Transition Culture

An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent

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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.

Archive for “Transition Initiatives” category

Showing results 196 - 200 of 578 for the category: Transition Initiatives.


16 May 2011

Incredible Edible Totnes gets underway with its first plantings

The BBC film crew filming the Incredible Edible Totnes group planting food at Steamer Quay....

A few months ago, Paul Clarke of Incredible Edible Todmorden came to Totnes and gave a talk about their work.  As a result, Incredible Edible Totnes was suggested and I am delighted to report that its first project is underway.  Down at Steamer Quay they have taken over 8 unloved Council planters and filled them with peas, beans, rocket, lettuce, nasturtiums and much more.  The food is there for anyone to help themselves to, and indeed I had some rather nice rocket from there the other day.  Click here to hear an interview on the new Totnes FM radio station with Joy Hanson, one of the project’s founders.  The BBC have been in Totnes for the past week filming for a series called ‘Towns’, which will be broadcast in September, and they filmed some sequences of work underway on the planters (see above).  Here are some more pictures of the Steamer Quay planters… more projects are now being planned…

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Categories: Community Involvement, Food, Great Reskilling, Localisation, Resilience, Transition Initiatives


13 May 2011

Transition Town Tufnell Park’s ‘Big Dig’

Here’s a lovely short film from London about a back garden make-over organised by Transition Town Tufnell Park…

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11 May 2011

Why we love Transition Training

I thought I would take the opportunity this morning to rave enthusiastically about Transition training.  A few years ago Naresh Giangrande and Sophy Banks designed Transition Training as a two-day total immersion in the first stages of this evolving process.  Since the first course in Totnes in October 2007, 106 training courses worldwide have been organised by Transition Training, with local organisers, and presented by members of a dedicated team of 16 UK trainers to over 2,500 participants.  Courses have been run throughout the UK, as well as in Eire, Sweden, Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Germany and Flanders. Dozens more are being organised and run by local organizing hubs in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, parts of South America, and Asia, led by a team of multilingual trainers.  Here is a recently made short film about it, the first of three I want to share with you:

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10 May 2011

Does engagement with Transition make people happier and healthier?

Does engaging in Transition lead to people being healthier and happier?  This is a question that has often been speculated on, and one that Janet Richardson, Professor of Health Service Research, Faculty of Health of the University of Plymouth has explored before, but as part of the Transition Together and Transition Streets initiatives happening in Totnes, she has just produced ‘Assessing the potential health impacts of a Transition town initiative: a health impact assessment of Totnes Transition Together and Transition Streets: a short report prepared for Transition Town Totnes, May 2011’, the first piece of research I know of that looks at this question.  It is very short, and largely speculative, but it opens the door for more detailed study of this most fascinating of areas.

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9 May 2011

On becoming an honorary Gasketeer

Receiving my certificate from Brian Harper, one of three Gasketeers who travelled to the Tagore Festival...

On Saturday I did a talk at the Tagore Festival which I hope to get a film of up soon.  Instead of using powerpoint, I told the story of Transition using different objects which different initiatives had sent me.  It went really well, and was a really enjoyable way of doing it.  One of the most substantial ‘props’ was a fully functioning Victorian gas lamp which the Malvern Gasketeers had brought all the way from Malvern that morning.  My thinking had been that the crescendo of my talk would be to invite them onstage and that they would light the lamp for all to see.  However, while setting up we were told that in order to light it we would have needed a licence from the local Council, so it remained unlit, albeit rather beautiful nonetheless. 

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Categories: Energy, Self Congratulation, Storytelling, Technology, Transition Initiatives