Transition Culture

31 May 2011

Why you should come to the 2011 Transition Network conference

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:

There will be 3 sessions of workshops, 10 in each.  Although the final list has yet to be confirmed, it will include the following:

• How to work well together as groups
• Kids in Transition
• The role of the arts
• Inner Transition
• An update on Transition local currency projects
• Transition Together and other street-by-street behaviour tools
• Community Supported bakeries, shops, farms, breweries….
• Social reporting (the Transition Network’s work to support the emergence of many new voices into the blogosphere)
• The Work that Reconnects
• Websites for Transition Initiatives: de-mystify the murk, share your problems and answers, discuss tools and more
• Transition as a collection of ‘ingredients’
• Social Enterprise
• Constellations
• Diversity and faith in Transition
• Action learning: tools for working with your Council
• Creating a new local food system: stories from various projects
• Group dynamics
• Resolving conflict
• ‘Engaging words’: how your writing style can affect your effectiveness
• Investing for Transition
• Transition education
• Measuring the impact of Transition
• Transition and health
• Engaging and working with your Council

Tasty eh?!  There will also be tours of Liverpool and the opportunity to see some of the fantastic projects underway in the city.  The city’s Transition groups will be our hosts.

The workshops are also, of course, only a small part of the overall programme.  There will also be many opportunities to meet other Transitioners and find out what they are up to, including the chance to meet in theme groups, so you can, for example, connect with all those who share your passion for local energy, food or education.  There will be some large group activities, which were, for many, the highlight of last year’s conference.

Also, this year we are trying a different approach, substituting Open Space, which has been a focal point for each of our previous conferences, with the Fishbowl technique, which will allow a much deeper exploration of some of the more charged and pertinent issues that you bring to the conference (a questionnaire will be sent round before the event to gather your thoughts on what those subjects should be). Our hope is that this will bring more focus and will be more insightful.

On one of the evenings there will be an opportunity for you to provide the entertainment in an Open Mike session, and on the other evening there will be the opportunity to hear some inspiring speakers and performers (exact identities under wraps for now!).  Add to this the practical events in the evenings, the chance for a game of football for those who feel so inclined, a full programme for kids, down time sitting on the grass in the copious sunshine we have arranged for the weekend and you have an utterly seminal 3 days that people will talk about for many years to come.

You can book your place, or find answers to any questions you may still have here.  See you there….  Oh, and if you need any final kind of a nudge, you might like to know that both Ken Dodd and Rolf Harris have received Honorary Degrees from Hope University….