Network Newsletter – September 2010
By Mike Grenville 7th September 2010
The September 2010 Transition Network Newsletter
CONTENTS
~ NEWS ROUND UP
~ INITIATIVE NEWS
~ BOOKS
~ EVENT REPORTS
~ FORTHCOMING EVENTS
~ NETWORK NEWS: TRAINING & CONSULTING
~ NETWORK NEWS: DIVERSITY
~ NETWORK NEWS: TECH UPDATE
~ AND FINALLY
WORLD TRANSITION NEWS ROUND UP
Monthly Round up of what’s happening in Transition
August
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-03/august-round-whats-happening-transition
July
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-08-31/july-round-whats-happening-transition
INITIATIVE NEWS
Totnes Transition Together
The Transition Town Totnes group have been up to all sorts. As well as their recent publication of their EDAP, they have been busy with their ‘Transition Together’ project and related Transition Streets project (which was one of the winners of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) ‘Low Carbon Communities Challenge’…
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-08-04/transition-together-project-results
Totnes Renewable Energy Society Launch
TTT’s energy group is offering everyone in Totnes and the 15 parishes surrounding Totnes (and only those people) a share in their energy future with a public offer of shares.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-06/announcement-tresoc-launch
Portrait Pattern Of An Initiative
Our Rob has been very busy thinking about the next Transition Handbook and how to communicate Transition between ourselves and others. His thoughts have lead him to seeing and talking about Transition as a ‘Pattern Language’. He ran several workshops on the topic at the conference (workshop recordings here), put all the patterns up for comment, and got some sound feedback.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-07-22/portrait-pattern-initiative
Bees in Transition
Recently bees have been disappearing in their millions, affecting not only the production of native honey in every country but the bees’ great task of pollinating the trees, fruit, vegetables and herbs that make up two-thirds of what we eat every day. In response to this local and global crisis, several of us formed a working party within the Transition initiative, Sustainable Bungay, to help the threatened honey bee.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-07-29/bees-transition
People Powered Renewable Co-op
If you are one of those people who want to go renewable, but are not sure how to go about it, Transition Maidenhead may have the answer. The group has set up a co-op to help people navigate the minefield of renewable technologies and take advantage of new Government legislation which rewards householders for going solar.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-07-20/people-powered-renewable-co-op
BOOKS
Local Sustainable Homes – A new title in the Transition series.
Our homes are a major source of carbon emissions and therefore of global warming. And they are poorly equipped to cope with the problems that climate change and peak oil will bring.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-02/local-sustainable-homes-new-title-transition-series
EVENT REPORTS
Amelia’s Pcitures ‘that’ Stoneleigh Lecture on the Financial Crisis
Amelia Gregory has written a wonderful piece about the Stoneleigh lecture from the Transition Conference earlier this year. She has kindly let us re-publish it here, complete with wonderful pictures.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-08-06/transition-towns-conference-2010-automatic-earth-stoneleigh-lecture-financial-crisis
Suffolk Digest The Transition Conference
Eight Suffolk and one Norfolk initatives came together to discuss how to share resources and skills between initiatives and to feedback ideas from the 2010 Transition Conference. Charlotte Du Cann reports:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-07-29/suffolk-digest-transition-conference
Sunrise Festival write up
Summer in the UK means festivals. To many people this means rowdy, rackety, noisy big stages, bands, cider, and other excitements. Now that’s all very well, but we’re watching festivals with a more ‘conscious’ edge with great interest. One of these festivals is Sunrise, and its deeper partner Sunrise Off-Grid.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-07-29/sunrise-festival-write
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
UK Bioneers Conference
30th October Findhorn
Transition is going to feature prominently at the Bioneers 2010 conference in Findhorn.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-08-23/transition-featuring-bioneers-conference-findhorn
S.E. TRANSITION OCTOBER CAMP
8-10th October, Mid Sussex
The 3rd South East Transition Camp offers a weekend of workshops for both adults and kids, camp fires, storytelling and saunas under a new moon.
http://there.is/transitioncamp/
Starhawk: Holding the Vision
22-23rd September Bristol
A two day workshop exploring how to create groups that value people; handling conflict.
More on all these events and more here
See also ‘Adding Your Events’ under Tech News below
NETWORK NEWS: TRAINING & CONSULTING
The first of a regular series of updates from TTandC has been published. It aims primarily to keep transition folk posted about the work they are doing, the services they are developing, opportunities to help, and upcoming training sessions if you wish to join them.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-07-14/transition-training-and-consulting-working-national-trust
NETWORK NEWS: DIVERSITY
Diverse Roots Of Belonging Conference
20 – 21st November, Edinburgh
The Transition Diverse Roots of Belonging conference invites you to come and share your work, explore where you come from and where you belong, and learn about other ways to connect with people in your own community and beyond. As with most Transition Conferences, we will once again be leading the participants through a two-day journey that will highlight specific themes of the Transition experience. Each workshop session will delve into one of the three main themes that we will be examining during the Conference: What are our resources? What are we up against? And finally, how do we work together to make the Transitions?
To help the programme team deliver this, we are looking for Transitioners with expertise in the following areas to run ONE workshop under each of the main overarching themes which would fall into one of three categories:
- hands – Sharing good work
- heart – Exploring Cultural identity and belonging
- head – Useful models for communication/working coming out of work in different cultural traditions
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-03/diverse-roots-belonging-conference-transition-scotland
Diversity Project: From Training To Action
The Bringing Diversity Pilot Project, run by Transition Network, is aimed at supporting a small number of Transition initiatives to develop a diversity approach to their work. Over the coming months, 13 Transition initiatives from London to Southampton to Lampeter will receive training enabling them to explore their own inner processes around inclusion and power, to find out what works and to develop action plans to be taken forward with support over the coming months.
Transition Network Diversity Newsletter
What can we do to become more inclusive? This is a question that the Transition Network are starting to grapple with. Now a Transition newsletter specifically about Diversity in Transition has published it’s first edition. You can read it and sign up to future editions here:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-06/transition-network-diversity-newsletter-september-2010
NETWORK NEWS: TECH UPDATE
Enhancements to the Website
Have a look under the hood and see what has been happening to the Transition Network website and what is in the pipeline.
Add yourself to the speakers and facilitators directories:
It is now possible for us to generate a directory listing and map page of all those who identify themselves as speakers and/or facilitators in the Transition People Directory. If you have either of these skills, please add yourself (and your location) – it’s a vital part of us all helping each other. Here is how to do it:
Announcing New Forums:
Community Microsite update
The Community Microsites are very, very simple websites for initiatives who need something simple and out of the box, integrated with the TN.org website, with no frills and scary widgets. This is an update for all those initiatives using the old wiki for their website, and those newly interested in the ‘Community Microsites’.
Adding Your Events
We have now finished our new and wonderful Transition Network Events Directory. Events are a core pattern in the Transition process, so we’re very pleased to be able to get it done.
The events directory offers three main types of event:
- Community events: events from Transition Initiatives who are using our ‘Community Microsites’
- Transition Network events: training, conferences and other Transition Network specific events
- Partner events: events from our partners who have been given ‘event partner’ status
Here is how to add your events:
Too Quiet On The Email Front?
It seems that the system didn’t send any emails during August alerting users to new comments, new forum replies, new news items etc. Also the Contact form went down so we did not receive any messages via the contact form. Ed sends his bear faced apologies….
AND FINALLY
A New Zealand Transition Pioneer reflects...
An intro (and a bit of a birthday honoring) to an extremely engaging article by James Samuel about the first three years of transition in New Zealand.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-08-23/new-zealand-transition-pioneer-reflects
A lesson from AD400…
What have the Romans ever done for us? Apart from…
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-03/lesson-ad400
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-09-03/lesson-ad400
Slug, when all is said and done
You can hide but you can’t run
From Matt Harvey’s new book ‘Where Earwigs Dare’
http://greenbooks.co.uk/store/where-earwigs-dare-p-335.html
Future editions of the newsletter are planned to be on the first Friday of the month.
Newsletter Editor: Mike Grenville, from Transition Forest Row
Contact: transitionnetworknews@googlemail.com
+44 (0)1342 825169
Read the September 2010 newsletter online here