Transition Culture

6 May 2010

A May Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition

April brought lots more lovely projects for you to enjoy and share…  From Australia, the West Hobart Environment Network (or WHEN), a member of Transition Tasmania, enjoyed a relaxed ‘produce swap’ under the shade of a very large tree, and they’ve also kindly shared with us Annie’s recipe for no-knead bread…perfect for the lazy ones like me!  TT Blackwood had a busy day giving out seeds and sharing knowledge on how to grow them in a forest setting, finding new skills to share, and raising awareness about Transition. And some ideas from Sonya on taking small steps to big lifestyle changes that will help us live more lightly on the Earth.

TT Invercargill in New Zealand has been given some land to establish a community garden, wonderful news! If you could just cast your minds back…you may remember from last month a piece on Berm Bombing in NZ, and I was keen to know what a berm is, so I did a bit of googling… in some parts of the world, wisegeek tells me, a berm is a mound of earth, usually constructed by humans. In New Zealand, however, it’s quite simply a lawn, I’m told here…so ‘bombing’ them (not literally) is a great idea!

Over in the US, Hancock County Transition Towns had a very successful training, and have also shared with us a beautiful song by a beautiful voice. And congratulations, celebrations, champagne, fanfare, cheers… The 54^th US Transition Initiative has just Unleashed, this time it’s T Bloomington.  Up in Canada, we have some lovely pics of TT Powell River and lots of washing hanging out! (the washing has an important purpose)… and here’s an enjoyable little movie of TT Edmonton’s journey towards resilience….

In the UK, TT Exmouth has been busily encouraging the town council to put up energy efficient LED lights on the seafront, and their efforts have been rewarded as they’re soon to be installed! TT Marlow successfully launched their Solar 100 Project to get residents generating energy from their rooftops, with a target of 100 solar systems within a year. And have a look at this:… TT Worthing’s Post-Carbon Gazette.  It’s great!

At this happy time of year, gardening takes over the hearts and minds of many people as they get out into the fresh air to create new raised beds, plant seeds, and share in the work at their community gardens…  Here are lots of pictures of Ealing Transition Community Garden, and Grow N4, the food group for TT Finsbury Park, has been very busy planting urban spaces with orchards of apples, cherries, grapes, soft fruit, rhubarb and herbs. Work continues also on the Transition Canterbury allotment, and they continue to blog beautifully about it!  The idea of a ‘Transition Allotment’ looks like it might be taking off in Brighton too, in Tunbridge Wells, Bramcote and Wollaton, Ashtead, Forest Row, and many others besides.  This idea of ‘community allotments’ seems to be taking off, with Transition West Kirby having done some great research and campaigning on the matter.  On a slightly less practical note, if you ever need a good reason for a food fight, TT Cardiff has found a good one, campaigning against food waste by, er, wasting loads of food… (which would otherwise have been thrown away apparently…).

Congratulations this month to PEDAL, or TT Portobello, which has won a Climate Challenge Fund award for various food projects including an orchard, and also to bring energy saving measures to Portabello residents. TT Norwich is busily encouraging cycle paths and community orchards, and is actively engaged in saving toads on the toad patrol…quite a lot of them too!… TT Haslemere brings news of their green fair, community garden and other activities in their monthly Herald column…  On to other news now beside energy and food… TT Kingston held their Unleashing and made a movie, which is available here for you to watch!

Preparations for TT Tooting’s colourful lively Trashcatchers’ Carnival are going on well, and you can watch pictures and movies to get an early taster of how wonderful it’s going to be! Here is one of those films….

TT Balham held an open mic night and threw in a bit of bartering to the mix of action…sounds fun! In Bournemouth, the Lib Dem candidate has said he wants the town to become a TT… At Southampton University, the Transition initiative is gaining momentum… and here we have some great footage from the Transition SE Conference.

If you’re in Kinsale, Ireland, then take a ride on the environmentally friendly Kinsale Road Train, supported by TT Kinsale. As well as providing a guided tour of the area, the train is also a community service to the nearby retirement village. Here’s a little write up of a meeting with Rob Hopkins on his recent toothache-plagued trip to Dublin, which brought together the ‘founders of two global, groundbreaking sustainability movements’.  TT Kinsale hits the headlines again as it gains increasing support from their local Labour Party leader.

And for the whole world, we have a fantastic trailer of Sara’s and Emilio’s film, Words from the Edge.  This is just a taster, not even an official trailer, but it gives a taster anyway.

Finally, Transition Town Totnes just published its long-awaited Energy Descent Action Plan (not least by them), the UK’s first, and its accompanying website.  The formal launch is tomorrow and everyone is welcome.  Congrats to everyone involved.  We look forward to hearing what May will bring!

With thanks once again to Helen and the wonder that is Google Alerts….