This workshop is to provide information, raise awareness, and demonstrate to the people of Ballymena that by working together, as one, they can succeed in Living ASAP [As Sustainably As Possible]

Presentations on Living ASAP will be given by DOEni, Ballymena BC and Patton.

Lunch will be prepared by Braid Centre in-house catering team who have accepted the ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ challenge and will prepare an ASAP meal.

After lunch smaller groups from business, community, council and schools will be facilitated by Jim Kitchen to decide how they will help each other to work collectively as a community, to Live ASAP and promote Ballymena as a Centre of Excellence. Jim is currently working for the Soil Association, previously the NI Director of the Sustainable Development Commission, he also established and developed the NI office of WWF.

There is no charge for this event.

PURPOSES:
To raise awareness of environmental issues amongst Ballymena communities principally waste reduction, and energy
To increase the amount of recycling in Ballymena area
To empower communities in transition to living As Sustainably As Possible
To facilitate networking and promote sharing of information and experience amongst Ballymena’s NGOs, clustered Community Groups and businesses
OUTCOME:
Develop partnerships to support local community in Living ASAP

Ballymena ASAP As Sustainably As Possible Workshop – Monday 30th January 11.00-16.00 BRAID CENTRE- Theatre
Baglady Productions email: iris@bagladyproductions.org Tel:07803020479
PROGRAMME
11.00 Registration, Fair Trade Coffee and Tea [saw music by Diane Wilson]
11.30 Introduction and Welcome – Mayor of Ballymena. Message from Baglady in Blue Mountains Australia.
11.45 Laughter warm up with Jacky Ingram!
12.00 Owen Lyttle, Environment Policy Department, Department for the Environment NI
12.15 Clive Kyle, Assistant Director, Development, Leisure & Culture Services. Property maintenance, Energy & Licensing Section, Ballymena Borough Council
12.30 Liam McEvoy, Environment and Waste Manager, Patton
12.45 Ian Garner WRAP – funding support from community
During lunch showing an information tables available
13.00 Lunch – ‘Love Food Hate Waste’ challenge to Braid in-house catering team [music by Willie Drennan]
13.45 Workshop – facilitated by Jim Kitchen of Transition Town Whitehead and Soil Association – ‘Developing partnerships, empowering communities in Sustainable actions’
14.45 Networking Fair Trade Tea and Coffee
15.15 Conclusion and summary from tables
15.45 Close

REGISTRATION FORM
email rachael@bagladyproductions.org to receive a form ready to complete and return!
     
‘Developing partnerships, empowering communities in Sustainable actions’ Workshop – 13.45-15.15 facilitating maximum 30 participants

Attendees are asked to submit a short description suggesting how the organisation they represent proposes working towards Living ASAP.
contact Rachael for further information or to discuss tel:02891878997; email rachael@bagladyproductions.org

FORMS RETURNED BY 23RD JANUARY 4PM WILL BE ENTERED INTO PRIZE DRAW TO RECEIVE A WORMERY COMPOST SYSTEM
Postal forms can be requested in writing from :
Iris Cody
Baglady Productions
29 Russell Manor, Ballyclare, BT39 9YR
Or email: rachael@bagladyproductions.org ; or Phone: 07803020479

There is no charge for this event.

Braid Event Invite - 30 January

The sound of KIDS voices: schools from across NI and all Ireland – shouting YEA!!! [with ECO-UNESCO, Eco-Schools etc]] will echo across the land…

green lights from papers in Armagh, Ballymena, Omagh, Strabane, Newry, Ballycastle, Limavady and many others. Not one paper has said NO, yet; and some want Weekly blogs from Baglady aboard ship.

Coleraine, Ballymoney editors are wanting a strong local link, of course, and that’s what with all of us working together we can provide!! ie schools, councils, MPs MEPs MLAs, shops businesses, community groups… and the GOOD celebs… all sharing the skills and energy we’re all going to need around the world to get us out of the big mess we’ve somehow got into. need churches to support now, too

What this means is, if you or your friends/family read say the Strabane Weekly News [talking to Anna Maguire today] you can find out what Strabane’s doing ASAP; then you can add your bit… and inspire others around the country, around the world…

>>>>>>>

On the Oxford Tube luxury, supercheap coach to London, passing near to High Wycombe, Bucks where Baglady [1959-63] had a scholarship to a posh English boarding school called Wycombe Abbey. Sister school to Princess Anne’s school, Benenden. It killed me Ballymena accent but it didn’t kill my spirit and I learned a lot about what keeps the class system in place. Time to move on. Next: Nick Clegg and Baglady…

BBC Radio Ulster's John Toal last interview with Baglady

Tuesay Nov 11 at 10am she’s on BBC Woman’s Hour, with WRAP head Liz Goodwin and British Retail Consortium’s Bob Gordon. WHY can’t we recycle plastic??

meanwhile Baglady’s off to Shop ASAP in and around Ballymena on Thursday, piks, film and report to follow…

latest MP pledgers: Michelle Gildernew and Paul Maskey; we’ve got half the NI Assembly pledged now, thanks for your leadership all MLAs, MPs, MEPs, TDs… Northern Ireland [hey] leads the world….

my dear old journo friend Wendy [Oxford] says NI’s getting a reputation for ecology-consciousness!

beaming on, Baglady

Visits this week to Dungannon Integrated College – where Baglady will talk with 3 Year 10 classes about their take on Climate Change and what to do about it. Also meeting Mayor and others from Dungannon Council. Our 2007 Dungannon NEEDabag film is on this website and Youtube.

Reports next blog on this, and our Thursday Ballymena meeting: Excellent Ballymena ASAP, hosted by Ballymena Mayor Hubert Nicholl at the ECOS Centre. 2pm.

Look out also for our ASAP map and details of how to TASAP - Travel ASAP with Baglady, friends and family….

As you go in the front door at Larne Borough Council, guess what you see?

This is just like Baglady’s Leiterdorp. It shows how much solar energy I/we are generating at any moment of the day, how much energy we’ve created for the general grid and our own use, and how much carbon dioxide we’ve NOT created. Bloomin wonderful.

Well done Larne.

And well done Omagh. The Salad Bowl features as the first sustainable shop in our new SASAP series [Shop As Sustainably as Possible with Baglady Friends & Family, around Northern Ireland, around the world. Check youtube, and let us know where YOU shop ASAP. A vital part of Living ASAP.

GOOD news about the BBC. On October 29th, days before her departure from Antwerp, sailing for Australia via the oceans of the world, Baglady will be on air with John Toal on Radio Ulster’s Saturday Live

is anyone out there listening? cos I’ve got lots of GOOD news to share…. [says me, Baglady]

I was always told when I was training as a journalist, that GOOD news is not news, that the only good news is BAD news

and I have news! for you brothers, sisters

BAD news has had its day: we are over it. [I even know journalists who are, over it]

it’s time for us ALL/S to get together and save this world for and with our children. Anybody out there?

my message is floating towards you in a bottle, from the high seas of the world [or will be in a couple on months]

and if YOU see that bottle… and you don’t reach over, pick it out of the water, open it, read the message and SHOUT the GOOD news to the world, the danger is, the bottle could drift away into the wide ocean, and no one ever find it……

which would be the greatest tragedy, ever…

so keep watching this space
and get ready to leap
on board Baglady’s Ark…. calling at your nearest port and harbour in the next few weeks and months….

we’ve got good news emerging as we speak which will bring together the fine excellent people of Armagh, Ballymena, Coleraine, Derry, Edinburgh, Fermanagh, Lisboa, Vence, Vancouver, Ballyeamon, Ahoghill, Labibela and of course ‘Australia’… and so the list goes on… avec Michelin de Ballymena, JTI, Wrightbus, Harryville Primary School, the Guardian and the Times; oh yeah and the DoENI…. and Translink. And Nigel the Devine.

PS the latest to join us are Moyle, smallest [and most beautiful?] council in the country, folks.. + Larne, Ballymoney, Limavady... there’s a whole lot already on board and we’re working through the list, so we can tell you who they are and what they’re doing…. WATCH this space and look out for bottles.

and the MOST amazing news of all: I can’t believe it!!! Northern Ireland is getting cleaner. I’ve got pictures. Why? Because wise people are starting to bend the knee and pick up. And other wise people are stopping dropping; and feeling good about it, telling their friends. If you’ve got pictures: send them to us ASAP. And NIEA, and Tidy Northern Ireland. Pledge ASAP and pass on in any way you can…… best beams, Baglady

hurray!!! says Baglady, who wouldn’t exist in cyberspace without him.

*** also, thanks to amazing Nicola Lyons who’s now with Northern Ireland Screen, after single-handedly lifting our MLA pledge numbers to the high 40s – not far off half the Assembly

*** we also have a wonderful pledge from a Bangor Mum-to-be about using natural nappies. Thank goodness someone cares.

… and praise to Julie Hannaway of Derry City Council, who’s been working hard with Altnagelvin Hospital on the real nappy issue for a year or 2 now. Baglady will see Julie soon when she picks up the ASAP pledge from the new Mayor. and check out the nappy scene… pooooooh….

Baglady, friends and family are receiving wonderful promises from people in positions of power and influence all over NI and way beyond. One of them is Mehary Girma, from Lalibela.

As someone said in the NOW show on radio 4 tonight, it’s time for us all to speak out. At long bloomin last. I’ll be listening to the repeat, tomorrow 12.30pm…

Best beams, Baglady

… but I have to share the good news that 2 more Assembly Ministers have taken the time to Pledge ASAP: Martin McGuinness and John O’Dowd. I’ll have to go back and count how many that is now, we’re well on the way to getting half MLAs pledged [54]

With the response from businesses, councils and schools and a lot of talented people, things should leap forward again after the July holidays..

I also want to thank 2 old school friends, Sally Marsh née Craig, and Maureen Toner née McKinney, for pledging. We’ve all known each other for over 60 years!

We’re gathering a great message to send out to the world, and as I write, I’m thinking about really getting to the nitty gritty of Living, and Leaving ASAP in the film we’re working on. I’ve got to put it all together like a jigsaw, so everyone can see what we’ve got to do, and how; who’s doing what, who can help and so on.

We’ve got VERY special news now to share with the world. A big solid group of elected politicians have dared to do something a lot of their voters haven’t got round to yet; drop a habit or 2, pick up a good one or 2…