It's Tree Time

Hedge planting: Sunday 10 November, 2pm, Jubilee Wood.

November heralds the planting season for trees. It’s the perfect time to plant them; when they’re dormant, they will establish more successfully than during their active growing phase in the summer.

If you go down to the Jubilee Wood today, you’ll see 100 apple trees that weren’t there last week, planted as part of the Growing Together project.

Now, the Woodland Trust has given Transition Town Whitehead 420 little saplings of half a dozen different species suitable for making up a hedge – hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, silver birch, rowan and oak. We will use these to fill in a few of the gaps in the hedgerows of Jubilee Wood.

Hedges are vital elements in creating the rich and varied habitat we want to see in the Jubilee Wood. They provide food and shelter for many species of birds, like bullfinches and linnets, small mammals and butterflies.

Thick hedges with wide bases providing plenty of cover are best, with a mix of species that flower at different times to offer nectar over a longer period and support more insects.

The Jubilee hedgerows have been neglected for many years but now we have an opportunity to bring them back to vibrant life. This first – and extremely modest – intervention will start the ball rolling.

The next phase will be to find a few people who would be interested in learning the traditional art of hedge-laying. This valuable skill fosters the rejuvenation of existing hedgerows, improving their structure and bringing them under control. Carrickfergus Council will provide funding, under its Hedgerow Hopes scheme, for a few of us to undertake the necessary training.

But, for now, we need a team of volunteers to join us next Sunday afternoon, 10 November, at 2pm in the Jubilee Wood. The hedge we’ll be fixing is at the side of the path, between Commonwealth Avenue and the pond. Bring a spade if you can.

Who feeds Whitehead?

One of the few things that each of us really needs is food.

For some people, food is a marginal concern, merely fuel to stay alive. For others, it's an all consuming passion. Most of us are somewhere in between those two extremes. But wherever you lie on the spectrum of food interest, it's something you have to think about. We'd like to find out a bit more about how you feel about food, what you eat and where you buy it.

Transition Town Whitehead is planning some future projects on food, which may include activities to encourage more provision for growing food, such as allotments; cookery demonstrations and classes on basic cooking skills; setting up short supply systems to promote the easy availability of locally-produced food. 

We are also considering the possibility of applying for external funding. Before we do that, however, we need to find out if there is any level of support for such initiatives. We've compiled a simple survey - only 10 questions - designed to get some idea of what people in Whitehead think and to see who might be interested in helping with future food projects.

Please take a few minutes to contribute to this survey.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Free Energy-Saving Kit for Whitehead 

Thanks to Transition Town Whitehead, our Community Centre has become the latest building in town to have the benefits of solar hot water. 

Following our completion of the Big Energy Savings Challenge, we were awarded £7500 by Power NI, to be used for the benefit of our local community. We decided to fund this installation, along with new double-glazing and internal light sensors for the building - all designed to save energy and money for the Community Centre.

You may have noticed the new equipment, perfectly positioned for maximum effect on its south-facing roof, just above the main entrance. It’s a Kingspan system, designed specifically for the weather conditions we get in Northern Ireland.

Solar hot water systems work by using the sun’s radiation to heat fluid inside the vacuum tubes of the roof-mounted collector; the heated fluid gets transferred to a large insulated hot water tank. It can provide around half of the annual hot water requirements of the centre and, in the summer months, could produce all that it needs. 

There are already quite a few houses in Whitehead using these systems. They certainly represent the best application for active solar heating in our climate; in years to come they are likely to become as common in new homes as double-glazing is today.

And now for you, too

Meanwhile, Transition Town Whitehead has a supply of smaller energy-saving devices to give away to Whitehead residents. Again, thanks to Power NI, we have a range of equipment that will help you to insulate your home, save energy and reduce your heating bills. 

The following items are available now:

• Radiator Reflectors: by fixing these sheets to the wall behind your radiators, the heat is bounced back into your room rather than heating up the wall and the street outside.
• Door & Window Draught Excluders: these reduce the chilling effect of winter winds that leak in through loose fitting doors and windows, particularly useful for the many older properties around Whitehead.
• Chimney Pillows: if you’ve got a fireplace that is no longer in use, these inflatable urethane balloons can be used to block the chimney to stop warm air leaving the room and preventing draughts.
• Rundown Timer plugs: this plug will switch off an appliance after 30 minutes, perfect for irons, hair straighteners and the like, which sometimes get left on accidentally. 
• Standby Saver Multi-Sockets: this equipment allows you to switch off your TV, DVD and the other appliances that are nowadays connected with a single remote control device.
• Hot Water Tank Covers: insulating jackets to conserve the heat in your tank, saving energy and money.
• Low-energy lightbulbs: a selection of bayonet and two-prong (halogen-type) bulbs.

We’ve already distributed lots of this equipment but limited numbers of all these items are still available - free to Whitehead residents. If you want any of them, please contact us at transitionwhitehead@me.com to request your chosen item.