London Transition meeting April 1 report
By Ed Mitchell 24th April 2010
The London Transitioners met up as a regional group on April 1st to meet, share, learn and discuss all manner of things. Here’s a taster of the event report:
A gathering of around 45 London Transitioners converged at the South Bank Centre, representing over 23 groups, some well established, some who have only just been conceived. The main theme for the evening was Bioregions – an opportunity to explore the attributes which make each area physically, culturally and geographically distinct and for neighboring groups to connect.
After general introductions each of the 23 Transition Groups/Low carbon initiatives represented gave an example of something they as a group were proud of and something they found challenging
| Group | Something proud of | Something challenging |
| Ham | Everything we’ve done – Allotments, Environment enhancement, Hydropower | Sustaining it all |
| Kingston | Recognition in Green Guradian Award after 2 yrs | Need for natural organisers |
| Crouch End | Engaging with existing groups & harnessing energy | Inclusivity or diverse collective |
| Wimbledon | Big piazza event to reach out to non-green parts of the community | People in London are v. busy & Steering group is limited by this |
| Leytonstone | Garden share | Involving more multi-cultural communities |
| Sydenham | Skills mix | Breadth of groups & projects |
| Finsbury Park | Growing projects | Including non-middle class participants |
| Bloomsbury | Great information Website (voted best!) | Small size of group (full time work prevents devoting more time..) |
| Stoke Newington | Openess, friendliness | Energy, time and moving forward |
| Primrose Hill | Growing Skills course | More people for Steering group |
| Belsize | genuinely enhancing community in our area through 19 sub groups/projects & inspiring setting up of new TT’s in Camden | Demanding/needy people, time, and reaching & engaging all parts of the community |
| Kentish Town | of Starting (still very new!) | Diversity |
| Finchley | Staging Greenacre Bicycle Rally 2008 & 2009 – over 160 cycles! | Hard to properly engage Council officers |
| Brixton | Brixton Pound, Food Work & open space day | Diversity & inclusion, Running the ‘project support project’ successfully |
| Tooting | Carnival happening on 4th July – to re-imagine Tooting with the whole community | Setting up groups |
| Penge – Proud | £800 capital growth grant | Challenged by getting more reps from local community, esp, representing ethnic diversity |
| Kensal to Kilburn | Harvested 850kg fruit from local gardens | Diversity |
…
And there was much more – a fascinating bio-regional discussion and others… on their site…
Read the full event report on the London Transition website.
Isn’t that great? Fascinating stuff, and an invaluable opportunity for people to help eachother through well organised events using high quality networking and transparent sharing of our predicament.An excellent example of how regional groups can help local initiatives.
I’ve attached Transition East’s round up from their regional meeting in 2009, which had a similarly honest and connecting and facilitation approach and resulted in a fantastic report of that region. You can also find this in the resources section.
Well done all! Keep it up! Brilliant! Go you regional groups, go!