Transition Culture

3 May 2011

An April Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition

It’s time to share news of all those wonderful Transition activities that you busy Transitioners have been up to this past month…  The first alert – in case you haven’t already heard – is to tell you that the Transition Network is now on Facebook…have a look!  Starting the rounds down in Australia, Transition Town Triangle Plus and Clean Energy for Eternity recently held a meeting to set out a ground breaking plan developed by Beyond Zero Emissions to move Australia’s energy systems on to renewable technologies in just 10 years… you can do it!

Over in South Africa, Nelson Mandela Bay Transition Network has been busy with an ‘introduction to food gardening workshop’, giving a presentation on Transition, and attending a talk on fracking (by Shell, very scary stuff) in an environmentally sensitive area of South Africa (watch it here).

Transition Town Worthing and Transition Town Shoreham are planning to re-develop the disused Upper Beeding cement works into a heritage, training and employment centre to promote local regeneration and foster sustainable lifestyles…wow some big projects being planned! Also from Transition Town Worthing, we have a little film made at the Farmer’s Market to relaunch their energy group:

… and they have been hard at work creating their new permaculture community garden…

Transition Town Maidenhead is enjoying their rounds of Green Drinks, so why not join them if you’re around that way…  In Amersham, Sam Free explains what Transition is:

https://youtu.be/-kQYqD9ig-E

Southend in Transition see their role as a networking one to help bring together and foster communication between all the Transition-related activities going on in their area. Sounds great! Congratulations to Paisley Transition Town for winning a share of £300,000 in the latest round of the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund awards. Transition Town Cheltenham has a great line up of activities for the spring, with workshops and gardening and beekeeping and movies and clay oven-building… Dundee West Transition Town helped Friends of the Earth and People and Planet to organise a Hustings on green issues for their SNP candidate. Transition Town Totnes have updated us with all their activities over the last month, so have a look and you may get some new ideas, and here are some really lovely photos of their people and activities…

In Highbury, in London, Manisha Abeyasingh who explains what Highbury Transition Towns Food Growing Project is about:

Transition Town Christchurch will be holding an open-house cafe event with seeds and plants to swap, gardening magazines and recipes to share, and a fair trade stall with chocolate-tasting sessions…so try and get along to support. Transition Rutland has been busy with bicycle activities including free bike checks, cycle confidence training for adults and a community bike ride, all with the aim of getting more people out of their cars and on to their bicycles. Transition Town Hebden Bridge recently held a very successful Give Away Free Day where people were invited to have a bit of a spring clean and leave things they no longer need outside their homes labelled as ‘free to take’. Items included a huge tent, a child’s car seat, lots of furniture, a bike…what a great idea! Transition Town Sturminster Newton made this short promotional film to promote their work:

https://youtu.be/te8gdGk6FL8

Transition Town Belsize recently held an evening of mourning and seasonal celebration, which drew inspiration from Joanna Macey’s work. Delphis-eco, together with Transition Town Wandsworth and Seed Pantry, will be creating an urban food growing space at their offices as part of the Capital Growth partnership initiative that aims to create 2012 new community food growing spaces in London by the end of 2012. In Bristol, Transition Montpelier is starting up its Urban Greening Workdays from May, so if you live round there why not lend a hand with planting trees, digging veggie beds, putting in waterbutts and more…no experience necessary, just bring some enthusiasm and a little bit of spare time. There’s a new Transition initiative at Dundee Transition Town, so we welcome you and wish you the best. Paul from Transition Cornwall recently spoke at an Ultra-Low Carbon Farming event in Parliament where he addressed MPs about farming without fossil fuels and shared ideas on how to make UK agriculture more resilient.

OVESCO, the Ouse Valley Energy Services Company, which has overlaps with Transition Town Lewes, recently took their pedal bike power-generating thing to Transition Chichester’s Energy Fair as part of a road show OVESCO and the Transition Town Lewes Energy Group have been taking to events in South East England.

Their share launch to finance the ‘community power station’ on the roof of the local Harveys’ brewery is going well, here is a film of Chris Rowland of OVESCO on the roof where the panels will be installed…

…and then they held an amazing launch event, as documented here…

In Ireland, Transition Town Kinsale recently held their Spring Fair which concluded with an evening concert in Kinsale FEC’s cob/cordwood amphitheatre:

In other parts of Europe, we’ve got a great film from Transition Bielefeld with some interesting road action…, and here’s another fantastic film showing Transition Deventer working hard on a piece of land loaned to them by the council where they’re learning skills in sustainable building and vegetable growing…wonderful!

Transition Town Witzenhausen set up a stall recently opposite a rather loud brass band.  It isn’t clear who got there and set up first…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzPqA4xLj0Y

Over in North America, Transition Wayland recently hosted a talk by Tina Clarke of Transition US, and one of their members was interviewed by Wayland Patch, which you can read here.  Transition Town Chelsea put on a few special events to mark Earth Day, and there’s a new group getting started at Transition Kensington so we wish you the very best! Transition Town Phillips recently held a Mother Earth Day and Potluck with poetry, singing, face painting and spending time getting to know each other more. Transition Long Prairie is ready to go into their community and put into practice the ideas they’ve come up with during their study group sessions…so we wish you all the best! Transition Honesdale and the Ellen Memorial Health Care Centre are starting up a community garden with 25 plots for local residents who don’t have gardens but want to grow their own food…fantastic!  Transition Victoria gave an introductory talk about Transition to the Regional Climate Action Forum hosted by the Quesnel Climate Action group.

So here Helen stops and bids you all farewell. Keep up the wonderful work you do for Transition, for your communities and for this beautiful world we all share. I’ll be watching as Transition continues to grow and flourish… Thank you all for the fantastic things you do.

Our deepest gratitude to Helen for all her work for Transition Network over the past two years, and we wish her all the best on her onward travels… we’d also like to welcome Amber to the fold, who will be doing next month’s update, among other things!