A guest post by François-Olivier Devaux of Transition Hub Wallonie-Bruxelles: Imagine suddenly your friends and neighbors talking enthusiastically about their new implication in their neighborhood, their plans to start acting locally and the deep changes they are contemplating in their daily lives. If you have witnessed this recently, it is probably related to the release of […]
Report | 3rd Meeting of the Brazilian Network of Transition Towns. São Paulo, February 26, 27 and 28, 2016. At Coletivo Amor de Madre. 3 days of pure Transition, that’s what’s happened! 3 days of magic, where collaboration, the joy of being together and sharing the best we have! Three days of collective construction […]
The rise of the film ‘Demain‘ appears unstoppable. Viewed in France now by almost a million people, winner of the Cesar award for Best Documentary, lined up for release in at least 30 other countries, the film has been received with standing ovations, and has inspired many people to roll their sleeves up and do […]
One Year in Transition (1YT) has been running in the UK for four years now. When we launched in September of 2012 we had a pretty clear idea that there was a large gap in education. A gap between the desire of students to use their course learning to bring about greater sustainability in whatever […]
With just days to go until the 6th series of Game of Thrones premieres on HBO, we can unveil today that Transition Network have played a key advisory role in the development of the new series. Scriptwriters from HBO travelled from their base in New York City to visit Transition initiatives in number of countries, […]
Being part of the Transition Movement. Format: Checklist / activity People: All of your group (at least one person who can use the internet) Time: 30 minutes Resources needed: A computer with internet access, a place to meet Why do it “I can’t change the world on my own, I need at least three people […]
On a wet and windy day in early-February, the energetic Billinge and Orrell in Transition Group invited over 100 community leaders, members and to take part in the first REconomy North West event. Close to the site of George Orwell’s bleak social investigation The Road to Wigan Pier, the aim of the day was to explore […]
The word ‘devolution’ figures large in the UK at the moment. You’d think the idea of devolving power closer to the local level would be very akin to what Transition is working to achieve, but as Kerry-Anne Mendoza puts it, in reality it represents “the greatest shift of power from local to central government since […]
We are delighted to present our new film, ‘8 days @ COP21’. It captures those days last December when the climate negotiations took place in Paris, and the experiences of some of the Transitioners who were there. Thanks to our wonderful team of crack Transition volunteer translators in Paris, we are able to offer the […]
Transition Galway in Ireland just published ‘A Vision for Galway 2030’, their Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP). It’s a fascinating piece of work, and so we caught up with Bernard McGlinchy (BM), Mary Greene (MG) and Caoimhín Ó Maolallaigh (COM) to find out more about it. There had been two previous attempts to start Transition […]
My friend Lucy Neal sent me a photo of me the other day, taken at the Transition Network conference in 2012 at Battersea Arts Centre. On the final day of the event, we did a remarkable exercise, the Transition Town Anywhere High Street, designed and facilitated by Ruth Ben-Tovim of Encounters Arts. Over the space […]
In which Sara, Pedro and Deborah, the new Transitionese team working on a project to expand the International Transition movement’s translation capacities, introduce themselves and the tools they will be using. And ask for support through a survey. Following-up from the call sent out by Transition Network in November 2015, a team of three people […]
So George Osborne just delivered his budget. In the same week, the Mauna Loa Observatory released data showing that the rise in CO2 concentrations in 2015 was the largest year-to-year increase during 56 years of research, up to 405.6 ppm, a level not seen in 15 million years. Prof. Michael Mann says “we have no […]
Theresa O’Donohoe of Transition Ireland & Northern Ireland reports: The Great Awakening For many years energy, climate change or Transition were not on people’s radar in Ireland, but circumstances have been changing and people are now waking up to our energy challenges. A few years ago there was an application to drill for oil […]
I love doing Launch Online. I get to facilitate a group of like minded people as we discuss important, quirky, stimulating, and touching subjects that constantly delight me. Griet from Belgium said of the last course: “This is the most energising, deep and at the same time very mind-provoking course I’ve attended in years. I […]
Our theme for the next 2 months is ‘International’. With the Transition movement now being active in over 50 countries, it feels like a good time to pause and reflect on how that is working, what it looks like, and the many wonderful things, and the challenges, that arise from that. To kick off our […]
In which I visit an extraordinary venue in Paris and find myself painted on a window. I was in Paris yesterday to speak at a place called La Recyclerie, at the invitation of UpCafe, an organisation that runs a series of talks about social innovation and sustainability. The event had sold out several weeks ago, […]
It’s amazing where being chosen as one of our ’21 Stories of Transition’ can lead. Transition Bro Gwaun, whose ‘Transition Cafe’ story featured in the special book we made for COP21, were invited to speak in Cardiff at a Climate Change Commission for Wales seminar called Climate Change: Commitment to Action. They very kindly allowed […]
How to get and keep people involved in Transition Format: Activity / Guide People: Good for the whole group to read, but in particular those who are responsible for welcoming new people into your group. Resources: This guide, a place to meet Why do it In many places there are lots of people who are […]
Footpaths is a way for people to meet and support each other to reduce their personal carbon footprints through a series of meetings facilitated by members and a useful handbook. It has been running for over 5 years and has been recognised to help individuals reduce their footprints. Over 30 groups have run (mainly in […]
During January and February, we have been exploring the theme of Burnout and Balance, and it’s been fascinating. We began with an editorial piece from Sophy Banks that focused on the causes of burnout – the physical, the personal, the cultural and some of the unconscious processes that are much harder to spot. She also […]
In her framing editorial for our theme of burnout and balance, Sophy Banks asked: “What should leaders in our groups and our movement be modelling to show that well being and balance are more important than always doing? To model that it’s not acceptable to override one’s health to give a bit more, again and […]
The word ‘fulfilment’ has two distinct meanings. The first, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is “the fact of doing something that is necessary or something that someone has wanted or promised to do”, and the second “a feeling of pleasure because you are getting what you want from life”. I like the idea of the second one, a life of fulfilment, […]
Our new Inner Transition Coordinator, Claire Milne, met Ilarion Merculieff whilst visiting what is commonly known as Alaska. They enjoyed potent conversations and connection and it quickly became clear to Claire that those of us working for social and ecological renewal could learn a lot from Ilarion and the ancient teachings of his Unangan ancestors. […]
I watched the recent BBC documentary on Kids Company, Camila’s Kids Company: the inside story, with great sadness. It told the story of Camila Batmanghelidjh and the unravelling of one of the UK’s best known charities, who did remarkable work helping some of the most disadvantaged kids in the UK. While what happened is clearly […]
In a final interview before she left Transition Network to take on new challenges, I sat down with Sophy Banks to talk about burnout and balance, our current theme. I started out by asking her what, for her, is meant by the term. You can hear the interview in full as a downloadable podcast (here), […]
Here are all of Chris Johnstone’s 5 tips for reducing the risk of burnout gathered in one place! They are: No. 1: See enthusiasm as a resource. No. 2: Redefine a good life. No. 3: Broaden your definition of activism No. 4. Follow your inner compass No. 5: See success with new eyes and savour […]
The spirit behind Transition, that invitation for a community to come together to reimagine and rebuild itself, takes many forms, not all of them choose to use the label Transition, and some, like the story told in this book, emerged before Transition but very much sees itself as being a Transition initiative in spirit. Earth […]
Lou Hemmerman, a sustainable activism researcher and facilitator with Ecodharma, shares her learnings from 6 years of action-research whilst co-facilitating Sustaining Resistance: Empowering Renewal, a 10 day residential workshop for activists. Lou lives at Ecodharma, a land-based community and education centre in a wild and remote part of the Catalunyan Pyrenees. ‘Caring for myself is […]
Last week I visited an amazing exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London called The Secret Temple: Body, Mind and Meditation in Tantric Buddhism, (it’s on until February 28th). The exhibition is a celebration of the Lukhang, a temple close to Lhasa’s Potala Palace which was conceived by the fifth Dalai Lama and built by the […]
Low-carbon Neighbourhood Planning – key policy changes and scope for influence for Transition Initiatives Amy Burnett, University of Reading and Dan Stone, Centre for Sustainable Energy It’s been over a year since I wrote my article Neighbourhood Planning and the transition towards […]
The film ‘Demain’ (‘Tomorrow’) is proving to be one of the most remarkable catalysts for Transition and other bottom-up approaches that has ever been made. I recently saw it described by a friend of mine as “‘March of the Penguins’ for localists”. Mention of it often pops up in emails from people who have seen […]
It feels apt that I should be introducing myself as Transition Network’s new Inner Transition Coordinator as part of a blog on burnout. I have lived most of my adult life through the lens of burnout. In many ways I am incredibly grateful as it has supported me to find meaning and depth in my […]
Back in May last year, I read in the papers, they found Anne Leitrim dead in her flat in Bournemouth. Her body had been there six years. Tragic, I thought, inconceivable. Then I asked myself just how many neighbours I have who would come knocking on my door. And the answer was zero. A few […]
[Original here] The climate crisis has revealed a paradox at the heart of global governance: Those who hold the power in the current system present as the solution to ecological destruction and social dislocation the very paradigm and power relations that are driving the crisis. This essay puts forward an alternative point of view and […]
Chrissie Godfrey was formerly a co-ordinator of Transition Town Taunton (which she co-founded in 2008), but in 2012 suffered from a serious case of burnout. We asked her to tell her story, and we are deeply grateful for her honesty and for sharing her experience: “When you first come together with other like minded people, […]
A guest post from Clare Power, a Lecturer at Western Sydney University: I’d like to contribute some of my thoughts which were formed while doing a PhD that explored the Transition movement in Australia and found high incidences of burnout among Transition participants. During the research process I kept returning to Alice Walker’s words ‘Look closely […]
Format: Activity / Guide People: All of your group Time: 1 hour Resources needed: This activity sheet, a place to meet This is also a guide that is useful to print out and store in a folder about your group, to refer to in the future and to show new members of your group. Why […]
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said recently “we have to move to a new model of economic growth that is rooted in more investment, more savings and higher exports”. This growth-at-all-costs mantra runs through pretty much everything, yet at the same time, something fascinating is happening in pretty much every town and city […]
Oral histories have been something that has fascinated the Transition movement since the outset. The idea that the future can learn things from the past, and that a past with less oil wasn’t just the relentlessly miserable, dour, monochrome experience it can sometimes be portrayed as being, has been one that groups have explored in […]
If our individual life is a mystery in itself, the life of a group, of a human system, is an even greater one! ITLAV, the Transition Initiative of Linda-a-Velha (in Portugal), would like to share our story of our particularly unique and mysterious path, one that invites us to reflect deeply on the mysteries of […]
Book Review: The Urban Farmer: growing food for profit on leased and borrowed land. Curtis Stone. New Society Publishers (266pp). In my visits to meet different Transition groups, I get to see lots of community gardens. Community gardens can be amazing spaces, places for communities to come together, to run events, to learn new skills, […]
Chris Johnstone is an old friend of this blog, a resilience specialist and writer, author of ‘Active Hope’ and ‘Find your Power’, who is now living in the north-east of Scotland. One is his areas of speciality is balance and burnout, so we felt like the ideal person to catch up with. We started by […]
I started Transition Albany in 2009 and – despite that “I” at the beginning of this sentence – our first event was a model of cooperation and organizing as group. Not surprisingly it was also very successful: multilayered, rich, informative and inspiring. We showed Power of Community, and had various community building activities built in, […]
Format: Activity People: Group Time needed: 40 minutes Resources needed: This guide, a place to meet Why do it Transition is about balance and people need to take time to relax as well as doing stuff, so getting this balance is crucial to staying healthy and effective. If you have a group which is really […]
During the 2015, the Instituto de Transición Rompe el Círculo and the municipal candidatureGanar Móstoles have worked together in designing the strategies that will make Transition City Mostoles possible [Este post está disponible también en castellano]. As a result of this cooperation and the effort made by the candidature town councilors –people we specially want to thank for […]
**Warning: SPOILER ALERT: if you don’t want to know what happens in the new Star Wars film, don’t read this. ** Like so very many people, I fell for the hype, and at vast expense, took my kids to see the new Star Wars film, ‘The Force Awakens’, just before Christmas. Although occasionally entertaining, and a […]
This blog, the last from Sophy as she leaves Transition Network, focuses on the causes of burnout – the physical, the personal, the cultural and some of the unconscious processes that are much harder to spot. We’re giving ourselves spacious time over the next two months to explore the theme, and there will be more […]
It is said in Buddhism that just before his enlightenment, as the Buddha sat beneath the bodhi tree, he was challenged by Mara, the demon, who tried to distract him from attaining enlightenment with desire and fear. Mara demanded that the Buddha produce a witness to confirm that he had in fact reached a level […]
Today Sophy Banks, the founder of the ‘Inner Transition’ aspect of what we do, moves on from Transition Network to pastures new, a moment we felt needed marking. So I cycled up the not inconsiderable hill to Sophy’s house, and over a cup of tea we talked about Inner Transition, the legacy she feels she is […]
During 2015, two of the key ‘thought leaders’ of Transition have stepped aside to focus on other things. Fiona Ward was the founder and originator of the concept of REconomy, and Sophy Banks has pioneered the whole field of ‘Inner Transition’. Both have played a huge role in making Transition, and Transition Network, what they […]
On my first evening in Paris for the COP21 climate summit, I eat at an Indian vegetarian restaurant close to Gare Du Nord, and over a mixed vegetable dosa I observe a table of climate activists across the restaurant, some from India, others from a northern European country the name of which my eavesdropping doesn’t […]
Continuing our exploration of the Transition Story project, we asked different National Hubs for their reflections on the blog that opened our theme on the Transition Story. Today Yoav Egozi of the Transition Israel Hub shares his thoughts: “I think the some of the parts that attracted me to Transition in the first place were the positive […]
I started this COP21 fortnight on the London Climate March with a slightly random selection of my extended family, spent five hectic days in Paris and have since been following and reflecting on the talks with colleagues and friends. I’ve felt the impact of these experiences on my mind, body and spirit and am now […]
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