Transition Culture

That’s a beautiful film. Thank you.

Glad you took the opportunity to post this Rob. It brought a tear to my eye, possibly because I’m closer to this community. Margaret Jefferies at Project Lyttelton has been building a resilient community there since before you coined the Transition Towns name.

She has been helping establish Farmers markets, organising local fish trading, compost collection and processing, time banking, community gardens, and so much more love in action work.

On the day of the earthquake – which has left the entire region of Christchurch in a shambles that they won’t recover from for a very long time (they’re still shaking with regular 4 and 5 quakes) – Margaret had just boarded a ferry to cross to the other side of the harbour. She looked back on the valley that lyttelton is nestled into, and watched it shake, rattle and tumble.

I can only guess at what must have been going through her mind and heart at that moment, after all the extraordinary work she has done to build connections and a strong, loving and resilient community.

Thank you for expressing so beautifully on film why my two eldest children students at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, (a very long way from home on the island of Jersey), have remained there, despite the 7,500 or so aftershocks experienced since September 4, 2010.

The Student Volunteer Army has worked, and continues to work tirelessly out in the community wherever/however needed….

The people of Christchurch and its environs are leading the way…showing the world what being in community means.

As my son said a couple of months ago, “New Zealand and Japan are the first to see the sun rise each day…now the first to embrace the coming shift”