Bin challenge - 5 people to a bag of sugar.

After the one bin of waste in a year challenge, I'm busy doing school assemblies with my bag of waste. At the last one the kids didn't have much of an idea about how much waste the average person would create in a year to compare my one bag to...and neither did I!

So, I've done a bit of research and come up with this:

The average person generates about 370kg of landfill waste in a year.

The average person weighs 70 kg, so 5 people represent the weight of waste a single person landfills in a year.

My bag of waste weighs 2kg. Half of that was Sam. So I generated 1kg of waste in a year - a big bag of sugar.

So I went from 5 people to a bag of sugar. Simple and nice and visual.

Reading Acolaid information - how active is your councillor?

As promised in the press release I'm publishing information about how active councillors are based on their use of the Acolaid system - until hopefully the council takes on this role...

Items of work - questions or requests to council officers - or Acolaids are usually generated by a councillor following on from a member of the public asking a question or requesting that some work be done. This goes to an officer to answer. All councillors use the Acolaid system because it guarantees them a quick response.

Please vote in the poll opposite if you'd like to see a more transparent council!

Results in alphabetical order. Highest number 133, lowest 1. Sorry about the poor formatting (ward, councillor, acolaids):

ABBEY

Ayub, Mohammed

10



THAMES

Ballsdon, Isobel

38



REDLANDS

Bayes, Kirsten

55



TILEHURST

Beard Peter

14



REDLANDS

Benson, Daisy

133



MINSTER

Byrne, Terry

2



PEPPARD

Chowdhary, Jamie

38



CAVERSHAM

Cumpsty, Andrew

24



TILEHURST

Duveen, Ricky

17



SOUTHCOTE

Edwards, Deborah

23



SOUTHCOTE

Ennis, John

39



KATESGROVE

Epps, Gareth

82



MINSTER

Gittings Paul

36



REDLANDS

Goodall, Glenn

52



WHITLEY

Hanley Jim

4



TILEHURST

Harris, Chris

6



CHURCH

Harris, Tim

8



PARK

Hartley Jon

3



NORCOT

Hoskin Graeme

5



PARK

Hussain, Wazir

4



CHURCH

Janjua, Azam

6



NORCOT

Jones Peter

2



BATTLE

Jones Tony

6



BATTLE

Khan, Gul

31



NORCOT

Lovelock Jo

57



CAVERSHAM

Luckett, David

10



BATTLE

Maskell, Chris

6



PARK

Merriott, Shirley

4



WHITLEY

Orton Mike

84



ABBEY

Page Tony

90



MAPLEDURHAM

Pugh, Fred

5



PEPPARD

Ralph, Mark

46



SOUTHCOTE

Ruhemann Pete

11



KENTWOOD

Rynn, Jennifer

26



WHITLEY

Singleton-White, Mary

4



THAMES

Skeats Jeanette

11



KATESGROVE

Stainthorp Richard

2



CAVERSHAM

Stanway, Tom

29



KENTWOOD

Steele, Tom

44



THAMES

Stevens, David

1



KATESGROVE

Swaine, Warren

34



ABBEY

Tickner Bet

27



CHURCH

Townend, Mike

7



KENTWOOD

Warman, Emma

23



MINSTER

Watson, Deborah

9



PEPPARD

Willis, Richard

18

Reading Credit Union Shop front - call now

Reading Credit Union are through to the final of the People's Million competition to win some money to pay for a shop front. See the message below:

"Today - Wednesday 26th Nov 2008 - is the day, we need your votes. You have 10 votes per phone, so please use all the phones you have access to. You have between now and midnight to vote.

The number is 08716268114

Please pass the number on to your family, friends and colleagues and help us win funding for our shop front."

UPDATE

We won the competition!

Gardening with kids

In the day time, when I'm not pounding the cold/wet/hard streets of Reading knocking on doors, delivering newsletters and the rest of it for the Green Party, chances are that I'll be gardening. One of my more fun and rewarding jobs is working with kids at the Oxford Road Primary School as part of a gardening club.

Through the spring, summer and autumn we've grown, we've eaten and we've got muddy. The winter is kicking in now and we're on tops of the jobs - garlic, onions, broad beans and winter salad all in. We've not got much pruning or preparation to do. So I've been looking for other related activities and came across thekidsgarden website. This led onto us doing some of the activities mentioned about house plants - we divided spider plants. Next time we'll be doing a survey that one of the teachers found on the BBC Breathing Spaces site, and then making some habitat for wildlife - bird boxes, insect hotels and a bark bucket for stag beetles.

I think getting kids and families interested in gardening opens up many doors - healthy living and eating, learning, community building - with possibilities and rewards only limited by the imagination and energy of those involved.

I've also been involved in a project to get some lottery money for a growing in schools network in Reading. Fingers crossed that we made a good case, get the money and can pull it off...

UPDATE

I also came across this Do One Thing page.

Recession - The Policy Challenge for Greens in the South East

Thanks to Danny for the blurb:

Recession is a double danger to the Green Party – it can squeeze both our electoral support and our membership.

As people become focused on immediate bread-and-butter issues – jobs, prices – they come to see other questions (such as the environment, social progress) as peripheral.

At such a time it becomes easy for the grey parties and the popular media to portray us as the party that says “no”. Our critical approach to “growth at all costs” and to over-development exposes us to cheap accusations that we oppose the very things that are most needed.

This problem is especially acute in the South East, where so much is now geared to the expectation of constant, rapid growth.

The challenge is to position ourselves as the most progressive party in town; to make clear the connection between our Green agenda and the solutions to today’s problems.

Reading Green Party will host a discussion of these issues for members of the Green Party in the South East. This discussion will be led by Derek Wall, prominent Green activist and expert economic commentator.

Meeting: Recession - The Policy Challenge for Greens in the South East
Speaker: Derek Wall
Time: 8.00pm
Date: Wednesday 3rd December 2008
Location: Reading International Solidarity Centre (RISC), 35-39 London Street, Reading, RG1 4PS (upstairs, main hall)

Open to all Green Party members in the South East - if you're not a member why not join?

Enquiries to: Rob White (0118 950 4062)

Have your say on where we build and protect...

Reading council is now consulting on what bits of land should be built on or protected. The plan is called the Site Allocations Document and runs for the next 15 years. Near to me in Park Ward, I note that the playing fields near to Alfred Sutton are marked for development, and that Kennet Mouth isn't marked for protection!

Comments by 12 December 2008.

Busy week...

It's been a busy week this week, with the two most useful meetings being the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) forum and the Reading Refugee Support AGM. Both good opportunities to support local communities, meet people and remind people that the Green Party is about more than the usual stereotype of 'saving whales'.

At the PVE meeting it was good to see people challenging the government's attitude that if you have a large number of Muslims then you must be a breeding ground for terrorists. The overwhelming feeling of the meeting was that Reading already has good relations between communities and that the PVE money should be spent to improve these further rather than focused on the 'Muslim community'.

The Reading Refugee AGM was also a good opportunity to hear what the group had been up to - lots see their website and meet people.

Green drinks

I finally made it along to Reading Green Drinks - 1st Tuesday of the month, 6pm, at the Global Cafe. For those that haven't heard of it before it is an informal meet-up and networking opportunity for people in the green or ethical sectors. It was a relaxing evening with conversations ranging from co-housing to junk mail and I'll definitely try and make it along again in the future when I've got a free evening.

You can find out more from the Green Drinks website.

Newtown parking problems - public meeting

For a while now, when knocking on doors in Newtown the number one issue that comes up has been parking - lack of space, or too many cars depending on your point of view. I've been pointing people to the local car sharing scheme Commonwheels as one way to reduce parking pressures and we've also been looking to removing excess yellow lines. Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture we've been lobbying for more cheap and reliable alternatives to the car and a shift to more local living.

Following on from a lot of complaints on this issue, the council is now conducting a parking review of Newtown. They are investigating introducing residents' parking across the whole area. I've therefore organised a public meeting. This is so people can hear what the council thinks and have their say.

When: Friday 21st November, 7:00pm
Where: Wycliffe Church, 233 Kings Road, Wycliffe room.

All local councillors and a representative have been invited as well as the whole of Newtown.