5 Sep 2012
Fiona Ward reflects on her ‘REconomy roadtrip’: big challenges and big possibilities
Fiona Ward (far right) with members of Transition Town Lewes’ Enterprise group and a few visitors from Brighton.
Fiona Ward of the REconomy Project recently visited a number of Transition initiatives to find out how their work creating a new economy for their community is going. As the REconomy Day (on the Friday before the Transition Network conference) continues to fill up (over 100 people at last count), I spoke to her, and asked her about her trip:
She has also written a fantastic blog about the key learnings from the trip, as well as reports from each place she visited, which are essential reading in terms of the current state of play of emerging Transition social enterprises. She introduces her blog thus:
The route map for the REconomy Roadtrip which Fiona kept close to hand at all times in case she got lost.
“‘Road trip’ sounds better, but it was of course a rail trip, taking in 10 places over 1,500 miles in 22 train legs in 11 days – from Totnes to Maidenhead, Lewes, Brixton, Norwich, Durham, Dunbar nr Edinburgh, Slaithwaite, Manchester and Hereford then back to Devon. Why these places? I knew that each of these Transition Initiatives had started or seeded new enterprises, and I was keen to learn more and do some cross-pollination.
I heard about 26 new businesses that are providing employment and boosting community resilience, and met with lots of lovely Transition people – read on to find out the common themes that emerged, the exciting range of new enterprises being born, the very real issues that REconomy work faces on the ground, and the sense of hope and possibility with which I returned home”…