Monthly archive for May 2011
Showing results 1 - 5 of 20 for the month of May, 2011.
31 May 2011
Some of the Transition Network team setting up before everyone arrived for last year's conference. We'll be doing the same thing again in about 5 weeks!
Things are shaping up nicely for this year’s Transition Network conference which will take place between July 8th and 11th at Hope University, Liverpool. It’s going to be the best one yet. What I want to do here is to give you your first taster of the kinds of things that will be on offer and what you can expect if you come. Although, like last year, and like last November’s ‘Diverse Routes to Belonging’ conference, we will offer great virtual coverage for those around the world who can’t make it, still nothing beats being there in person. Imagine immersing yourself for 3 days in the latest thinking on Transition, hearing from the most ground-breaking projects, going deeper into what it’s all about, putting faces to names you only know from reading them online, meeting hundreds of other Transitioners from all over, and going home revitalised, refocused and refreshed. That’s what we’re talking about. Here is a taste of some of what is being planned:
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30 May 2011
This post is a response to Charlotte DuCann’s beautiful and heartfelt post over on the Transition Norwich blog arguing that Transition needs to more explicitly embrace activism. It is wonderful to see, whether through that blog, through Transition Voice, or through the emerging social reporting project, new voices coming through in the Transition blogosphere. Charlotte speaks powerfully to the split that some of those engaged in Transition feel, that they almost need to keep their activism ‘in the closet’ in order to remain engaged. She states that she sees her post as a ‘working document’, and invites reflections, so here are a few of mine.
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30 May 2011
Gathering for the Unleashing of Transition Albany in the US. Pic: Dorothy Brown.
Welcome to the May monthly roundup of what’s happening in the world of Transition. We hope this issue will lift your spirits and inspire you to continue working within your communities – wherever they may be! We start with Kinsale in Ireland which was the first ever Transition Town in the world! Kinsale’s plans for a bio-waste project is leading the way for Ireland’s first community run, eco-friendly anaerobic digester (AD). The project has recently been boosted by a grant of €37,500 from the Department of the Environment under its Rethink, Recycle, Remake (Rx3).
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26 May 2011
I am currently reading Carl Sagan’s excellent book ‘The Demon-haunted World: science as a candle in the dark’, which I picked up for a song in a second hand bookshop when I was last in London. Although published in 1996, it is as relevant to today as when it was published. Its focus is on the need for critical thinking and for a grounding in science, and it contains a great chapter called ‘The Fine Art of Baloney Detection’. Here he sets out what not to do when trying to assess the validity of an argument, and common ways that people make flawed arguments. One of those is creating a straw man, which he defines as “caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack “. Having spent Monday morning debating on ABC Radio in Australia with someone who has done just this, I wanted to offer a few thoughts on being a straw man.
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23 May 2011
The ‘In Transition 2.0′ team have had a sneak preview of Rob’s now-complete manuscript and meetings are well underway to co-ordinate this huge film effort. We’re consulting with various Transition bods to ensure we use all the resources at our disposal and create a film that reflects the diverse goings on in Transition around the world. Some contributors from the first film have been in touch to get involved with this second one and lots of other interesting people have responded to my first call out.
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