Community

A busy morning documenting community activities in Portobello. A group of us are gathering together material for a local food map/recipe book and we met up to take a few test shots for the images of the different contributors that will be included. The idea is linked to the campaign to reopen the Town Hall at the heart of the community and local food shops, restaurants and cafes have been asked to contribute a favourite recipe. It's about more than just the recipes though as the idea is to introduce the people involved and hopefully lead to more community connections. I think our aim is that people will go into the shops and cafes and speak to the person behind the counter, who they recognise, and say 'Hi, I tried your recipe!' With that in mind we set up a few test shots with the members of the team, both to get a clear idea of what works best and also to be able to show the contributors the sort of picture we would like to take of them. This is team member, and fellow Porty blipper J.
Meeting at the Town Hall we saw some other members of the Town Hall group who were doing something to brighten up the front of the building - moving a couple of planters to a more prominent position and then filling them with bulbs (extra 1). When I got back to the Town Hall later they were still finishing the planting and had been joined by some people from a new 'avoiding food waste' group that is getting started. Their goal is to reduce food waste from supermarkets. At best it would also support those most in need but as a very minimum, giving food away to passers-by, it stops it going to landfill (extra 2). They hope to be back next weekend too and in the longer term would like to operate a community fridge. I took away a handful of parsnips and made parsnip soup in the afternoon.