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
Sometimes there are particular films that really capture the essence of what Transition is all about. Here is one, a beautiful 6 minute piece about the 400 Fruit Trees project in Kilkenny in Ireland. It is so great when people document what they are doing in this way. It is a beautifully relaxed and inspiring start to your day.
I am currently in heads-down Totnes Energy Descent Plan editing/writing mode, which is proving hugely time-consuming, so posts at Transition Culture will be a bit erratic over the next few days. I am currently working on the food section, which is fascinating. We have been lucky enough to get a grant from Landshare to allow us to commission Geofutures in Bath to take Simon Fairlie’s Can Britain Feed Itself? paper and to focus it on Totnes and its surrounding ‘foodshed‘. It is fascinating work, and the first public unveiling of it will be on Monday May 18th, at an event in Totnes called, imaginatively, ‘Can Totnes Feed Itself?‘.
Transition Brixton just posted a couple of clips from a recent event they ran about food. The first clip features Rosie Boycott, London’s ‘Food Czar’, speaking about food security for the city.
Here is the latest month’s worth of stories about Transition that you may have missed from across the world’s media. There are some fascinating stories in here. Have a delve and a rummage… think of it as a kind of Transition Lucky Dip. First, and most usefully, there is the May 2009 Transition Network Newsletter, which has links to yet more stories, and you can subscribe to free here. The ‘Who We Are and What We Do‘ document has been translated into Italian (see left)! Well done all. Transition Kirkbymoorside have been making the news, not once but twice. Then there’s the Lewes Pound, which is set to expand, with £1, £5 and £10 notes being issued in July. and is being followed by Stroud, who are about to launch something very similar.
Burn out is a real and present danger for anyone involved in Transition, as indeed for any kind of community work or environmental activism. I have known several green activist/campaigners who suffered from terrible burnout, that led to depression, withdrawal and cynicism. At this year’s Transition Network conference there will be a workshop on dealing with burnout, a subject that has been a regular feature of Transition gatherings since its inception. When I visit Transition groups around the country, burnout is raised regularly as a concern, given that most initiatives are self-funding and driven by volunteers. I am not immune to it myself, but I was wondering the other day how come, given the incredible amount of commitment and energy people around the world are putting into Transition, there isn’t far more burnout than we actually see. In yesterday’s paper I read a fascinating piece that offered an interesting insight into this.
