Climate Café Notes for 11th and 13th April 2023

Edd Hiden – New Scottish Crannog centre - includes an Iron Age village,3  Crannogs, a new museum and future plans for coppicing and forest food gardens at the site of Dalerb on the North side of Loch Tay. This site was purchased in 2021 through a Community Asset Transfer.


They are starting an extensive volunteering program soon in regard to the building of their Iron Age Village. This will be using traditional methods and materials and they would like as many volunteers of all ages to be involved in this process as possible therefore they are running a volunteer drive to promote the new centre but also what will be available on site. If you would like to volunteer contact Rich Hiden at [email protected] with a brief bio including your interests, experience, and telephone number. No experience is needed.


Insulate Pitlochry - The Energy Stall was back in the Coop on Saturday 15th April 10am to 2pm with volunteers from both Climate Cafe and Pitlochry Community Action Trust (PCAT) Environment & Sustainability (E & S) Group assisting Martin and acting as information gatherers again. It was decided from this stall that we should try a stall during the week as there were many visitors who past but didnt stop. During the week there would be moe chance of interacting with local residents. Martin organised 6 home visits from this event too.


Energy Fair PCAT E & S group are also planning an Energy Fair on Saturday 2nd September again with Climate Café and the Heat Project. If you would like to help, please get in touch soon.


Recyclosaurus Workshops – Drew Scott led this children’s upcycling event, Recyclosaurus on Saturday 15th April and everyone really enjoyed themselves so planning to offer some more in the future so look out for them.


Earth Day – PKC organised an Earth Day Market at the Civic Hall in Perth. They invited local sustainable businesses and groups to take part and promote their work by hosting a stall. Locally, Climate Cafes, Wasted Degrees, Pitlochry Garden Share, local Repair Cafes, Tayside Biodiversity Partnership and The Heat Project to name a few were there.


Regional Hubs- There followed a meeting about the setting up regional climate action hubs as part of the Scottish Government’s work on climate change engagement. Hubs will work to: build awareness of the climate emergency and actions local groups can take, develop local plans, help groups take up funding opportunities, facilitate networking, ensure a more joined-up approach to tackling climate change at a regional level.
There are already two regional hubs in existence, the Highlands and Islands Climate Hub, (covering the Highlands, Orkney and Shetland) and the NESCAN Hub (covering Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire) Both were set up in 2021.
It would be good to have a discussion at our next Climate Café about this to get everyone’s views on this as we have an option of either being part of a new Tayside wide Hub or due to the existing and growing network Perth and Kinross already have in place through the Climate Cafes and other environmental groups either collaborating or working along-side each other or there could be a separate P & K Hub.    
Sprout & Burnside Toilets Update. Thank you to everyone who has become a member of Sprout, our new community environmental organisation. We now have 76 members and at least 20 letters of support.
The closing date for all offers for the toilets was Thursday 20th April. We know of at least one commercial offer has been made alongside our Community Asset Transfer Application. I have asked about the process from herein and they have told me our offer will now be assessed under a scoring matrix along with all the other offers received. I do not have any idea of time scales as PKC have never had a sale like this before. The site includes the building as well as the green space to the boundary of the stone wall. PKC are still happy to accept letters of support for our project so if you would like to send one in please send it to James Gardner at  [email protected] 


Or if you would like to register a yes/no vote in favour of these plans please go to the Sprout Poll
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WR0-FjWuh1QAtGRgaPUFJ1kXd-yVfH5rakx3gNcP78s/edit


Or if you would like to become a member here is the form. Sprout Membership Form -  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xTDVghaZoSDieGuCE5hIHGK_cfLUmHGbnNLnFk4PDjA/edit


Our plan is to include a multi- use space, a workshop space, some publicly accessible toilets, possibly a shower and washing machine too. If planning allows, we would add a second floor to the ladies toilet side (as it would be on level with the Mens Shed building) for a Reuse Shop. The Multi use space would be used for information space, Repair Cafes, swap shops etc. 
Having this building and site for a community & social eco hub would create an area of businesses and community organisations along with Handam, Mens shed, the 3 charity shops and an outdoor space for workshops and social events etc whose main focus would be providing services to help people's mental health and wellbeing and to live more sustainably. There is also a growing number of sustainable businesses in the area too.


I would also like to clarify something from last month’s emails in regard to Sprout as an Umbrella Group for all things sustainable in Pitlochry. I mentioned a few examples of groups that had been spoken about in the Climate Cafés. It was not until I looked back over my email, I realised I had inadvertently suggested that the Pitlochry Garden Share was under the umbrella of Sprout too, which it is not, so I apologise to everyone who thought that was what I meant.  


Biodiversity Town Catherine Lloyd – Tayside Biodiversity Partnership is currently liaising with PKC staff to see how they are placed in helping with a series of community mapping sessions. The session will likely be in June or early July now. Some people from the Pitlochry Community Action Trust E & S group are interested too.


Climate Week and or Tattie Bogle Trail October – Drew Scott is interested in helping with this event this year so looking to see if anyone else would like to be involved?


Guided tour Martin Mathers is doing a guided walk in Black Spout Woods on Sunday 7th May at 11am, through the Tayside Woodlands Partnership. Meet up in the bottom car park and dogs are welcome.


Pitlochry Community Action Trust (PCAT) E & S group. The next meeting is on Thursday 18th May 7pm in the Library, and we will be chatting to Neil Barnes from Linlith-go-solar about their community energy project. https://trust-linlithgow.org.uk/projects/linlithgosolar/ Everyone is welcome.


Next Climate Cafes are Tuesday 9th May 1pm and Thursday 11th May 7pm in the Pitlochry Library. Everyone is welcome.


Climate Reality Presentation. Jess Pepper will be coming along to our Climate Cafes in June, Tuesday 6th and Thursday 8th to give us an updated presentation on the issues and solutions in regard to the Climate Crisis. Everyone is welcome.