Plugging the Leaks session

[Simeon Jackson]

Hi all,

On Thursday last week, a few of us met up to explore the issue of "Plugging the Leaks". Jona and Lolly Conway send their apologies for not being able to come.

After introducing ourselves and what our interest in the local economy was, I summarised what I thought plugging the leaks really was.  I used big sheets of paper and marker pens to do it, so I'm not going to try to repeat that here, but for those who are interested, the entire book that I used as a resource is freely available from The New Economics Foundation website. Even more information is available on the Plugging the Leaks website.

After this, we had a bit of talk about what the economic problems that Norwich faces actually are and how we might go from here to tackle them.  Unemployment was the big one - Norwich has an unemployment rate higher than national average and in specific areas and demographics this is even higher.  The area suffers from the loss of manufacturing jobs as well as from financial institutions moving abroad, or facing measures to slim down.  There are empty buildings across Norwich, and certain areas are in obvious need of regeneration.

It was identified that on a personal level, response to these problems is near impossible, and that many of the solutions that exist rely on communal conscience (e.g. buying in local shops is not a large advantage unless local shop-owners also are trying to keep the money in the local area). However, using Farmshare rather than local supermarkets was suggested as something that you can do at a personal level to keep money in Norwich now.

If there were more people involved, a lot more could be done, however, and so the next step of a plugging the leaks program is to tell more people about it, and try to get all the stakeholders together in one room, from local residents, to business owners and employees, to public sector departments and budget-controllers.

This all links in with what I learnt at The Transition Conference this weekend.  Look out on the Transition Norwich Blog tomorrow for my post on Social Enterprise as the way forward, and if you can't wait that long, look at the Transition Conference Blog, where some of the ideas that came up during the event have been aired and shared.

This googlegroup is meant to be a discussion group, not a news bulletin, so please respond to tn-ec...@googlegroups.com so that we can all hear your take on plugging the leaks, the economy in general or what organisations/companies we could team up with to get local economic development on the agenda!

Take care,

Simeon

[CHRIS KEENE]

Thanks for organising all this Simeon

 

My thoughts are that we do need far more outreach to local businesses, and we should first brainstorm ideas about all the businesses who will gain from a low carbon economy.  So here goes -

 

Local/Organic food outlets and growers

cycle shops

renewable energy companies

compost toilet suppliers

recycling companies

repairers

hemp clothing manufacturers

 

Any others?  I think it may be worth trying to get in touch with the people who organise the Earth Day event in the eco-friendly backpackers hostel at Burnham Deepdale. Do others agree?

 

Chris

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Transition Norwich Economy and Business Theme Group" group.
To post to this group, send an email to tn-ec...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tn-economy+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tn-economy?hl=en-GB.