Transition Culture

I’m not sure that added anything to the discussion, but what the heck, hey ho!

OK, so where’s the movie?

Rob,

I have spent 2-3 hours trying to watch this movie – twice. It is very frustrating for me, a non-techie, to try and make the video work. I guess I’ll have to wait to see the film.

I’m just finishing the Transition Handbook – an excellent guide for power down.

Thanks for all you do to make this a better world!

This film cannot be viewed from a PC – can you fix it?
i saw it earlier on amac, but it wont work from any PC we´ve tried….. please help, as we want to watch it!!!!!!!!

Just something that might work for all the people who are having trouble. After a little wizardry, I’ve been able to download the film. I should be able to convert it into a format that nearly all computers can play, I’ll post the link when I’m done, if it’s all right with Rob, that is.

I watched this yesterday and was impressed. Yes it needs a bit of tweaking – I agree with other comments about renaming the section making bags from education to community or perhaps even reskilling. The scrolling text was a bit fast.

The visioning exercises are powerful, but the meditation session does look odd (and the group meditation idea is a bit strange for most people anyway) so I too would probably cut that and include some of the future news items from the Transition Town book instead.

All in all a great positive film, full of solutions and ideas. I can’t wait to see the final version. Congrats to everyone involved.

I’ve only recently found out about the transition town concept after reading an article in the UK while holidaying from Perth, Western Australia. So, having read the various primers etc on the website, it was great to be able to preview the video with my wife today and put some faces to the names.

What we like about the presentation (and the transition concept generally) is that it is a positive based sticky idea (like Rob says) that brings together various people’s “heart burst” responses to the disparate issues that We (capital W) are facing. This is the strength of the transition concept – while I might not have a passion for say “local food production” my passion for say “connecting isolated neighbours” or “recycling clothing” brings me together with those others who have a transition mindset and want to see a “better future”.

So I see this video as a great way of bringing people together who already have a heart for this sort of stuff and giving us a common language and shared direction and purpose. That is, its a good primer (as is http://www.thestoryofstuff.com).

We took notes of some of the cool positive ideas while watching (loved the Ooooby store, Garden share scheme, oil memorial and the 50 mile/kilometre meal challenge) and we look forward to getting a group together in Perth (I’ve already been sending links etc back home!!) Well done 🙂

I click on the link in the note above and then it says to click on the image.
I’ve done this several times yesterday and today and the image has no link associated with it?
So why bother doing this if apparently many people can not view it!

Like, Rich, I clicked on the image. There is no link associated with image. Why is that? Am in US, does that make a difference?

Incredible! Spot-on! Its content and tone( very calm, almost relaxed) are perfect for where we need to be right now. And I love the british sensibility, they are a wonderful civilizing influence on the planet (while we drown in Harley Davidson bikers here in the U.S.). Take a deep breath and call your neighbor- today.Go!Go!

I thought it was great. The only thing I would change would be the fast and irritating techno type music when the peak oil graphs were being shown. It would be good to see the text slowed down at this point, and perhaps some really mellow music, such as the instrumental bits from ‘The Seeds’ but without the words.

Having read some of the comments above, I think there is far too much worrying and fretting over this whole ‘hippy/middle class/tree hugging’ stuff. I come from a very working class family but have had a university education. OK, so white middle class people are currently predominant in Transition, but someone needs to start the ball rolling, don’t they? To me, Transition is the very first movement you see when a ball is at the top of a peak. Someone has to start things off, and it’s not going to be those who haven’t had access to peak oil and climate change info beyond the tabloids and Sky news. Many people on low incomes are probably too stressed and don’t have the time to get on board with this…YET…but when things get worse, this movement will provide them with something they can jump on board with and adapt to their own vision. We must all just keep going with this and stop all the beating up about tree hugging. Someone’s got to start the ball rolling and it looks like they are from this movie, so let’s stop all the griping!

It just fired up again on my PC OK and it’s 20:30 BST

20:13 BST, finger trouble!

Hear hear Jane!

Well said ‘logspirit’ this is exactly what needs saying and hearing but curiously nobody has responded!I’m afraid that people just haven’t even begun to join the dots yet and to appreciate the crisis we are already decades in to.The class thing became blindingly clear to me at a recent ‘green’meeting when suggesting it might make sense to eat pigeons and rabbits etc I (a vegetarian)was looked at as if I had landed from mars.I think they preferred ‘line-caught’ tuna!
Market economies whatever colour they are (green) doom us all to drown in our own stuff. Sorry to any out there offended by negative vibes but on a day when it is reported the Peruvian state are massacering indigenous Indians trying to protect their homelands from the exploits of western multinationals (machine guns from helicoptors)I think we need to get real.
If I could type with more than one finger I would have a proper rant!

Having just (3 hours ago!) finished a Transition Initiative training, the movie’s visuals, positive attitude, and we-can-do-this-together message was deeply profound. May I humbly suggest that the naysayers of the emotional work portrayed in the film return to the Heart-and-Soul workshop, immediately! 🙂

I did have technical difficulties, the soundtrack “played” twice with a 2-3 second delay between each.

I felt the inter-generational sections were the most compelling; as a parent and a food activist I can only hope that 60 years from now my grandchildren look back on these times with relief and thankfulness for the courage displayed and corrective actions taken. By us. Now.

I appreciate this great start to telling a different story. I look forward to viewing it with my friends and community.

Thank you all for the feedback, much appreciated. There is some very useful and constructive cricitism there that we will take on board. Just a couple of things I wanted to come back on. Firstly this is clearly not a film for everyone… as Greenpa notes, having been involved in this stuff for years there was little to sustain his interest initially… it has always been a question about where to pitch it. Secondly, in answer to Marina’s question about why there is not more stuff from the US in it, we had no budget to send a filmcrew over, and no-one in the US sent us any footage! Hopefully, for Version 2.0, there will be loads. Get filming! Lastly, with regards to Peter Bralesford having worked out a way of copying and offering to post a link, we’d really rather you didn’t Peter. This has been a limited run preview, of an unfinished version of the film, and we would really prefer that this version of the film didn’t end up copied and distributed all over the place. Won’t be long until the final version emerges.

Thanks all for your comments, whether gushing or damning. I loved the one that pointed out that I had talked about people ‘rusting their popcorn’, an odd mental picture indeed….

Cheers Rob – interesting evolution of comments here – the film was posted up as a rough mix with an acknowledment that its a work in progress that will be changed, presumably with the intention of eliciting feed back, both positive and constructively negative, this was given, plenty of ideas for tweaks, things that could be included, things that might be cut. Then the feedback to the feedback started to become ‘don’t knock it’, ‘obviously you people arn’t professional critics’, etc… No I’m not a professional critic, bit does that mean I should keep my views on the film quiet or join a chorus of uncritical acclaim rather than engage in a conversation about how the film might be improved? I’m sure if Rob didn’t want feedback he would have disabled the ‘add comments’ feature long ago….

Indeed

Ok Rob, I’ll delete the file. I look forward to seeing the final release.

Hi Rob et.al

Please do take my comments seriously. Transition is too important for us not to make the very best impression.

Thanks for all the comments. Just to answer the question about the objectives/audience for the film…Before I started editing the film I wrote down 3 things to help guide me with decision making: who the audience was; what the objectives were and what tone and approach I was aiming for.

So the intended audience was: anyone looking for a solution to global problems that were ready to take action; and anyone thinking of starting up Transition who wanted to know more about what that might be like. The objective was twofold: to celebrate and honour how far the Transition Movement has come; and to inspire newcomers to pick up the model and give it a go themselves. The approach and tone was soft and light.

It’s important to remember that people who were setting up Transition initiatives asked for a film to be made that would be a useful tool in the early campaigning stage. We deliberately made it version 1.0 so that others could take the modular approach and remove sections and add their own to update the film so that it keeps growing with the movement. Once it is released – anyone involved in Transition will have the right to use whatever bits they want to remake it.

I’d really like to see film makers, especially in non UK countries, film their local Transition projects and add to the diversity in the film. I’m looking forward to version 1.1. and pass the baton over to John Swain in the USA and Andreas Teuchert in Germany to be the first to give this a go.

I saw the movie twice. In my opinion just about all of it was a positive experience. Although, this sitting in circles, talking about one’s feelings, hugging, touching and meditating, as has been pointed out gives a small part of the movie a little cultist flair to it, is not my cup of tea either.

It is, of course, a difficult task to decide on which audience to target and then how to address them in the best possible way. I think some of the criticism that has been raised here is constructive and I also think that some is to harsh. Like when some of the people posting says that the movie only shows a certain type of people.

To which I would like to answer that, of course, it does. The majority of the population is still occupied spending most of the time from they wake up to they go to bed working to fill their lives with more and more consumer goods. Goods that they hardly have the time to use, because they are always so busy working to be able to get more. Those are the very people whose lifestyle the transition is a transition away from. Complaining that they are not in the movie, is a little like asking where are all the obese people in a footage from the New York marathon.

I tried to get the press in my home country, Norway, interested in the preview of the movie. I sent an email about it to a list I have of most Norwegian newspapers and tv-stations. If you have not heard anything directly from the Norwegian news media, I would have to say that they show no interest whatsoever in the transition movement for the time being. I scrutinized the visit log of our Norwegian blog to see if there were any direct hits on an entry I wrote about the transition movement a whole back. I put a link to this entry in the email. But I found no hit at all from any IP pointing to someone in the news media. They are much more eager to write about people who “knock things down for the planet” than people doing something to build the future in a constructive way, unfortunately.

By the way. Are most of you transition people vegetarians? Because you always seem to talk a lot about growing your own food, but hardly ever about breeding your own food, as far as I can tell.

Kind regards
Vidar Kristiansen, Oslo Norway
Green Life Innovators
“Green Tech the Open Source way”

As an ex film editor and a member of Sustainable Frome, I would have loved to have seen this film but alas I think I have missed the deadline.I possibly could have made the odd constructive comment on the present rough cut. As past experience has shown and as Graham comments indicated it may have been too long. Unless you have amazing footage based on a minimum of a 10 to 1 ratio you often don’t always have the ingredients to make the film crisp, focused and hard hitting.

I would very much like to know how you will address the issue of diversity. I think version 1.0 is great, but isn’t it a bit arrogant not to appreciate that the transition movement is part of a much wider global movmement which has been growing for many many years – and is very diverse (see Paul Hawken on this)? As well as having clips from other mmore diverse communities, it would seem important to add a piece on diversity, with a question about why the environmental movement has remained so white middle class. I think it’s a really intersting question if Transition is going to become resilient.

I do know that the Transition Town Brixton ABUNDANCE project, which is about food growing on the Guinness Trust estate that has a mainly working class population, predominantly Irish and Afro-Carribean, has been filmed by the project funders as I was there at the time. Whether TTB have access to the footage is of course another story, but if this could be acquired it could make a valuable addition to the film. Anyone from Transition Town Brixton reading this that might know whether this footage could be obtained and sent to Emma?

More about ABUNDANCE here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMiLELjDoAQ&feature=channel_page

[…] Go here to read the rest:  Please Take Your Seats Ladies and Gentlement, the Online Screening … […]

> The majority of the population is still occupied spending most of the time from they wake up to they go to bed working to fill their lives with more and more consumer goods. Goods that they hardly have the time to use, because they are always so busy working to be able to get more. Those are the very people whose lifestyle the transition is a transition away from. Complaining that they are not in the movie, is a little like asking where are all the obese people in a footage from the New York marathon.

No disrespect to you Vidar, but I do quite tire of this condescending attitude to ‘the majority of the population’ and the idea that anybody can know what motivates anybody else, or whether they are driven by choice or necessity or what their circumstances might be. My understanding of Transition isn’t that its about transitioning away from ‘those people’ and their lifestyles, its about graceful and designed energy descent for a post oil, post carbon world. At the top of this page Rob asks how might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party – to be honest the only parties I’m interested in attending are those where everybody is welcome, and not certainly not the kind of party that has a restricted entry policy based on class, ethnicity, lifestyle or diet.

Sorry to Rob and Emma if this is an inappropriate thread to continue what seesm to be turning into a debate, but these sort of comments really do raise my hackles and I find it difficult to let them pass unchallenged.

Well, Graham

To continue on the “party” thread. The way I see it, we are in a situation that is like this. We got this cool party place, lets call it Club Earth. Club Earth has a big dance floor. But the dance floor has been very heavily used for a long time, and right now someone has been down to the basement and observed that the floor is about to break and send the dancers plunging down. So they go up to the party and say “sorry, no more dancing on that floor, because it’s about to break “. The dancers are not going to be happy about that.

I don’t believe my description of the mind set of typical westerners is inaccurate. We were all brought up to think that way, by massive advertising campaigns hammering away on us every day. I’m no exception. I was brought up to think that way too. That happiness lies in getting your hands on more and more consumer goods. And you don’t need to get inside everyone’s head to conclude that this seems to be the way that many people still think. Their actions clearly points in that direction.

The fact that we now have to settle for another kind of party is not going to please everyone. The root cause might be the deteriorating floor, but the dancing needs to stop nevertheless.

Vidar, at the risk of labouring my point and to put the discussion back into the context of the Transition Film, mine and others criticisms of the film as it stands, beyond relatively minor technical points, is that groups that are not white, middle class and ‘respectable’ are unrepresented. Personally I don’t believe that this actually represents either the spirit or the reality of Transition, or if it does it certainly needs to be addressed if ‘we’ are to have any claims to being inclusive and person centred. The riposte that has come back that I and others are ‘not professional critics’ (in itself a telling comment if class is indeed an issue) and should ‘stop griping’. Hmmm, fair enough, however your comment troubles me more fundementally, for it implies to me that anybody not represented thus far in the film doesn’t actaully belong there as they are nothing but mindless consumers who don’t know any better, unlike the positive and enlightened beings who have ‘seen the light’ and will lead the way to the better green world, or perhaps I have misunderstood you?

It’s not my intention claiming that some people should be excluded from the invitation list. Everyone should be invited to the new party at Club Earth. It’s just that the dance floor of Disco Oil in Club Earth is about to cave in, and if you are coming to the party that means that you can not dance there any more. Is there any way of breaking that news to the most dance loving part of the population in a more gentle way than the transition movement has done in this film?

I would like to add something. I have so far addressed the issue of people having spending habits that will not survive an energy deprivation.

Talking about the people in this world who have a standard of living that is not even close to the European middle class, that would be quite a different discussion. Because, I believe, that they will probably need a transition along a whole different path than the one laid out by the transition movement so far.

For sure, but the assumption that it is only the white, respectable middle classes who are able to ‘break the news’ continues to offend me. The makers of the Transition Film appear to have taken this on board and are talking about making changes accordingly, however according to some it seems this is unnecessary and apparently even inappropriate, for it is already doing enough to ‘spread the positive news’. Maybe there is more of a need for a conversation about class issues within Transition than I had previously acknowledged?

NB. My reply was intended to be made to your earlier post, not the second one which I hadn’t seen.

Graham, I just had a look at the photos of the attendees of your permaculture training courses on your web page. They also seem to show largely the same type of people that “In Transition” does.

Your point?

What worries me about the discussion above is that we even have to think about the demographics of viewers. Did Rebecca Hosking spend for ever debating it before producing the seminal ‘A Farm for the Future?’ Does Franny Armstrong aim at a certain sector of the community with ‘Age of Stupid’? ‘In Transition’ just needs to tell the truth in an objective, honest well-researched and when required, scientific terms. There should be no emotional tampering. When viewers are confronted with facts (even ones unpalatable to the transition movement) they become interested and inspired. That is the strength of Robs Book and should be the cornerstone of ‘In Transition’. My adverse reaction (and that of my family) was that the film in it’s present format is not yet pragmatic and honest enough – it uses too much emotional trickery. Emotional tricks work well on a certain sector of the community (usually those with a strong sense of the ‘spiritual’) which is why the film felt as if it was aimed at a particular type of person.

Graham, My point is that your web page seems to underline that “In Transition” painted a pretty accurate picture as to which type of people are mostly involved in transition at this stage.

Well I kind of feel that I’ve made my points and to argue them any further would be counterproductive and not a good use of my time or yours Vidar. I’m not sure that we totally understand where each other are coming from and that perhaps to some degree we are misunderstanding each other. But whats important is that Rob and the film makers have had the feedback they were asking for, and will hopefully take on board the suggestions and consider adapting the film accordingly, and also maybe that the issue of class in transition and how we ‘market’ transition has been raised on the agenda for maybe more detailed discussion elsewhere.
Good luck to you and all your projects!

Yes, I agree that we need not take the debate any further. Good luck to you and your projects too.

+1 for James’s comment above. After 90 odd comments I think he has nailed it!

This is an interesting discussion hopefully valuable to the film producers.

The theme that the film needs to appeal to different types of people seems to repeat itself throughout the posts. I wonder if someone looked at any research done in that area. This would inform the film producers and they would construct the message in the film to do exactly that.

I’m not an expert but I’ve stumbled over two approaches recently and would love to see someone with a better understanding of those things comment on the film through their lens.

————-
I’ve found a valuable website http://www.campaignstrategy.org and http://www.cultdyn.co.uk and their model describing how our values underpin our decisions. They basically map society on the base of their values and explain how one has to communicate with people in various groups to affect change.

This presentation gives a very good visual explanation to the model and shows examples of strategies for climate change campaigns to reach to people with diverse sets of values http://www.campaignstrategy.org/articles/int_values_campaign.pdf The article http://www.campaignstrategy.org/articles/VBCOP_unifying_strategy_model.pdf shows a practical application of the model while the http://www.cultdyn.co.uk website and newsletters on http://www.campaignstrategy.org explain the theory behind it.
———
Fourcultures This theory is a bit different from the above but again suggests that there are four cultures within society. http://fourcultures.com/

What a fascinating thread, starting with Dave’s ‘it’s put me right off’ and ending up with a debate about demographic and class – fantastic. It’s also great to see the comments becoming more and more positive, even with a retraction of the (glaringly subjective) ‘bored me to tears’ comment.

All media is representation – there cannot be an absolute truth in a piece of TV – its a ridiculous idea. Manipulation is inherent in the medium due to editing. In Transition’s simple collection of stories, soft measured tone, lack of overarching narrative (it doesn’t try to ‘tell’ you anything) is us deliberately attempting to make the presentation as neutral-as-possible. However I can understand why some found this approach irritating.

The film is the result of a thoughtful sift through tens of hours of footage, with a selection process based on showing a good ‘general mix’ of projects, depending on what was sent in. Is ‘In Transition’ truly representative of the gender/class/ethnic balance of the movement ? On a global level probably not, but for the UK, it probably is. For a single mum on benefits, or a struggling family in a highrise, buying local organic food is a joke, but if we had ‘positively discriminated’ a different ethnic/class balance in the film wouldn’t that have been worse ?

A group shutting eyes and visualising a better future ‘cultish’ ? If the people involved had been wearing suits would this sequence have elicited the same response ? It would seem to me very sad if the more spiritual side of the movement, personal transition, needed to be airbrushed out just because it makes a few people uneasy.

In retrospect I think the lesson learnt is that it’s an impossible task to make a transition film. A diverse cross cultural international movement probably just can’t be represented by a single piece of media. Maybe In Transition 2.0 should be an interactive pool of small stories contributed from around the world, where the viewer can create their own film, dynamically strung together via a few clicks on a web interface. In this way, transition media could sidestep representation, and become culturally and socially relevant to each viewer, whatever their background or location.

Some comments on the film itself~
I think it is not clear who the intended audience is. Emma, I think of your two audiences, it is most suitable for those thinking of starting up Transition. If for anyone concerned about responding to the problems, I think a film would go beyond the Transition movement.

The real way to know whether it speaks to your target audience is to run some focus-group-type screenings and get feedback. If for those not-acquainted with Transition but aware of the problems – I think their feedback would be crucial, particularly for Transitioners who want to educate/recruit.

I miss a good concise introduction of what Transition is at the outset, after the problems are laid out. Jennifer Gray did that in our Peak Moment Conversation “The Transition Movement Comes to America” (www.peakmoment.tv/conversations/?p=254), and it is a good base from which to then show all the examples of Transition in action.

The narrative arc is somewhat discontinuous. The film begins midway in the twenty-first century, with the elders looking back and the children remembering. Did I miss a narrative link saying something like, “here’s some of the early projects”? It would seem the backcasting device could’ve been used more fully, since it opens and closes the film.

Overall, I think it meets your objective, Emma, quite well: it celebrates Transition and documents its early phase. With a spirit and tone that is upbeat and positive, just like Transition aims for.

I hope for more robust examples of education in future.

For an earlier commenter about nothing taped in North America in the film – we invite you (and all Transition folk) to view Peak Moment Conversations with groups and individuals working on the transition, whether they call it relocalization, sustainability, building local communities, permaculture, Transition, or just doing the right thing. Most of our programs were taped on the west coast US & Canada; we hope to tape elsewhere in the continent in future and welcome contacts and ideas. About 150 episodes up on http://www.peakmoment.tv.

For the commenters concerned about class, race, gender: most of our guests too are white middle class (which I plan to expand from), but sociology professor Rowan Wolfe does a good job of raising issues for the broader society (“Social Effects of Peak Oil”, episode 69).

Janaia Donaldson (host/producer)

[Oh yeah, i should actually post my comments before i forget them… ]

Firstly, thank you to the film makers and other transition people who put this together and published it for this feedback opportunity. Seems rather rare to have an input and to have more ownership over the forthcoming film, but also an appropriate process for the transition movement.

Also like to acknowledge the other unique aspect which is the “open source” film making experience. From my past dabblings in film making i can appreciate how challenging it must be to work with footage from varying sources. One suggestion i might make if you would like to even out the geographical representation would be to use the old ‘ken burns effect’ stills with audio stories from those areas (assuming they exist, in podcasts perhaps?).

I screened this film to friends and a family a few times so some of their comments have come through below. All were impressed, a friend of mine was just walking by then he was glued to a seat for the rest of the film.

Ahh what a nice opening, the young+old characters are a good tool and the intertwining sentences which follow is just beautifully done.

Some disagreements:
* i think many of the early comments re: cult elements aren’t to be worried about
* i do not believe that “converting the masses” should be a focus of this film – rather to nourish the curious potential transitioner and provide unity to growing transition communities scattered around.

Some quick agreements:
* 45 mins a good upper limit
* editor james re:cultish vs suits !!
* paula kovacs comments..
* news scenes too ‘loose’, can be tightened up in relevance and duration
* perfect amount of gloom (ie, very little)

a couple other things:
* my folks were able to understand the peak oil section so i think its fine, nice succinct coverage, with that good ole heinberg voice over. future generations of music producers will sample the guy for sure..
* apart from the natural UK beginnings, there is perhaps too strong an NZ representation unless you want to show that theres a huge movement there (i dont know if there is or isnt..)
* perhaps just a little too much of the cute kid? his pauses tend to reveal a scripted undertone after hearing him multiple times..

Just a few technical things: quicktime ?? please consider a more common player next time, the strange waiting times, temperamental playing and all the QT interlacing was prob not worth it. Something like bliptv or vimeo might be worth looking into.. and wordpress just started a nice video publishing tool. Also my film maker friend suggests changing the scrolling texts to still titles..

Thanks again to all involved for your efforts and engaging the community in this dialogue.

warm regards,

Dylan Prins, Marrickville, Sydney AUS

Hi

We watched the film as part of our transition town invercargill (NZ) meeting and we really liked it. Looking through the comments it seems like a lot of the ground has been covered by others but here are our comments:

We liked the music-video style presentation of facts at the beginning but thought it just needed to be a little slower. Also better techno music if possible.

A little shorter would be good. Maybe 45 minutes?

Diversity – this has been covered by others and perhaps the ‘white middle class’ impression may be unavoidable given the membership of the group & film you had

The ‘cute kid’ alienated some people in our group – but others loved him so it shows you cant please everyone

We liked the people looking back from the future.

Obviously we loved all the NZ coverage but understand if this needs to be cut down!

Overall we thought it was a great job and we look forward to being able to show people the finished version.

The main thing I want to say is Thank You for creating a very well-made and effective film. It conveys important information and lets the viewer “be with” people who are working on — and experiencing — the Transition Town enterprise.

There is one thing I would modify: I would have liked it even more if it had touched my feelings more. Naturally, sharing information is essential, but I think emotional impact greatly enhances engagement and motivation. In fact, I consider it indispensable.

The emotional experience that I DID have while viewing the film was often lovely … the calm clarity and composure of some of the speakers was admirable. It’s heartening to see that such composure can be a part of addressing huge challenges.

But the presentation that got me involved in my local Transition Town had a brightness to it. A very engaging woman gave a talk with a well-crafted PowerPoint presentation. She was warm and cheerful and lively, and she expressed a wonderful confidence in the TT approach, partly because of the proven principles of Permaculture, and partly because of the many wise, sweet, and savvy design features of the TT vision. When I listened to her, I was powerfully engaged and motivated, and soon thereafter, I became a
founding member of our local Initiating Group.

Another example of media outreach that I find emotionally strong is this wonderful slideshow-with-music, “Transition Towns New Zealand”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMTXrIL48A

I hope these comments are useful, and I thank you again for your important work in support of the Transition Towns movement.

[…] Transitional Culture — Rob Hopkins writes: We live at a fascinating point in history. The convergence of challenges, most particularly global warming and peak oil, have brought us to a point where we are profoundly challenged to act. We are surrounded by what poet Gary Snyder, in his classic poem For the Children called “The rising hills, the slopes, of statistics” and by individuals telling us that this means the end, that we have gone too far, that it is inevitable that life as we know it will collapse catastrophically and very soon. […]