. Lloyd-Smith visit http://www.ntn.org.au/contributor-posts/meet-mariann.
Press enquiries about Dr. Lloyd-Smith's visit should be directed to Per Fischer, 0131 243 2715.

Video Footage from Camp Frack 2013

Frack Camp Protest Sunday 12 May 2013 click on the link to see footage of the march at the end of Camp Frack which had two people from Falkirk in attendance. The other Scots who travelled to the camp were from Stirling, Fife and Aberdeen

 

Community Screening

Thursday 2nd May

The Plough Hotel, Stenhousemuir

7.30- 9.30pm Free admission 

Four Corners – Investigative Journalism
Transmitted in Australia on ABC1 on Monday 1st April 2013. Gas Leak raises concerns about the Coal Bed Methane industry (known as coal seam gas industry in Australia) on prime time television.
This community screening is an opportunity to hear the evidence from Australia and discuss the lessons for the Scottish context with other local residents.

 

CBM awareness stall on Falkirk High Street Saturday 13th April 2013

CBM Community Mandate available online

Just click Community Mandate Form fill in and send into Falkirk Planning Office.

A plague o' both your houses

In March 2013 two community meetings were held to address concerns about the Dart Energy planning application for 14 Coal Bed Methane well sites within Falkirk and Stirling Council area. Local residents – most of whom will be directly impacted if the wells go ahead – discussed ‘visions’, positive and negative, of their communities’ future.

During the discussions two stories summed up the social, as well as the environmental, injustice of the proposed wells. Both stories relate to the importance of people's homes and how a threat to your home is a direct threat to your family, your standard of living and your well being.

"Who is going to buy a house on a well line?" - a local man voiced concern about future house prices.

One resident described living in his dream home which, "ticked all the boxes" for everything he had aspired to in a family home. But he had been keeping up to date with the planning concerns and believed that, despite community efforts, the wells would be given permission. He was going to cut his losses and try and sell his house before the final planning decision, believing he would lose more money if he waited until the wells are up and running and the communities’ fears are realised: "Me and the wife are putting our house on the market and will take our chances".

Seated not far away, a young woman spoke about being brought up in Grangemouth, an industrial town on the fenceline of the petrochemical industry, 4 miles from where she lives now. She chose her current home because she wanted to bring up her family in a healthier environment. Having moved to Larbert very recently, she believed she was moving to a desirable, up and coming area, and her new house had a view of fields and hills. But within 2 weeks of moving into this new home she received a 20 metre neighbourhood notice for the DART planning application. It turns out she lives very close indeed to an intended drilling site she know nothing about. The more she hears about the planned development the more she feels she has made a mistake in her choice of area. Having just moved, she is not in a financial position to move again. Instead of being able to settle into her new home, she already feels a sense of being trapped and misled.

This is an insight into the considerations of just two families within the local community awaiting the outcome of the DART application. There are many more such stories. A final decision has been delayed to allow Falkirk council to commission its own research into aspects of the planning application, and the Community awaits the date of a Planning Hearing. It is hoped this Hearing will allow local people’s concerns to be heard alongside the planning and scientific evidence. The outcome of the community’s ‘visioning exercise’ was a well-thought-through objection to the DART application from which it is hoped the wider community can learn. If others sign up, this may provide a mandate for an alternative future without CBM wells on the near horizon.

Norman Philip

co-ordinator Friends of the Earth Falkirk
www.foefalkirk.blogspot.com

Follow to local residents facebook page for updates on the situation at:www.facebook.com/FAUG.PEDL133

Tinsel Show- Grangemouth Flaring

Music by Karine Palwart, Tinsel Show "In the East the fires are burning, spires of stone and steel, smokestack engine turning, wheel upon wheel." Written about her memories of seeing Grangemouth from her bedroom window in Banknock, the other side of Falkirk.

The Big Dig Falkirk

THE BIG DIG- Saturday 16th March

Friends of the Earth Falkirk invite you to join them working on their town centre gardens from 11am this Saturday 16 March. Please meet at the Bean Row urban allotment off Cow Wynd, dress appropriately and bring any tools you may have.

Friends of the Earth Falkirk has “Big” plans for its gardens this year

Following the huge success of its town centre gardens last year, Friends of the Earth Falkirk are delighted to announce that they are the only group in Scotland to register with the UK-wide Big Dig campaign. On Saturday 16 March 2013, people all over Britain will work in urban community gardens with the aim of involving local people in creating vibrant community food gardens, which can reduce anti-social behaviour, provide fresh, healthy food and put pride into communities

Norman Philip, the coordinator of the group said, “We would invite people to join us from 11 am at our urban allotment on Bean Row. We will be tidying the allotment as well as working on our herb patch outside Asda and our wildflower border on Arnot Street, outside the Polish club. No experience is needed and people of any age will be made welcome.”

Friends of the Earth Falkirk maintain four gardens in the town centre through the council’s orphan land project. The urban allotment on Bean Row (off Cow Wynd) was particularly successful last year and culminated in the group organising a soup and stovies day for everyone involved – the main ingredients having been grown on site.

The Big Dig is coordinated nationally by Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Friends of the Earth Stirling Public Meeting

To discuss Dart Energy's

proposals to extract Coal Bed Methane

in Stirling, Clackmannan and Falkirk

7.30 p.m. Monday 28^th January 2013 

Methodist Church, Queen Street

Stirling FK8 1HL

The Story of Stuff Short Film Night

"Talking Rubbish"

An evening of short

films and discussion

Wednesday 30^th January 2013

7.30-9.30 FREE EVENT

The Princess Royal Trust Carer Centre,

1a Bank Street, FALKIRK FK1 1NB