22 Mar 2006
Skilling Up for Powerdown – a not-to-be-missed day in Dublin.
The Cultivate Centre in Dublin is one of the most innovative, cutting edge and inspiring sustainability centres in the world. Every year they organise the Convergence Festival, which attracts amazing speakers from around the world, and is widely seen as being at the forefront of sustainability thinking. This year is no exception. April’s Convergence is called ‘Learning To Live With Less Fossil Fuel’, and includes some excellent speakers and events. I would like to highly recommend the day on April 20th called **‘Skilling Up for Powerdown’**, which will be a World Cafe facilitated day exploring all aspects of energy descent work, I will be one of the presenters. This will be the foremost event in 2006 for anyone interested in energy descent work and in community responses to peak oil and climate change. The day runs from 10.00am -5.00pm and costs €50 professional rate or €20 voluntary group rate. **Don’t miss this day** – it will be deeply practical and wonderfully positive. Full details below.
**Skilling Up for Powerdown**
A ‘World Café’ conference on planning how communities can thrive and prosper by more efficiently and effectively using energy. This is a day for sharing strategies, pooling experiences, networking and assembling the tools we will all need for managing energy descent in our communities.
The scale of the dual challenges of peak oil and climate change are such that they can often seem overwhelming. However, a rapidly growing number of people are coming to see them as the great opportunity, as the chance to build the more localised, sustainable and abundant society desired by so many.
For people working in sustainable education, activism, energy and community development our big challenge is how we prepare and re-skill our communities for the huge shocks ahead. In this conference participants will explore the skills and tools needed to meet the challenges ahead and how we can apply the training and education needed for real sustainable development.
Times of transition require fresh thinking and new tools, and these are best developed through a pooling of experience and insights, which is what we will attempt to do at this one-day event.
Using the World Café approach, participants at this event will work collaboratively to identify how we might facilitate the ‘Great Reskilling’, and empower our communities with visions of what kind of a future we could create. This is a must-attend event for anyone who wishes to positively respond to these unprecedented challenges.
Facilitated by Second Nature and Cultivate
**Three Conversations**
**Energy Descent Planning with Rob Hopkins**
Ireland is home to the Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan, the first attempt to design a timetabled pathway down from the peak, and it has been hugely influential, being used as a template by communities all around the world. Its facilitator, Rob Hopkins of TransitionCulture.org will open the day with a short presentation on Energy Descent Planning.
**Powerdown Community Groups with Graham Strouts**
It is vital that the setting up of local groups that can inform their communities and share resources and tools to move from fossil fuel dependency to energy independence. Graham Strouts who teaches the Permaculture course at Kinsale VEC will discuss plans for Powerdown Communities.
**Community Learning and Training with Davie Philip**
The Cultivate centres have been developed a number of learning resources and have worked with Feasta to create the Community Learning Toolkit. Davie Philip a founder of the Cultivate Centre and Feasta will outline how these resources have been received and Cultivate’s plans for a new resource focused on how our communities can learn to live with less fossil fuel.
**Convergence**
This event is part of the eleventh Convergence Sustainable Living Festival taking place from April 19 to 23 and focused on the topic of ‘Learning To Live With Less Fossil Fuel’. Convergence Festival brings together leading thinkers in the area of sustainable living and demonstrates innovative best practices.
See www.sustainable,ie/convergence