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.
We have reported here before about the spread of Transition in France, well here is something rather great from Fontainbleu near Paris where a Transition initiative is emerging. Judging by the amount of requests we get to use the drawing on the front cover of the Transition Handbook for posters, flyers, websites and so on, it’s fair to say people are rather fond of it. But have a look at this rather lovely animation the Fontainbleu group have done with it. Aw, isn’t that lovely…
Here is a fascinating short film. It features Eric Stewart of Transition New Port Richey in Florida, US, giving a presentation to his local council about what the group are up to. Yet it is also one of the most stressful Transition films I have ever seen, like some surreal drama, the dramatic tension is almost unbearable. The clock, in bright red, is ticking down and it’s hard to take your eyes off it. Will he say everything he needs to in just 3 minutes? What happens if he is still talking after 3 minutes? Do they pull a handle so that he plunges into a tank of crocodiles? Will he stumble, get it all wrong and say the wrong things?
… and then… just when the tension becomes unbearable, the film stops with 1:07 left to go! Ah the suspense! The unanswered questions! The sheer drama! I don’t need The Wire, 24…. just I minute 53 seconds of Eric Stewart and I have no finger nails left and chances are I won’t sleep tonight. He does a great job, keeps his head, and presents what the group are doing really well. Worth having a think about what you would say in that situation…. what would be the key things to get across if that red clock were ticking? If anyone has any idea where the rest of this film can be found, you might just put me out of my misery…
Yes, it’s competition time again, and this time the theme is beer. I am delighted to announce that we have one copy of the late David Fleming’s genius lifework ‘Lean Logic‘ (read glowing reviews here and here) and 10 copies of the new, much smaller, but quite brilliant “Rough Guide to Community Energy” to give away! Fantastic. This competition is inspired by the news that Transition Leytonstone have been working with Brodies, their local brewery, to produce ‘Transition Ale’, being brewed to celebrate their birthday. Regular readers will know I am a huge fan of tales of local breweries using beer names to celebrate Transition developments in their community. First off the blocks here were Transition Town Lewes, for whom local brewery Harveys brewed firstly ‘Quids In’ to celebrate the launch of the Lewes Pound, and more recently, ‘Sunshine Ale’, to celebrate the creation of the UK’s first community solar power station.
Today is the 5th anniversary of the ‘Unleashing’ of Transition Town Totnes. Feels like quite a landmark to me. On Saturday, TTT held an event to celebrate and reflect on the journey so far and on where we might go from here. In spite of it starting at 9am on a Saturday, over 70 people came, and we had a fantastic day. The day was chaired by Chrissie Godfrey and Paul Birch from Taunton Transition Town, who beautifully facilitated a very energising day. In the forthcoming ‘The Transition Companion’, one of the ingredients is called ‘How are we doing?’ and it looks at how groups can pause and reflect. What I want to do here is to set out the process we did on Saturday, in the hope that your Transition initiative might find it useful for having similar reflections.
I did an interview a while ago for Spanish National Radio, which I am posting here, although clearly it is only of any use to you if you understand Spanish. Pretty pointless otherwise. Anyway, here it is... (I tried to embed it here but it didn’t work…).
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
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