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
8 Sep 2010
This Friday night in Totnes (7pm in the Civic Hall), a historic event occurs, the launching of the Totnes Renewable Energy Society (TRESOC). TRESOC describes itself as “an Industrial and Provident Society established to enable the community of Totnes and surrounding parishes to take charge of the development of our renewable energy resources and provide maximum benefit to the local economy”. It originally emerged from an Open Space Day on energy held by Transition Town Totnes, and although it is not a TTT project, it is clearly a key part of the infrastructure of relocalisation as set out in the Totnes & District EDAP. Anyone in Totnes or the surrounding parishes will be able to buy between £20 and £20,000 of shares, which will entitle them to one vote. The model means that the company will be democratically owned, and provides a safeguard from takeover by large commercial interests. TRESOC will be announcing, on the night, news of its first major renewable energy projects which have, until now, been kept tightly under wraps. The share option pack will also be available on TRESOC’s website from just after the launch. I will be posting a report about the launch, and will be taking my cheque book in order to be among the first to invest in the renewable energy future of my community!
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7 Sep 2010
Last weekend I was at Embercombe, about 20 minutes drive from Totnes, for the West Country Storytelling Festival. Embercombe is a fascinating evolving project, describing itself as “a charity and social enterprise established to champion a way of living that celebrates the opportunities inherent in this challenging time and that inspires people to energetically contribute towards the emergence of a socially just, environmentally sustainable and spiritually fulfilling human presence on earth”. It is also a stunning place, a mix of woodlands and fields. Food production is becoming a key part of its work, and it now has a wonderful vegetable garden, orchards, field scale veg and, of particular interest to me, some small scale cereals production. The day I was there, they were threshing (or attempting to thresh) some of what they had grown, and I thought I would share some of the conversations that took place by the threshing machine.
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6 Sep 2010
It’s competition time here again at Transition Culture! You can win a copy of Chris Bird’s just-about-to-be-published book ‘Local Sustainable Homes’ (I have 5 copies to give away) by telling me the answer to the following before midday this Thursday (9th September). Please email your answer to rob (at) transitionculture.org (do not post as a comment). Which two of the following ten local natural building materials or related terms is merely a product of my fevered imagination?
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6 Sep 2010
You may well have already seen this, indeed 2.5 million people did before it was removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement, but I hadn’t seen it until this weekend, and it is fantastic and, I found, actually strangely moving. Now back on YouTube, “Newport (Ymerodraeth State of Mind)” is a parody of the Jay-Z and Alicia Keys song, a celebration of the Welsh town. Although it has been criticised for the fact that its producers don’t actually come from Newport, I thought it was hilarious, as a lover of warts’n’all musical celebrations of place, such as that for Branksome in Dorset (very silly).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4NeFo7zkfk&feature=related
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3 Sep 2010
Here’s a short treat for a Friday afternoon, a good way to sign off for the week, a trailer for a film being made by Milpa Films called ‘Voices of the Transition’. Looks like it is going to be rather good….
https://vimeo.com/12408171
Here’s what Nils Aguilar of Milpa Films told us about the production: “it is totally independent, non commercial, passion driven and collective (as far as it is possible to involve different actors in the production process).
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This Friday night in Totnes (7pm in the Civic Hall), a historic event occurs, the launching of the Totnes Renewable Energy Society (TRESOC). TRESOC describes itself as “an Industrial and Provident Society established to enable the community of Totnes and surrounding parishes to take charge of the development of our renewable energy resources and provide maximum benefit to the local economy”. It originally emerged from an Open Space Day on energy held by Transition Town Totnes, and although it is not a TTT project, it is clearly a key part of the infrastructure of relocalisation as set out in the Totnes & District EDAP. Anyone in Totnes or the surrounding parishes will be able to buy between £20 and £20,000 of shares, which will entitle them to one vote. The model means that the company will be democratically owned, and provides a safeguard from takeover by large commercial interests. TRESOC will be announcing, on the night, news of its first major renewable energy projects which have, until now, been kept tightly under wraps. The share option pack will also be available on TRESOC’s website from just after the launch. I will be posting a report about the launch, and will be taking my cheque book in order to be among the first to invest in the renewable energy future of my community!
