Kapiti TT has a great afternoon of discussion on food growing

I arrived an hour late for this three hour event. I found them all in groups, organised through an open space system. It wasn't long before I had started a discussion on a local currency for Kapiti, proposing a time unit as the unit, perhaps a quarter of an hour. I ended up with three more people in our currency group and when it gets to six we may be able to start, using the community-exchange.org website and software. One woman bought a book of mine Healthy Money Healthy Planet so that was good. A lot of people seem to have read it round here.

When groups reported back people started to get excited. The first group spoke of their garden groups and how they would extend the scheme. One group was proposing a cooperative which had a permanent nine to five market, employees paid in time and hopefully the council footing the bill for the rent. Another wanted a coop for a coolstore. One young guy, much travelled, was telling us that he is converting his sinkerator cheaply and is diverting the chewed up organic material into the garden. Looks like a prospect for a business.

Then Councillor Peter Daniels was telling us how he was researching the planting of fruit trees on council land. He advocated Monty's Surprise apple as it had good proven health properties, in fact it was so healthy that Good Health Wanganui had given away 1000 to households this year. He also recommended a plum and was keen to find more heritage fruit trees and organise some propogation of them.

I was just so impressed with the positivity of everyone. Nobody said "Oh we can't do that it has been tried before and it doesn't work". People are so enthusiastic. If one is making a chicken tractor everyone wants to know.

It sure is a tonic to go to a transition town meeting...