An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Very soon you will find that you are having meetings, and that you need to get a lot done in a limited amount of time. For most of us, the idea of meetings, indeed the very mention of the word, leads to a sinking feeling, akin to that associated
with the words “going to the dentist” and “doing your accounts”. One notable sustainability project that I followed for a while in the UK in the early 90s, folded after four years of innovative and productive work. I asked one of the founder members why. “I think we just met each other to death”, he told me. It doesn’t have to be like this. There are a number of tools that we use that make our meetings far more productive, and, dare I say, enjoyable.
Dealing with the media will rapidly become a key element of the work of your Transition Initiative. One of the first skills you will need to perfect is the writing of good press releases. There is no avoiding the writing of press releases, they are key to communicating what you are doing to the outside world.
We have talked at Transition Culture before about how we might harness the power of advertising to engage people in Transition. There are some great ads coming out of Ken Livingston’s London Assembly as part of their strategy of taking cars out of London and getting more bikes and public transport on the road. Anyway, before you look at those, best place to start is with this simple awareness test…
Here is something you might enjoy. I am often asked what students from the Kinsale permaculture course have done in their post-course lives. Did they go off and set up hemp building companies or become comfrey millionaires, or did a career in telesales beckon? It is hard to keep tabs on where people go and what they do (although I often hear rumours of great projects), although the Permies Portal site set up by students, a kind of PermiesReunited, is a great resource for that. I do know though what Nadia Hillman, now resident of Bristol is doing, and its rather wonderful. Have a look at the film below, about her project, Grofun.
A film screening is much more than just an opportunity to sit a load of people in front of a screen. Likewise, a talk is more than just the chance to hear the musings of a well-known thinker on a particular subject. Both are opportunities to get people talking to each other, networking, building social connections. Indeed, one might argue that these are far more important than the film itself; they could, after all, just borrow the DVD and stay at home. It is also important that you work into these events what we might call “digestion time”, that is, time to chew over what people have heard, rather than just dumping information on them and then ending them out, blinking and bewildered, into the world. Here are some of the things you might expect at the average Transition Initiative film screening or talk:
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
Read more»
Very soon you will find that you are having meetings, and that you need to get a lot done in a limited amount of time. For most of us, the idea of meetings, indeed the very mention of the word, leads to a sinking feeling, akin to that associated
