What happened to our quality of life? Why is everything so expensive? Is there anything we can do? There is. A Transition initiative offers a new community-lead response: localisation to bring you the best of High Wycombe - local energy, local money & local food. Let's welcome the return to resilient communities. Turn your back on austerity - discover the new prosperity - on your own doorstep.
What does a Transition Town do? We build a better quality of local life through community projects. Local energy, local food, local money. We brought Energy Saving Kits to the Library. We brought you the Local Food Guide. Our Warm Home Heroes tackle fuel poverty, we can get you deals on solar panels. We helped setup Wycombe Harvest 2012. Need a plot of land to garden? We can help you. Our outreach team attend public shows through the summer to advise people about local food and energy. We sit down with the Council and work on consultations. You can visit our super energy-saving homes, go shopping in Local Roots, get free home insulation, read the blog and invest in our Low Carbon Chilterns Co-operative. Join us on Facebook and Twitter. What don't we do!?
"What we have done in Transition is to create a powerful story, around resilience and localisation, around unleashing the creative genius of communities to respond brilliantly to times of great challenge." Rob Hopkins, Dec 2010
TRANSITION is a powerful, vibrant & positive vision of a prosperous, happy, flourishing, adaptable, relocalised & sustainable High Wycombe abundant in local jobs, warmth, food and power, where children eat healthily, people have local jobs and our pensioners are warm in winter/cool in summer. A place that is wealthy but needs practically no oil or gas. All the money in the world cannot make this happen. Our quality of life is in our own hands. Imagine a High Street full of local shops run by local people. Imagine every home its own power station. Imagine every pavement a vegetable patch. Inspiring solutions; a new culture of localisation & social enterprise. A future to look forward to..... but it needs change. A transition. This is YOUR Transition.
Transition Town High Wycombe is a grassroots Community action group gently pulling the Town towards its inevitable localised & resilient future. It is a place for people to come together, volunteer, roll up their sleeves and make it happen. It is run by the community - for the community. Are you concerned about fuel bills? Wondering what you should do to secure your family? Need to crowd-fund your local business? Talk to us.
"...no one knows how to do this and that the only way we will be able to figure it out is by having a go. It invites creativity, inventiveness and entrepreneurship. Every initiative will look very different." Rob Hopkins, Oct 2011
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Are you involved in a community project? Want people to know?
24th/25th August 2013 - Sat/Sun at the Zero Carbon Show http://www.zerocarbonshow.co.uk - Thame Showground, Oxfordshire, OX9 3JL FREE admission 9am to 5pm
8th September 2013 - Sunday at Wycombe Harvest in the High Wycombe High Street www.wycombe-harvest.co.uk
In the Winter of 2012/2013 volunteers from Transition Town High Wycombe could be conducting FREE Thermal Imaging Surveys of qualifying homes in High Wycombe. All we need are the volunteers. Apply for your survey now if your household is defined as being "fuel poor", ie, spending more than 10% of its income on heating. But: no volunteers; no surveys!
Are you a Local Hero, a Local Champion? Then we are recuiting for BOTH Local Food and Local Energy Champions:
WANTED: Community Food Champions from Wycombe - Laura Silverstone from Bucks County Council (Recycling Project) is coordinating an initiative to find & train volunteer food champions in the area. Jointly working with Recycle for Buckinghamshire, Love Food Hate Waste and Garden Organic, these volunteers will help to spread the word about local food, food waste, and grow your own at events, schools, festivals, etc. The commitment is 20 hrs for the whole year and you will get two full days of training in March. Also, you will be eligible for a small amount of funding for projects such as a community garden or local food festival, etc. Learn more by clicking here for the web site:
WANTED: Community Energy Champions for Bucks - We are looking for enthusiastic, friendly and approachable volunteers, who are comfortable to speak to people of all ages. You will preferably already be active in your local community or interested in doing more to help local residents. We are looking for members of the community to register their interest by 30 April 2012. To register your interest please use the following link: www.surveymonkey.com/s/BCCEnergyChamps or email
for more information. Also see www.transition-wycombe.org.uk/energy-champions
Interested in Local Food? The Local FOOD Guide has now launched. Want to get your FREE copy or want to be involved in creating the next one? Then please contact Celia Carter (contact E:Mail below).
Want to grow your own but don't have the room? You can now also get involved with our Garden Swap scheme called "Baregardens" which is under new mangement from 2011.
Want to save money on domestic renewable energy? YOU CAN MAKE MONEY FROM THE SUN! We work with suppliers to bring you the best deals for High Wycombe residents. Get a great service, a good choice and save money with us. Click here for more information or download our brochure here. Download our "How to buy Solar" Factsheet here. The "Feed in Tariffs" ("FIT") for renewable energy earn YOU for Photovoltaics - solar panels that generate electricity. This is in addition to the electricity you save and the money you earn from exporting your electricity. Its linked to inflation & is Tax-free. You will earn £hundreds every year for 25 years with payback in 15 years. All the money you earn after that is pure profit. Learn more here. To sign up for your discounts click here. You can E:Mail us to ask questions &/or sign-up by clicking
Interested in retrofitting you home to future standards of warmth and comfort? A post-carbon home generates its own power, its own hot water, its own food, all in a cosy home you can live in - not a science project. One of our two demo homes is in Totteridge (pictured below) and is Britain's 59th Sustainable Energy Academy "Superhome" with just 10% of the carbon footprint after retrofit. YOU can now visit Superhome 59 & Superhome 113 by appointment with TTHW or by going to www.superhomes.org.uk/59 & www.superhomes.org.uk/113. We welcome you to our home. We will be happy to answer any questions and give you a tour. Please also visit the www.post-carbon-living.com for online advice and guidance. It is all there from a ten-step plan for resilience to a review of every book you would ever need to read on the topic.
Download the SuperHome storybook presentation here. If you want us to come to your organisation to talk through the presentation to your group please just contact us.
In 2010 we launched Energy Saving Kits for Loan at the Wycombe central library. We worked with our partners in the Wycombe Strategic Partnership, The Energy Saving Trust, local solar panel installers SolaSave and the Wycombe Library to bring this free service to the town. Go to www.transition-wycombe.org.uk/Library to learn more.
This transition is a civic union between local Civil Society and Local Government. The plan is to promote a community transition to a life without cheap energy and food. Instead of global scarcity we'll be plugging into local abundance. It addresses topics of food, waste, energy, education, youth, money, economics, transport, water, etc. It is a Plan that the Community will build and implement. And if you don't like it - then join in and change it. You can E:Mail us directly by clicking
Phone us on 01494 858390 or write to us at:
TTHW c/o, Krofire House, 5 Richard Gardens, High Wycombe, Bucks HP13 7LT
Alternatively please E:Mail one of the Management Committee Officers listed below:
We always need more self-motivated volunteers. Passionate & driven people who can run projects and apply for grants. Experience with charities or in the commercial sector would be really helpful. You need enthusiasm and a bit of spare time. We would like more bloggers too! Or feel free to donate some money to the cause - whatever you can afford.
Why not donate?
If you are too busy to help then maybe you could help pay for our work? Your money helps our work continue. It can make the post-carbon future happen. We have almost no overheads so the money goes towards projects such as those listed above. Projects are part-funded by grants but we could always do with a little extra help for printing brochures and educational material. We welcome sponsorship and have a number of opportunities connected with Local Food and Local (Renewable) Energy that you or your Company/Employer can get itself associated with.
"[this] is not like an ordinary recession where you lose output and get it back quickly. You may not get it back for many years, if ever, and that is a big long-run loss of living standards for all people in this country." Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, June 2011
Superhome59 was featured amongst three such Superhomes in the Mail on Sunday in late November 2012. You can read the paper-version of this article by clicking on the picture above or read it online at http://bit.ly/TmTn82
Monday 22nd October 2012
BIG Energy Saving Week
In October we joined forces with the Citizens Advice Bureau and USEA to help Eden shoppers reduce their fuel bills. See more pictures of the day on our Facebook page.
Sunday 9th September 2012
Pann Mill Open Day
Billy the solar-powered train made his last outing for the year at the Pann Mill Open Day. Coinciding with the Heritage Open Days weekend this was the last Pann Mill Open Day of the year. On Saturday Superhome59 was open for visitors. Celia joined the Energy Group for the Pann Mill Sunday with her locally-made bread to help publicise the new Food-On-Our-Doorstep website. SolaSave joined us despite hard times in the Solar Industry. The event was busy enough even for them to (maybe) have won new friends and customers. Let us hope so.
Monday 27th August 2012
Wycombe Harvest 2012
The first Wycombe Harvest was generally well received, had a nice 'buzzy' atmosphere & was reasonably well attended. Local Roots did very well and there was a lot of interest in the Food Guide. Many people were very surprised at the number of small food producers that there are in the Wycombe area. TTHW's Local Food Group promoted the new Food On Our Doorstep website vigorously and the remaining paper guides flew off the table. There was a definite impression that the guide was very central to the event.
Wednesday 1st August 2012
Celebrating Local Food
The South Bucks Star printed this article about the Harvest 2012 event in its 1st August edition. The Town Centre Partnership will now permanently become a Business Improvement District and is planning to make this celebration of local food an annual event. Vidya of Local Roots is featured as is Oliver of HWBIDCo. Our only disappointment was that TTHW wasn't mentioned....
Wednesday 1st August 2012
Me & My Motor: Tractor!
We are just loving this South Bucks Star "Me and My Motor" with Will Lacey of Lacey's Family Farm in Lane End. His featured 'motor'? His 2009 John Deere 6330! Let's hope he uses recycled biodiesel from Biofuel Refineries? The Lacey Family Farm is featured in our Food On Our Doorstep local food guide.
Saturday 28th July 2012
Eden Food Festival
Our friends at Local Roots put on a stall outside House of Fraser in July for the Eden Centre's Food Festival. Celia from the TTHW Local Food Group helped out during the morning to raise some funds for the group.
Sunday 15th July 2012
Pann Mill Open Day
Finally - a break in the weather! We had a lovely day at Pann Mill. It threatened to rain but did not. The sun even graced us for large parts of the day as SolaSave joined us. Thanks to them and to Julian who joined us on his electric bicycle. Apart from the Tea & Cakes stall we had the area to ourselves which made it a bit too quiet. However we still spoke to a shed-load of folk about warm homes and solar power. So it was worth it all the same.
Wednesday 11th July 2012
Growthbusters
Out thanks to Population Matters for putting on a film show at the new Wycombe Environment Centre. The film was the most excellent "Growthbusters" and we talk more about it in our Bucks Free Press blog here.
Friday 6th July 2012
A History of the Future
After 10 months gestation Mark's public talk on the "History of High Wycombe 2000 to 2100" was delivered one evening in the Guildhall. To learn more about the talk go see the write up in our Bucks Free Press blog here.
Sunday 1st July 2012
Luvverly-Jubilee - we join the crowds at the Totteridge & Terriers Jubilee Fete
SolaSave-Mark strikes a suitably heroic pose at the Totteridge and Terriers Jubilee Fete on Totteridge Common. The Energy Group joined the Food Group for a double-header all described on our Bucks Free Press blog - the place to read real news!
Saturday 16th June 2012
Battling the elements at the Hamilton School Fete
The Hamilton School Fete this year proved to be a soggy and very windy affair. Read all about it on our Bucks Free Press blog here.
Wednesday 6th June 2012
Yet another Star/Yet another Car!
This looks like it will be our third and final "Me and My (eco-)Motor" entry in the South Bucks Star. This time it was Ivan turn and his "predatory" Prius. Click on the picture above to read about his trip around Croatia and what was so memorable about it. Well done Ivan.
Wednesday 16th May 2012
Another Star/Another Car!
For the second month in a row one of our members has appeared in the South Bucks Star with a low-carbon-car. This time it was Mark Brown's turn with his LPG-powered Toyota Aygo. Click on the photo to read the interview. You can read Mark's Blog about this work in the Bucks Free Press web site here.
Sunday 13th May 2012
Pann Mill on the Rye, oh my
We have written up our experiences of the first Pann Mill show of the season in our Bucks Free Press Blog. You can read it here.
Wednesday 11th April 2012
Spencer & William: Stars in their super car!
The South Bucks Star has published an article about one of our members in its "Me and My Motor" section. The article covers the LPG-powered Toyota Prius driven by Spencer Nash. You can read the article by clicking on the above picture. Several members came forward in early 2012 in response to a plea from the Energy Group Coordinator to submit their tales of alternatively-fuelled vehicles to the Bucks Free Press. Spencer bought the car from Abrar Hussain owner of Neales Taxis and Auto Clinics in Great Kingshill. Abrar's team have converted many Prius's for his Taxi firm and they are now a very common sight around Wycombe. Few know they are autogas-powered and even fewer know that it is quite an achievement because you are not meant to be able to convert the Prius to LPG.....
Monday 26th March 2012
Local Roots opens in High Wycombe
The eagerly-awaited and crowd-funded local food, deli & cafe opened in High Wycombe in March. "Local Roots" is owned and managed by Vidya Crawley - a local entrepeneur and leading light in our Local Food Group. Vidya's intention was for the new deli to become a hub for the local community to connect with local food and the local economy.
The local Bucks Free Press has given us a much deserved helping hand in appealing for volunteers this winter. We need more team to form and help with the FREE Thermal Imaging Surveys. So in the January 4th edition of the South Bucks Star ran our Press Release. You can read the online article here or see our scanned hardcopy here. From 6th Jan you should also be able to see our posters in the Hen & Chickens shopfront window in Frogmoore (temporarily used by the Wycombe Environment Centre) as well as on the plasma screens in the central Library.
"Daddy what did you do to stop global warming" artwork from the book "Acme Climate Action" (reproduced on this website with the kind permission of Provokateur) - published by 4th Estate, £15.00. To learn more go to www.acmeclimateaction.com.
Use of old photo's showing wartime Mosquito manufacture courtesy of the High Wycombe Museum.
Use of Polyp Cartoons throughout this web site with kind permission of Polyp.org.uk
