Transition Culture

11 Dec 2009

Two Short Films from Transition Town Totnes

A couple of filmmakers are living in Totnes making a film about Transition, and in the process are making some short films documenting some of the TTT events taking place. Here are two short films they made, the first is about the brilliant TTT Winterfest event run a couple of weekends ago, which I haven’t yet blogged about but no longer need to now…

…and the second is about the ‘How We Used To Live‘ event the previous week….

Our thanks to them for making these records of TTT, I wish they had been here since the beginning, what an amazing archive there would now be!!

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4 Dec 2009

What It Looks Like When a Local Authority REALLY Gets Transition… the Monteveglio story….

So what might it look like when a local authority really gets Transition?  Earlier this week I received a very excitable email from Cristiano Bottone, one of the movers behind Transition Italia, and the Transition of his own town, Monteveglio, near Bologna.  “Monteveglio‘s local authority signs a strategic partnership with “Monteveglio Città di Transizione”….This is a revolution for this country, believe me. Thank you for all your help. I love you  ;-)”.    So what did the Monteveglio authorities actually sign up to, why is Cristiano so excited about it, and  what does it mean?

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3 Dec 2009

Brian Davey Responds to Ted Trainer

You may remember recently Ted Trainer’s first draft of his paper “The Transition Towns Movement: its huge significance, and a friendly criticism”, and my subsequent response.  Ted subsequently sent some more detailed thoughts, and has since rewritten his piece, which you can download here.  Brian Davey of Transition Nottingham responded to Ted’s piece in a beautiful, heartfelt and fiery response, which he has kindly allowed me to share with you, as many of you might find that his key points resonate quite deeply.  My thanks to both.

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30 Nov 2009

‘How We Used to Live’: bringing Transition and oral history together

We had a great event last week in Totnes, called ‘How We Used to Live’, which explored the most recent period in history when the town had a more localised economy and less energy than it does today.  It was built on the oral history work that I have been doing, which will feature in the Totnes EDAP when it comes out.  The evening featured Barrington Weekes from the wonderful Totnes Image Bank and Rural Archive, and four of the people I interviewed.  Two of them, Douglas Matthews and Ian Slatter, have since passed away, and the evening was dedicated to their memory.

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19 Nov 2009

‘Transition Norwich: a Fine City in Transition’ – 2009 Survey Findings

Hot on the heels of her excellent 2009 Transition Network survey, Gill Seyfang of UEA is back, this time with a similarly excellent and comprehensive survey of Transition Norwich.  You can download the pdf. of her survey here.  The findings Gill notes are very interesting, such as how a third of the members have not previously been engaged in local environmental groups, and a further sixth have been motivated to return to local activism by the Transition movement. The survey finds that members are attracted by the positive, hopeful message of Transition, emphasising grassroots empowerment, local solutions and constructive action rather than protesting or campaigning. Like yesterday’s report from Transition East, the section on troubleshooting is fascinating.  The most alarming part of the survey was to hear that only 17% of people involved with Transition Norwich have ever read Transition Culture.  Dear oh dear, what’s a man to do….

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