Alec John Moore

Hi, happy to help with this where I can. I've just posted my shovel on Streetbank.com Have a look and see if you think it would help with this idea. I'm also wondering if a combination of text and twitter could be used to alert volunteers to the needs of people who could use some help and for those wanting a bit of assistance to ask for it. I'm thinking mobile phones since they are the comms devices that are closest to us, literally and metaphorically in some cases. It would mean sharing your number and being willing to respond to a request/ask for help according to the needs and availability discussed earlier. I see that I can create groups on my Blackberry so that would seem to be an easy way to organise the EDEG contacts. I know that facility won't necessarily be available on all phones. I'm not technologically literate enough to think all of this through but it strikes me it might be an easy way to start getting people in touch.

I take your point to an extent, DJKQ, but I reckon if you were able to delve deep enough and if you drew your parameters widely enough, you would find plenty of diversity in the identities of those who live in "the provinces". I reckon the "I grew up on a housing estate" doesn't have the same resonance now when we think of ourselves in relation to many other aspects of identity.

I wonder how you can be responsible fro your background as an individual since it is what you are born into and what some of us moved away from or came from or were formed in, depending on your experience and perspective. I remember being quite bewildered when at poly in the eighties meeting others who were disappointed at not getting into university. They saw poly as second best whereas I was there to do the course I wanted to and it transformed my life, allowing me to fulfil my potential.

Any idea if the 363 is running to Crystal Palace?

Kingsdale open. Any info on 363?

just seen couple of 12s coming down Barry Road.

. . . . it is now!

We refer to it as the analogue version of Freecycle.

Also this one a bit further down the list. http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?20,577686,578349#msg-578349

Mockney Piers wrote: "What happened to that solar farm in the sahara, sounded cool to me." The last I heard was that they are planning or installing cables that will bring the electricity to Europe. There's also a Desertec (the company or consortium behind the intitiative) plant making use of solar energy in the Australian desert. But, solar's only part of it. Some with serious reservations (whatever their basis) about nuclear may have to accept it as part of the integrated approach required to energy production as the oil and gas run out. Reducing consumption has always made sense to me because I see profligacy as misguided given we have finite resources.

I use a breadmaker so that we have fresh bread each morning for packed lunches. With the left over chunks of loaf I sometimes make bread and butter pudding. We got quite a few cooking apples this year from neighbours so we've been making Eve's pudding and apple crumble. I also like to experiment with soup. One of my favourites is from Linda Mcartney's book which has loads of good recipes. Parsnip and butter bean soup is delicious and quite seasonal. I've found that the best way to cook wholegrain rice is to put some in a version of veggie minestrone along with chopped toms, pulses, pasta etc. Can't wait for lunch.

Hi shell_8, if your neighbours aren't interested then maybe someone would be interested in using it as a plot for growing vegetables and fruit. Perhaps even flowers for your lovely home. A few groups on the forum spring to mind: Dulwich Vegan and Veggie Society, Dulwich Going Greener and East Dulwich Orchard collective. Access would be an issue but if an acceptable arrangement could be made then it could be a win/win situation. Alec

You touch on some interesting points, Tarot. The Tsunami is an exceptional case and I hope we never see something on that scale again. There were many "wrong" decisions, in my view, in sending money in rsponse to a massive natural disaster that touched the lives of millions, many of whom were "us" - relatives of the victims who live in the UK and British citizens who were on holiday or lived in the affected region. The Big Lottery Fund, for example, decided to allocate millions of pounds to Tsunami projects despite the massive amounts that governments and individuals had donated. Why? Because the disaster affected people in a fundamental way. It wasn't necessary to allocate those funds and NGOs had difficulties spending the money appropriately. But, you can't regulate closely people's motivations or, in a free society, how they act on their feelings. That's one of the interesting things about Andrew Mitchell's speech, the moral justification for aid is equal with the more practical national interest justification. You also point to the differences in wealth in some countries. This is true of the UK where we continue to have a homelessness problem, for instance. The picture is complex and not bound by national boundaries. Although it is difficult to get an accurate figure for it but DFID's estimate of the remittances (funds sent by people working in the UK to their families in developing countries) that the UK sends is ?2.3bn. To some extent we have the opportunity to address some of the issues you mention such as child labour etc by learning about how the choices we make - around what we consume - can affect the lives of people on the other side of the planet who are also our brothers and sisters.

I've just completed the survey and have a different view. I'm fairly familiar with the types of questions asked since I work a bit on water projects in dveloping countries. I'm a bit of a convert I suppose but there are few things more important that access to water, even in the UK. I hope others will persevere. I will send the link to friends and colleagues since it helps to have as many responses as possible. And, I donlt assume that all my contacts will be as converted as I am.

Ha! That must have irritated some people.

Perhaps my hearing is going or I should turn the volume up on the radio but twice in the last couple of days I've heard things on radio 4 differently from what was actually said. On Sunday morning it seemed that the "outrageous affairs correspondent" would report on the pope's statement regarding male prostitutes and condom use. And then this morning it appears that "The Taliban" would be instituting a complete review of the Labour Party's policies. What was actually said?

my old nokia gets charged on my BB charger. I may have a spare nokia charger if you'd like me to hunt around for it.

Traffic snarl ups at E&C certainly affect the timeliness of my entry into ED. There's a couple of Salvation Army buildings at Elephant, too.

This is very worrying for our community cultural resources. The Horniman is an excellent and much-loved institution which generations of families have enjoyed. On funding, I don't want to be a scaremonger but there is already extreme pressure on trusts which give grants to chaitable organisations. This from a Directory of Social Change report: The top 2,500 grant-making trusts made grants worth ?2.4 billion in 2008/9. Overall, 983,753 applications were made. Trusts made 316,762 awards. Would you go to the Horniman so often if had to pay to get in to the museum's main collections and not just the temporary exhibitions?

DFID has recently appointed soemeone to head the newly established ICAI - Independent Commission for Aid Impact - "which will function completely separately from DfID and will use a 'traffic light system' to rate aid program effectiveness and undertake around 20 major evaluations, reviews and investigations per year." There is also UKAN, a network of UK NGOs which lobbies for more and better aid: http://www.ukan.org.uk/index.php?id=6 I don't have the willpower to wade through the aid statistics to form a view on the extent to which UK aid is untied.

It is taking a long time, isn't it? However, I'm afraid it's just a major refurbishment. It's possible the roadworks may be coincidental or that the work to the buildings require ammendments to services etc.

On the unting of aid, this, and other items on the effectiveness agenda, is covered by The Paris Declaration and Accra Agenda for Action: http://www.oecd.org/document/18/0,3343,en_2649_3236398_35401554_1_1_1_1,00.html Specifically: "Untying ? donors will relax restrictions that prevent developing countries from buying the goods and services they need from whomever and wherever they can get the best quality at the lowest price."

On targeting of funding, the overriding objectives for DFID (and, as far as DFID funding goes, the charities/NGOs they fund) remain the Millenium Development Goals. Under the new government the off-track MDGs, particularly those that have indicators related to the needs of women and within that, maternal health. Interestingly, with regard to the national interest "pillar", most of the countries which are unlikely to meet their MDG targets are failing or fragile states in sub-Saharan Africa. The MDGs are a bit problematic in my view since they can contribute to distortions in development trajectories. For instance, Kenya and some other African countries introduced free primary education a few years ago with the result that enrolment increased dramatically. However, the class size increased and the school infrastructure was not put in place to maintain a quality output in terms of educational attainment. Although education is free - there are no school fees - families still have to provide food, books, uniforms and transport for their children to attend. One of the unintended consequences, perhaps, is that the private sector in education has grown. A related concern within the NGO sector in the UK is that DFID may reduce its commitment to the rights-based approach to development in favour of service delivery, certainly where the funding of NGOs is concerned. Alongside all of this can be heard DFID's value for money mantra which is expected to bring greater accountability, I think, and fend off the concerns of tax-payers that funds aren't going to line the pockets of warlords in Somalia or civil servants in Kenya.

Well, I'm certainly "green" in that I can't spot a troll when I read one. But, thanks for the link to the Daily Mail article. I'll respond to that later.

I could say that India has a Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, most of the NGOs that have been set up in China over the last few years are environment organisations and under President Obama the US government has taken a more positive attitude towards international agreements on climate change but I don't think that would be of interest to dv1. We are all human and we only have one planet and some of us feel that we have to do something to mitigate the effects of climate change. Personally I also think its wasteful not to reuse things.