30 Apr 2010
3 Minutes on Leadership That Made Me Smile
You may have seen this before, but if not, here is an excellent 3 minute film from TED about leadership, which offers a wealth of insight, many of relevance to Transition…
An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
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
28 Apr 2010
How the Totnes Energy Descent Action Plan Came To Be…
As we sit, expecting 1.5 tonnes of Energy Descent Plan to arrive at the TTT office next week, and are nervously wondering if the floor joists of our listed hundreds-of-years-old office (once described in the Sunday Telegraph as a ‘rickety set of rooms) will take the weight, or whether the opticians below will find themselves flattened by lath, plaster and EDAPs, it feels as though we are reaching the finishing line of a marathon. This is a process that began in September 2008 with a launch event, and now, 19 months later, we are done. Tomorrow I’ll reflect on the process, but for today, here is how it came to be.
27 Apr 2010
May 7th: Launching the Totnes and District Energy Descent Action Plan!
The long awaited launch of the Totnes and District Energy Descent Action Plan will take place on Friday 7th May 2010 in the centre of town. Over the next few days I will be posting more about the Plan, a labour of love for the last year and a half, which has emerged as a quite extraordinary piece of work. You can now pre-order copies here. The official launch of the Plan will be on Friday May 7th, the day after the Election. Shoppers at the Friday market will be given some tasters of energy descent in colourful and musical spectacle as a parade of enthusiasts carrying pledges weave their way from TTT’s office in Fore Street up to the market and through the stalls at noon. The book will be on sale and a film loop of how the EDAP was created will be on show in adjoining venues during the afternoon. At 5pm there will be a formal launch with local advocates, book signing and cutting the cake in Totnes Civic Hall. All are welcome. Keep up with developments here.
26 Apr 2010
Is the Great Reskilling Already Underway? BBC Radio 4’s ‘Food Programme’
I spent yesterday afternoon in the village of Tuckenhay, a few miles from Totnes and on the Bow Creek, a spur that comes off the River Dart. Beautiful place, now largely a mix of very expensive houses, second homes and holiday cottages. There was a time when it was a vibrant working village, home to a papermill that made bank note quality paper, and a range of trades. Walking past ‘The Old Bakehouse’, ‘The Maltings’ and several other housenames indicating the former role of the houses, I was reminded of an amazing programme on Radio 4 yesterday morning that suggested that the reskilling required to support a more localised world on a meaningful scale may already have started.
23 Apr 2010
Transition Network Conference 2010 Now Open for Booking!
Our home for the conference, the former Seale-Hayne Agricultural College near Newton Abbott. A stunning venue, and we have it all to ourselves!
Forget Wimbledon, Glastonbury, or the Edinburgh Festival, the unmissable event of the summer of 2010 is the Transition Network conference at Seale Hayne, near Newton Abbott in Devon. If the word conference usually makes your blood run cold, with visions of soggy sandwiches, death-by-Powerpoint and graphs and struggling to keep your eyes open after lunch, Transition Network conferences are an entirely different kettle of fish. Think Open Space, a dazzling array of workshops, plenty of time to meet other Transitioners and learn from their experience, practical activities, great food, sunshine, time for games and for hanging out in the evenings, laughter, self-organisation, a deep immersive experience in this extraordinary thing we are all creating called Transition. You will find more info here, and all the info you need in order to book. This event will also introduce a new way of presenting the Transition model, based around the concept of a ‘Pattern Language’ which will be the centrepiece of ‘The Transition Handbook 2’, be a part of reshaping how we communicate Transition.
