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.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
22 Mar 2008
The train journey by overnight sleeper from London Euston to Inverness is quite magical. You fall asleep sometime around the point at which the train passes through Clapham (not especially picturesque), and you awaken in the Scottish Highlands where, in our case at least, the snow is falling and the landscape, a mixture of lakes and forest, streams and hills, is quite beautiful. It was a view that was timeless, enchanting and coming from the South West of England where it never seems to snow anymore, it was a rare and delightful reconnection with landscapes that look as though they have been sprinkled with icing sugar.
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21 Mar 2008
I set off today on my trip to Findhorn for the Positive Energy conference. I am rather excited, as it is 13 years since I was last there, for the seminal Eco-Villages and Sustainable Communities conference. I understand it has evolved a lot in that time, and I am looking forward to seeing that. I am travelling with my 14 year old son Rowan who will be attending the whole event, and will be writing his own blog that will be published here at Transition Culture alongside mine. So over the next 7 days you will be getting a daily blog from me, and also (in theory!) one from him too. We’ll see how it goes.
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21 Mar 2008
If you are a control freak, you will hate organising an Open Space event! It involves a lot of trust that the process will work but at the same time I have never seen or heard of one not working. Open Space is a powerful tool for engaging large groups of people in discussions to explore particular questions or issues. It can be used with groups from anything between 10 and 1,000 people. Open Space has Four Rules and One Law (the Law of Two Feet).
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20 Mar 2008
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.
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20 Mar 2008
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.
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