Transition Network Newsletter – April 2010
By Mike Grenville 9th April 2010
Transition Network
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/
Transition Network newsletter
CONTENTS
- UK conference: date and location finalised (at last!)
- The Third Transition South East Conference
- Transition Network launches new website
- Media and ‘visitor’ interest in Transition Initiatives and projects
- Bringing Diversity to Transition
- New Currency Research Project
- Transition Town Worthing Gazette
- Transition Books
Welcome to the first newsletter coming from its new home on the sparkling new Transition website (see below). The new site will bring together information from the network and Network. Putting your news on the website will become a good route to getting noticed and into the newsletter. Right now I’m finding my way around all the technology corridors and enjoying the new things to play with. There will be a certain amount of settling in going on and if I don’t forget with the next newsletter we’ll do a feedback survey. In the meantime I hope you enjoy this latest issue.
Mike Grenville, Editor
newsletter@transitionnetwork.org
Transition Network UK conference: date and location finalised (at last!)
Report from Ben Brangwyn:
We’ve had a couple of hiccups on this journey with two prior venues not working out for various reasons, so we hope you haven’t got too tired waiting for us to sort it all out.
Anyhow, we’re now delighted to confirm that the 2010 Transition Network UK conference will be held at Seale Hayne, (an old agricultural college in Devon), just outside Newton Abbott, over the weekend of 12 to 13-June. It’ll start on Saturday morning 12-June and close up at lunchtime on Monday 14-June.
We’ll be sending more information out about costs and agenda shortly.
Key info about the venue
I’ll rattle on about the impressive historic and architectural significance of the place in a second. What’s most important, though, is this: a) it’s got enough accommodation for just about everyone to be on-site for the whole conference, b) the price is good, c) it’s only a short distance (3 miles) from a mainline rail station and d) it’s quite close to Totnes.
All these factors should enable us to keep a low carbon footprint for the event, to create the cohesive ambience that was missing from the (otherwise wonderful) London venue, to keep it as affordable as possible and finally, to enable people to pay a visit to the first Transition Town – Totnes.
Timings and agenda
We’re in the process of dreaming up the agenda. In the meantime, here’s the overall framework. We’re aiming to start the conference first thing on Saturday 12-June, so we’re expecting most people to arrive on Friday night – for which the student bar (that’ll bring some memories back) will be open. It’ll all finish at lunchtime on Monday, and at some point during the proceedings, we’ll be including a big skillshare session. Lots more details to follow…
Maps and travel info here
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-04-01/transition-network-uk-conference-date-and-location-finalised-last
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The Third Transition South East Conference
Held on Sat 13th March at the Friends centre, Brighton, this conference was billed as: ‘Throwing fun and collaboration at Climate Change and Peak Oil – Your unique chance to gather, join, learn, and share tales about the Transition Towns adventure so far in the South East.‘ Previous TT meet-ups in the South East took place in Forest Row in 2007 and Lewes in 2008. Each time increasing in size, this third event attracted over 100 people, with many from Brighton, Lewes, Shoreham, London, and even several visitors from Germany.
A report plus a fantastic video of the event from Act on C02:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-03-16/third-transition-south-east-conference
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Transition Network launches new website
The Transition Network web project began in 2009 with an initiating core team tasked to set the web project’s course through a sea of different expectations, undercurrents, surprise quakes and other exciting phenomena. It is now live and Transition Network Web Co-ordinator Ed Mitchell takes us through the new site and how it got here.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-03-17/transition-network-launches-new-website
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Profiles Of The Month
We are absolutely delighted to see that initiatives and projects and people from around the movement have stepped forward and started adding themselves to the directories under their own steam. We are now hosting 342 initiative profiles (285 official and 57 muller), and 37 project profiles. As well as these profiles, more than 600 people have created or updated their people profiles too – good work all!
Here are two of our favourite profiles from March – one inititaive profile and the other a report of an ongoing organisational transition by Somerset County Council.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-04-09/profiles-month
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Media and ‘visitor’ interest in Transition Initiatives and projects
For Totnes and a few of the higher profile initiatives, the level of media interest, whilst heartwarming and very positive, can become a bit of a unwelcomed distraction from the business of transitioning. For this reason, we’re inviting other initiatives to step into the limelight, put themselves forward as “media attractors” and “transition visitor destinations” and claim their fair share of the attention.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-04-08/media-and-visitor-interest-transition-initiatives-and-projects-opportunity-everyone
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Bringing Diversity to Transition
Have you ever looked around your local Transition meeting and wondered why most people involved are white, middle-class with an under or post-graduate degree? This was pointed out at last year’s Transition conference and we’ve now got funding for a diversity project aimed at broadening the Transition movement by working with low-income, faith and Black Minority Ethnic (BME) groups. Read on for more info on the project and Please help us to measure where we’re at right now by completing the Transition Diversity Survey:
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-04-06/bringing-diversity-transition
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New Currency Research Project
A new research project is interested in hearing from Transition activists who are involved in developing / managing complementary currencies. Noel Longhurst, one of the team who established the Totnes Pound, is now working on a research project at the University of East Anglia (UEA) that is exploring the barriers that confront community currencies.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-04-08/new-currency-research-project
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Transition Town Worthing Gazette
The group in the Sussex town have produced their own “Post Carbon Gazette” – which they dub as “Worthing’s fastest growing peak-oil-related newsletter”. This month, the focus is on Local Food.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/news/2010-04-07/transition-town-worthing-uk-gazette-excellent-example
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Transition Books
As people around the world experiment with the Transition Model and apply it to all sorts of different types of communities, we’re seeing the knowledge base expand significantly. And as Transition Initiatives get further into the work of transforming their communities, the specialist groups are learning more about relocalised responses in the fields of energy, local government, food, housing, business, economics and beyond. With this the number of books in partnership with Green Books grows.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/about/publications/books
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