Transition Culture

1 Mar 2011

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

You have amazed us again with all the wonderful things you’re doing…so here’s a taste of what’s going on in the world of Transition. Let’s start in Canada.  Transition Guelph will Unleash their initiative with a Resilience 2011 Community Festival and become the second official Transition initiative in Canada…all very exciting!  There’ll be lots of activities to inspire local people and build interest while also celebrating the many wonderful things already happening to make Guelph sustainable and resilient. They need volunteers to help make the day a success so why not join in the fun? Radio Ecoshock recently aired a one hour programme called ‘Transition – the West Coast Scene’, and you can listen to it online here, and there’ll be more programmes coming up soon that discuss related topics, so keep listening. Two of Okanagan’s Transition Towns – TT Kelowna and TT Penticton – will come together to give a talk at the Okanagan Institute on how they’re making change within their communities towards resilience and sustainability.

Transition Town Peterborough is the Event Manager of the city’s first Slow Food and Culture Festival, and their regular magazine ‘Greenzine’ is the official media sponsor for both that event and the Spring Wellness Expo. All good news! They’re expecting around 3000-5000 people and more than 50 local farmers, restaurants, schools, arts and culture venues, B&Bs at the food festival. There’ll be contests and entertainment all focussed on rebuilding local food supply chains. Transition Cornwall is holding a series of film screenings to raise awareness in their community about peak oil, climate change and Transition, and there could be a new Transition initiative on the way in Haliburton if the speakers from Transition Barrie manage to persuade them it’s a fantastic idea. Transition Town North Bay has just launched their online Local Farm Map at their Seed Exchange and EcoFair, with the aim of helping to reconnect local food consumers with local farms and so reduce food miles and build local resilience. Calgary in Transition has prepared the following film of its activities thus far for us all to enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bzcIcrZE3A

So, over to the US. Congratulations to Transition Cheltenham, which is Transition US’s 78^th official initiative…exciting news! Transition Centre County recently held discussions about how rising oil prices would affect their community, so have a look and see what they think the impacts would be. Transition Town Hope is holding a movie series, while Transition Town Manchester has shared their ideas for some future projects including a River Walk displaying art that celebrates nature, a hazelnut tree planting project and their regular organic potluck…yum! The group will also be selling hazel nut trees to plant in the local area following on from their successful fruit tree project last year. They again plan to sell 350 trees to highlight the need to reduce atmospheric CO2 content to 350 parts per million if we are to maintain the earth’s current climate.

Transition Town Nashville recently held a local food movement webcast that brought together 20 high-profile speakers from the local food and slow food movements to discuss the importance of redefining the way we grow and prepare our food, so it would be great to know what the outcomes were. Transition Salt Spring together with a few other local organisations held a seedy weekend (see right) with sessions on local food networking projects, a shared lunch, a seed saving presentation and lots of seeds available for people to grow. Transition Vermont is bringing together a fibres, textiles and craft skills work group to share skills, tools and resources with one another. They’re trying to reach out to local artisans at the moment, so if you’re an artisan in the area then why not get involved and share your skills…

Transition Town Putney is holding a talk about the reskilling that’s necessary to make health care systems more sustainable and resilient., while Transition South Bay has been in the news, with information about their re-skilling activities, LETS, and links to the other initiatives they work with. Around 100 residents of Berkeley came together to discuss plans for becoming a Transition Town, and talked about projects they’d like to start up, such as community orchards, network gardens, electric vehicles, backyard chicken rearing, and fruit-mapping with children. It all sounds great and we wish you the very best. And here’s our YouTube star Kevin (Phil O Sophical) again!

From China, we are grateful to Chen Li-chen, the Earth Passengers, and Clint Munkholm for organising and preparing the Traditional Chinese subtitles.

In case you haven’t seen it yet… Transition Denmark have a great website! In Italy, the translation team, especially Deborah Rim Moiso, has been very busy preparing the Italian subtitles of Sophy’s Psychology of Change piece from the bonus disc of ‘In Transition 1.0’. You can watch it on the Italian national hub site, or Part One here:

… and Part Two here….

More news from Transition Italy is that they just held their first Transition Day in Bologna where they envisioned what a National Transition Gathering in Italy might look like. They had a World Cafe, games, presentations on local initiatives’ activities, elevator pitches, skype calls from all over Italy, and loads of wonderful food. They also showed Sophy’s video which received great rounds of applause.  Thanks Deborah for that update!

In Australia, there’s a new initiative starting up at Riddells Creek… Transition Town Riddell will be launched in the middle of March at the town’s food fair, and they’re already encouraging residents to source local sustainably produced food. And there’s a new Transition Town at Maryborough in Queensland too, so we welcome both groups and wish you the best for the future.

In Ireland, Transition Town Kinsale have just posted this film of the Harvest Festival they held last year:

In the UK, Abbots Langley Transition Town Association has been given £400 towards their fundraising activities by a local Councillor, which will be used to raise awareness and encourage sustainable lifestyles in their community. Transition Town Romsey held an open meeting to celebrate their achievements and enjoy a talk about climate change, local food security and localised food systems, and finished with a discussion of opportunities for the future.  There’s an update of Transition Town Marlow’s 100 Solar project, which is a buyers’ club for people wishing to install PV and solar thermal panels on their own homes, which benefits buyers by getting solar panels at 20% less than the best offer available if you were buying alone…sounds great!

Transition Town Letchworth in Hertfordshire is pushing for The Wynd to be developed into an area that showcases sustainable lifestyles, small independent shops selling local produce, gardens for health, and provide a memory of the town’s ‘artisanal beginnings’. Transition Town Tooting is embarking on a series of Carbon Conversations, which will help them learn practical steps to reduce their carbon footprint and help mitigate climate change. The course and the materials have been developed by Cambridge Carbon Footprint, and after completing the course of workshops they can then train further to learn how to facilitate the course and help other groups, so it sounds very worthwhile indeed. Transition Town Christchurch has a few great foodie events coming up to help you on your way to spring, and here are some great pics of urban organic food growing in Transition Town Bolton.  Transition Shetland has been busy discussing ideas on how to get more food grown locally, such as how they can get community supported agriculture going on their island and also encourage crofters to make a piece of their land available where local people can grow vegetables and fruit.

Here’s a great clip from Lewes of a local choir celebrating the launch of the latest Lewes Pounds in song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66A5WXBy7NM

Transition Town Totnes recently had a visit from Lucy Siegle of the Observer, and here’s the piece she wrote. Simon Fairlie also visited and you can read an overview of his very interesting talk here. Macclesfeld in Transition – or Macc2020 – has loads of wonderful projects, and they’re just launching a ‘FoodforMacc Direct’ to enable producers to sell their food direct to consumers. Here’s a great little film of Transition Town Stroud’s Potato Day:

…and in response to a lot of interest from outside Stroud from people who wanted to get copies of their Potato Book… you can now order a copy online! – co-edited by the famous Desiree de Romano and Maris Piper – which includes all sorts of yummy ways to use our very versatile and hugely diverse range of good ol’ potatoes.

Transition Heathrow held a celebration to mark Grow Heathrow’s first birthday with lots of wonderful activities going on. The legally occupied market garden project has been given eviction reprieve so they have much to celebrate, and here are lots of pics of the fun they’ve been having, and here’s a very touching film celebrating their birthday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWDerzFiqOo

Transition Finsbury Park hosted 25 students from Brussels at their Edible Landscapes London site and told them about their various projects (see left).  They’re also looking for a volunteer marketing manager, so if you think your skills fit the bill then why not offer to help out? The new Banff Transition Initiative (welcome to you!) is starting their activities with a land share register to encourage people to connect with landowners willing to share their lands and allow local people to grow their own food on it.

Transition Town Worthing have been busy making films.  Here is one which seeks to answer the question “what is Transition Town Worthing?”

They also recently held a seed exchange event.  The film of that is in 4 parts:

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Transition Town Dorchester is hoping to help people reduce their energy use and therefore their fuel bills by loaning out home energy monitors so households can see exactly how much energy they’re using and how much it’s costing in fuel bills. Transition Town Brixton is on the move, but it’s found a new home in an empty council community hall (see right), so that’s wonderful and it can keep up its good work. Transition Town West Kirby had a busy February with film screenings, tree plantings and more Songs on Toast…what’s that then?!

Transition Evesham Vale is in the local news after a meeting to determine their activities over the coming year and their plans for 20 new projects. Transition Chepstow is helping to start up the Tidenham Landshare Project, and the farmer involved is keen to enable the local community to grow more of its own food, and in return the growers will give a share of their excess produce or pay a small annual rent. Great news! Transition Norwich’s Millennium Babies Project Team has, together with UEA and local schools, won funding from CUE East to develop their Oil Game, created and developed by Rob Hopkins and Steph Bradley, so that’s all great news!

Any UK Transition groups that haven’t got your copy of Chris Martenson’s Crash Course yet, you can get it here. We have lots of copies still and we’re eager for you to have them!  Happy Transitioning… spring is definitely on the way!

With my thanks, as ever, to Helen for compiling this round-up….