Design Forum Launches Training Event

The South West Design Forum has launched a series of training days for designers hosted across the South West region.
Entitled Design Train 09, the workshops are being supported and subsidised by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The workshops cover several subjects including Project Management, Digital Imaging, Leadership and Management, Sustainable Design and Service Design and will be delivered in Bournemouth, Bath, Falmouth, Bristol and Taunton.
For Further Information go to: http://www.swdf.co.uk/DesignTrain

"Radical Rent-a-Bikes Generate Eco-Friendly Energy"

"Designer Chiyu Chen has conceived of an ingenious transit system that encourages the use of sustainable transportation by crediting people for renting and riding bicycles. His Hybrid2 system consists of a fleet of rentable bicycles that are capable of generating and storing kinetic energy, which is then used to power the city’s hybrid electric buses. Simply rent a bike, charge it up with kinetic energy from pedal power, and then return it to a kiosk - the station feeds energy into the city’s smart grid, and you receive a credit towards your next bus pass!"

What a Great Idea!

Do You Want to Eradicate Poverty?

Christian Aid have had a great little video made as an introduction to their 'Poverty Over' website and evokes Nexus Productions' renowned animated title sequence for Steven Speilberg's 'Catch Me if You Can' from 2002. You can view the video here.

'Field of Light' by Bruce Munro

Late last year, renowned light sculptor Bruce Munro and his team descended on the Eden Project in Bodelva to create a truly inspiring sight for visitors to see. Entitled 'Field of Light' the piece contained 6,000 acrylic 'stems' capped with glass spheres and used 24,000 metres of fibre optic cable.
“I think Field of Light looks fantastic at the Eden Project” said Munro “ I’m always slightly nervous before we’ve installed a piece, in case somehow it doesn’t work in the location. But I’m really happy at how it’s worked out.”

Place Based Learning Website Goes Live

Place Based Learning, an initiative funded by the Carnegie UK Trust “encourages teachers and students to use the school site, the local community, and special places nearby as resources, turning communities into classrooms.”
This fantastic project being pioneered in Cornwall by Will Coleman; is designed to open up the endless exciting opportunities available to teachers and educational professionals just outside the classroom that will give children the feeling of place and membership of a community that is so lacking from recent educational approaches.

Green Awards Go with Park Lane Press

Park Lane Press in Wiltshire have been chosen by the Green Awards 2009 as their printing sponsor. In this role Park Lane will print all the promotional material for the awards and is said by the company to be a celebration of ten years of waterless printing.
The company is also celebrating a highly successful year with their own awards with four major environmental awards being won by this already highly regarded press.
Like Leap, Park Lane Press are ISO-14001 accredited and back in June was awarded the Best SME Award at the second annual ISO-14001 Awards hosted by the British Standards Institution.
Park Lane’s waterless printing process saves a huge amount of water (obviously), but also energy and solvents, especially isopropyl alcohol (IPA). In ten years Park Lane has saved 58,700 litres of IPA solvent and over 7,300,000 litres of water.
Philip Sudwell, Managing Director of Park Lane Press said: “I would urge all businesses to see green not as a compromise in quality or an additional cost but the complete opposite. It’s what our customers demand and we have proved it is possible to place green issues at the heart of a successful business without jeopardising product quality or our bottom line.” Here here to that!

Leap has Pledged... Will You?

"Truro Cathedral is behind a campaign to get Cornwall's voice heard at the next Climate Summit due to take place in Copenhagen in December. An open meeting has been convened at the Cathedral on Friday 9th October at 7.30pm in order that the voice of the ordinary people of Cornwall can be heard. Please tell as many people as you can about this event, there will be guest speakers and a chance to view the supporting exhibition."

A Cornish Declaration has been drafted that states:

We the people of Cornwall and our visitors, pledge to ensure that our families and our communities will survive to freely enjoy the bounty and beauty of Cornwall

We pledge:

• to strive to restore the balance between nature and society
• to strive to lead sustainable lives
• to strive to leave positive footprints on the path to Copenhagen and into the future

We want Cornwall to be part of a planet which lives within its means.

At Copenhagen in December 2009 we want the Prime Minister and his Ministers to forge an agreement amongst all nations to keep the increase in temperature of this planet to below 2 degrees C.
Please goto: http://www.trurocathedral.org.uk/hot-topics/hot-topics.php to sign the pledge.

Waterslide!

Here's something that Matt found the other week...

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Last Night at Transition

Last night's Transition St Austell meeting was the first that Katy and I have attended. It was a film night showing Leonardo DiCaprio's The 11th Hour with a discussion to follow. Although not highly attended, we had a in depth discussion afterwards about the issues raised and how they might affect our town. The next meeting is due to be a seminar about renewable energy in the middle of September.

Leap Gains Ethical Accrediation

Last week we received word that we have finally gained our ethical accreditation from the ethical company organisation. In their own words: “The Ethical Company Organisation is working for animal welfare, human rights and the environment by providing clear information on companies for ethical shoppers.” Their website, where you can find out all about their accreditation scheme and The Good Shopping Guide (their annual summary of all their research), can be found at: http://www.ethical-company-organisation.org/
Keep an eye out for the logo on our emails in the near future...