The last leg of my week of dashing to various places (Dublin and London) took me to Glasgow for the Social Enterprise Exchange, the world’s biggest social enterprise event. It was huge, loads of events with speakers such as Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civic Society and Chuka Umunna, Shadow Business Secretary. There were over 150 stalls from various organisations, including Transition Network’s REconomy stand which proved very popular (see below), and all in all the day was a huge statement of intent about the scale and ambition of the social enterprise sector.
I couldn’t stay all day unfortunately, but after the opening session, I took part in one called “More, better, faster – how can social enterprise grow?” It was chaired by Susan Aktemel of Impact Arts, and featured myself along with Jim Mullan of KibbleWorks and Karen Lynch of Belu. It was a very interesting session, here is the talk I gave at it:
A few weeks ago I travelled to Brockwood Park, a very progressive school in Hampshire, to give a talk about Transition. It was the first talk I have given that included clips from ‘In Transition 2.0′, which went down very well. I had a great time there, thanks to everyone who made it such an enjoyable visit. A few days after I went, they held their first Open Space to explore what becoming a Transition school would entail.
I spent Saturday evening and Sunday at the Guardian’s Open Weekend festival at King’s Place, the Guardian’s headquarters, where Transition Network was involved in a number of events. The Open Weekend was 2 days of a wide range of events designed to bring the paper’s readership into the heart of the organisation to help shape its future in the fast-moving world of social media and publishing.
So today we have some good news, and some bad news. First the good news. We are delighted to announce four events that Transition Network is involved in at the Guardian’s Open Weekend, which is coming up 24-25th March at the Guardian’s new offices in London. On Saturday 24th, we are presenting, at 1.45pm, a workshop called “How to start a community business” which looks at how to create a community-supported food business. The presenters are Greg Pilley of Stroud Brewery (as mentioned in yesterday’s post), and Dan McTiernan of The Handmade Bakery (one of the stars of ‘In Transition 2.0′).
Here are the notes of the talk I gave that went out just now on Radio 4′s ‘Four Thought’ programme. You can download the podcast of the programme here (which also includes the Q&A that followed as a bonus feature). I hope you enjoy(ed) it.
“It’s generally considered unwise to use props when speaking on radio, especially on your first appearance on Radio 4. However, this talk will contain two props, and here’s the first. It’s a £10 note from Brixton in London, but it’s a Brixton Pound. Rather than the Queen’s head, it features David Bowie’s. I’ll tell you more about it later, but it matters because it leads us into what I want to discuss this evening, the question of resilience.
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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The last leg of my week of dashing to various places (Dublin and London) took me to Glasgow for the Social Enterprise Exchange, the world’s biggest social enterprise event. It was huge, loads of events with speakers such as Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, Nick Hurd MP, Minister for Civic Society and Chuka Umunna, Shadow Business Secretary. There were over 150 stalls from various organisations, including Transition Network’s REconomy stand which proved very popular (see below), and all in all the day was a huge statement of intent about the scale and ambition of the social enterprise sector.
