en/Transition Network

Presentation

Transition Network Ltd. was set up in spring 2007 in UK to support Transition Initiatives around the world. The mission of this new charity is:

• to inspire
• to encourage
• to network
• to support and
• to train

...communities as they consider, adopt, adapt and implement the transition model in order to establish a Transition Initiative in their locale. The transition model emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to this big question:

"for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change)?"

Typically, self-determined solutions will involve some flavour of relocalisation.

Activities

What follows is an outline of some of the projects and developments that Transition Network Ltd. will be undertaking over the next three years in order to carry out this intention.

1. Continuing to develop and deepen Transition Training, increasing the quantity and ensuring the quality of Transition Training workshops (the full menu of trainings that have been developed) across the country, training core teams of Transition trainers in other parts of the world, and providing ongoing support to those trainers already qualified to deliver the training.

2. Continuing to co‐ordinate and co‐develop materials to assist those on the ground doing Transition work. These will include but won’t be limited to;

• Radically improving our delivery of our “enabling sharing and networking” by, for example, setting up a much improved web platform
• Producing ‘The (First) Transition Movie’, a film about the Transition concept which will be developed as a collaborative process
• Supporting the emergence of a quarterly publication, ‘Transition Times’, which would begin online but which could evolve into a regular magazine. This would be complemented by a blog on the new website where individual initiatives are invited to post their successes and failures, events and news
• Support the production of a series of books on different aspects of Transition, i.e. food, energy and so on... The Transition Guide to Food is already in development
• Tools to facilitate EDPs, up‐to‐date presentations and examples of best practice, as well as a forum for people to post their own resources, be it links, papers, short films or their own powerpoints, which they think others will find useful
• Producing clearer ‘maps’ of how Transition Initiatives might evolve over time, how to assemble the 12 Steps and how a variety of Initiatives have designed different ways through them, drawn from the experience of various initiatives
• Hosting, moderating and editing the collaborative rewrite of ‘The Transition Handbook’ using a wiki approach, with the original book serving as the basis for a gathering of tools, stories, experience and insight from across the Transition
• Setting up an online registry of Transition speakers.
• Supporting and enabling action research and evaluation at a national/international level – partnering with universities where appropriate
• Organising (in the UK) bi‐annual national Convergences alternating with regional Transition Convergences.
• Supporting new emerging areas of Transition by designing specific events, i.e. Transition in Cities conference (November ’08)
• Supporting national and regional transition organizations as set out in the principles above
• Thinking strategically about the emerging context in which Transition Initiatives grow and develop ‐ and when needed revising our practices and this document as a consequence.

In essence, Transition Network Ltd’s core function will be to continue to be a catalyst for the Transition model.

References

• Transition Network: Who We Are and What We Do (PDF)
• Transition Network website