The Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN) held its Annual Gathering 9.30-4.30 on Saturday 4 February 2017 in David Hume Tower, George Sq, Edinburgh EH8 9JX.

It was a day packed with inspirational talks and workshops. Paul Allen, Director of the Zero Carbon Britain project at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales, gave a keynote address on their Zero Carbon – Making It Happen research.

Andy Wightman, Green MSP, joined as a Keynote Listener, and provided an inspiring conclusion to the day, sharing ideas on the Community role in delivering low carbon aspirations.

A short film of the day is available here

Here you can see the programme with links to the presentations

9.30  Atrium  Registration, Exhibition

10.00 Atrium  Welcome and warm up session
10.25 – 11.10 Main plenary room (Room 9) Plenary Session

Suzy Goodsir of Greener Kirkcaldy, sharing learning from FifeCAN’s pilot regional network. Presentation: Suzy Goodsir – Presentation to SCCAN Gathering Feb 2017

Paul Allen of Centre for Alternative Technology, sharing the latest from the research Zero Carbon: Making It Happen. Film of presentation: Zero Carbon Britain- Rethinking the Future and Powerpoint slides

Q&A session

11.15 – 12.30 Session 1 workshops

Room 11 Building regional momentum. Learning from Fife CCAN network.

Join Suzy Goodsir (Development Manager, Greener Kirkcaldy), Julian Holbrook (Facilitator,
FCCAN coalition) and Eva Schonveld (SCCAN steering group member) to find out more about the FCCAN experience. We will go into more detail on the successes and challenges of the project and will also ask for your help in planning how similar regional networks elsewhere in Scotland could be initiated and/or supported in the future.

Room 7 Climate (In)Justice and You.

Climate justice recognises that those least responsible for climate change are those most likely to experience the impacts, with the least ability to adapt. Considering climate justice can offer new entry points to climate action in Scotland. Experience an
interactive workshop that you can take away and use yourself to stimulate/revitalise community engagement. Led by Pam Candea (The Surefoot Effect).

Room 9 Community Energy and Enterprise – sketching out the new normal.

Presentations: Tower Power, Zero Waste Dunbar

Hear from Joe Gair and Ian McConnachie how Tower Power, a new community run energy company in the heart of Edinburgh are tackling fuel poverty and the ‘Big Six’ through community action and about Dunbar’s Reuse Depot and ‘Big Pick’ textile reuse events with Simon Glover from Dunbar Waste Innovation Centre

12.30 – 1.30 Atrium  Lunch and Open Space set up

1.30 – 2.30 Session 2 workshops

Room 7 Transition Resources: group health check with Alan Brown and Maria Cooper.
Introducing the transition network resource toolkit to healthcheck your initiative. Members of transition Scotland (regional hub) will take workshop participants on an overview of the key elements that should be balanced well to ensure your initiative/group remains healthy and able to thrive and adapt to changes that develop over time.
Open to all Scottish Communities CAN members not specifically for transition groups. Free to use resources from TN international organisation. Take a walk in the community activism woods and encounter your transition animal face to face. Will you survive?

Room 9 Sharing project learning

Come and hear short presentations from different SCCAN members, sharing about their projects, successes and challenges.

Presentations from

SHRUB co-op,

Transition University of St Andrews

Score Scotland,

Edinburgh World Heritage,

Transition Edinburgh

Room 11 Climate Resilient Communities – Weathering Change.

Presentation: Weathering Change

How can we create more resilient communities, particularly for those most disadvantaged by climate change? Esther Carmen (Scottish Borders Climate Resilient Communities Project) and Ruth Wostenholme (Adaptation Scotland) share lessons from the Scottish
Borders and Glasgow.

2.30 – 2.45 Break
2.45 – 4.00 Room 7 Open Space.

Open Space is your chance to talk about the issues that are most important to you. The focussing question for this session was: “What are our wise next actions in growing our low carbon, resilient Scotland?”. Here’s a description of how Open Space sessions work, for those who haven’t done it before.

Summary of discussions: Open Space

4.00 – 4.10 Feedback from open space groups: sharing the next steps

4.10 – 4.30 Room 7  Closing talk from Andy Wightman

Continuation of discussions and exchanges in Southside Social (pub around the corner).

Feedback from the conference: InitialFeedbackMakingItHappenFeb4th

Would you like to add any other feedback? Please email us on info@scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk

The final programme is available here: SCCANGathering4Febfinalprogramme