Transition Heathrow wins best float at the Hayes Carnival

On Saturday, Transition Heathrow set up camp for the second time at the annual Hayes Carnival. Not only did we have our own space in the park, but this year we also took part in the parade. Built out of bicycles, our pedal-powered float won first prize and the Mayor of Hillingdon presented us with a trophy and a cheque for £100!

After touring Hayes town with crazy choreographed dancing, amazing trash fashion outfits, and banging tunes – we made our way to Barra Hall Park. Thanks to Coltek we had a solar-powered stage with bands playing all day, on top of this, we had a café with cakes and drinks, a growing area providing the community with plants and seeds for free, and a free shop with donated clothes.

The day was a great success and gave us the opportunity to show many people what our project is about. Thank you to all the bands that played, and thank you to everyone who put in lots of time and effort in the lead up to the event to make it all happen. Hopefully see you there next year!

Check out all the photos from the day HERE

Join us at Hayes Carnival 2011

This year like last, Transition Heathrow has been invited to run an area at the Hayes Carnival in Barra Hall Park on Saturday the 9th of July. We would like to invite all Heathrow Village residents and associate groups to join us at the carnival. Also we’re inviting any groups that might want to run a stall or activity in our area to contact us at info@transitionheathrow.com.

In addition to last year we will be entering a float in the procession. We’d like to invite you all to join us on the float so that we can hopefully win a prize for the villages. We are busy designing and building a pedal powered float/ soundsystem and need help making costumes and coming up with a dance. This is a great chance to show off the villages.

If you would like to help make the costumes please drop into Grow Heathrow on any Tuesday from 1-5pm or anytime from Wednesday the 6th of July to Friday the 8th. If you would like to help create and learn a dance with an expert dance teacher then please come to Grow Heathrow at 2pm on Friday the 8th of July. If you would like to join the float on the day please join us at the start of the procession by 11am on the 9th of July.

See you there!

Grow Heathrow’s 1st birthday party – Guest Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWDerzFiqOo&feature=player_embedded

After much anticipation the day was finely here, Grow Heathrow’s first birthday.

Despite a wonderfully sunny morning, at around 1′o clock when “gates opened” it started to rain. But did this dampen our spirits, no. Both old and new faces came to the day, with tours under umbrellas, a fire in the rain and much appreciated fresh tea and biscuits pouring out of the green house. A bike workshop and cinema were in full swing too and these were in the dry. The cinema showed Grow Heathrow: the beginning, a video filmed when the green houses were first taken explaining how this project came about and what people felt this project could become in the future: now. Other short clips and animations including #TakeVAT ‘s recent aviation subvertising video, Polluter harmony, a Greenpeace video parody of the eHarmony for Tar sands, and the Impossible Hamster were also shown.

The atmosphere was very relaxed and all seemed to be having fun, as the day continued more people arrived bringing with them more and more cake for the cake competition; a highly anticipated event. The dining table was full of cake, I literally have never seen so much cake in one place, and the winner was …. Tracy and family! This was tightly fought but they had hedged their bets by bringing five or six cakes, it was really really good cake thank you all.

When the cake was judged and tours finished, the one hundred plus people raised a glass of champagne to Grow Heathrow’s first birthday and listened to some brilliant speeches. It became clearer to me then, more than ever, how much this project means to everybody involved. Be that living on site or in the villages or even a frequent visitor. In that room at the back of the first green house people spoke about how this project has allowed them to say YES for once instead of NO all the time. How it has brought the community together again, not just around the opposition to the third runway, but to an alternative way of living as well. And the amazing achievements and stories of the last year have inspired them.

This year has been amazing. Who knew that in such a short space of time that small strip of land could mean so much to so many people. It’s not just that site though, its the people, the people that are this community who make Grow Heathrow so brilliant, amazing and inspiring. Given what we’ve achieved in a year, I imagine the possibilities for the next ten months, the next year, the next two years. I’m truly inspired by all that we’ve created here and I hope you are too.

Cameron Kaye

Grow Heathrow’s first birthday

The first of March marks the year anniversary of Grow Heathrow! On the 27th of February, the Sunday before, we cordially invite you to help us celebrate this achievement and keep the project growing.

From 1pm until 3.30pm there will be site tours, a photography exhibition, film screenings about the project and growing workshops. If you haven’t been to the site yet this is a great opportunity to see what it’s all about.

At 4pm there will be birthday tea, where we will hear from locals and others involved about how we have got this far. This is a chance to look back on the past year and feel inspired about where to go next. A donation meal will be available from 5.30 – 7pm and after this we will enjoy evening entertainment.

Happy Birthday Grow Heathrow!

Transition Heathrow at Hayes Carnival – Sophie’s blog

I was asked to help out Transition Heathrow for the Hayes Carnival in Barra Hall Park on Saturday 10^th July and immediately I said yes. I love the project both for its local implications and its wider political vision. Transition is all about recognising climate change is happening and that oil will and is becoming more and more scarce. It’s all positioned in a framework of what positive impact it can have on a local and global level. Plus I love a local day out and Hayes Carnival promised to be a great way of getting out there and meeting more of the community in the local area.

So on a beautiful (and incredibly hot) sunny day, amongst the genteel setting of Barra Hall park, Transition Heathrow set about transforming its little corner of the park into a beautiful representation of how life could be post-transition, with yards and yards of bunting, ex-airline pilots turned gardeners, tea and cakes and smiles in abundance.

If the transition movement is that its all about the positives, then Hayes Carnival provided an excellent opportunity to show how we deal with issues of power created by burning oil and coal. We just don’t need it. We have renewable that can provide so much of our electrical needs.

To make this point real, Transition Heathrow invited our friends from Coltek to come with their solar powered generator to provide power for the area, and as the blistering sun beat down, we danced to the music on the Transition stage, with live acts curated by another of our friends, the guys from the award winning folk club the Magpies Nest. It was a beautiful line-up, with music from the likes of Paris Thompson, Anna Log, Troubadour Rose, James Mcdonald, Aaron Jonah Lewis, JAW and Perhaps Contraption. The solar power also extended to the Renewable cinema, a lovely blacked out tent, strewn with cushions, showing a selection of films curated by more of our friends: Just Do It Films.

The café was run with aplomb and again set out a vision for a post-oil future. We had a pedal powered smoothie maker, creating delicious smoothies that involved some personal work. A smoothie never tasted better than one you had to pedal a standing bicycle to make….. There were home made cakes using vegetables we had grown in Sipson. We also had the legendarily efficient Rocket stoves. A beautifully constructed cooking stove using recycled oil drums and burning wood. These boiled our water so we could provide tea and coffee to the thirsty carnival revellers.

Grow Heathrow, the sister project of Transition Heathrow was there, giving away plants and seeds and general growing advice to encourage people to get growing locally. Screen printing workshops were also provided and more friends, this time from the radical social centre 56A, provided bike maintenance free of charge. And finally there was a free shop giving away clothes free of charge.

The Transition movement is all about creating community reliance with bottom up solutions but it is also about having fun with your neighbours, family and friends. For me, Hayes Carnival showed how a community can come together and be a showcase for a better future.

For photos of the day check our flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47991844@N06/sets/72157624348584707/