![]() |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||
Our 12 steps to transition
Step
1
Set up a steering group and design its demise
from the outset:
The
intention is that this core group, whose membership fluctuates as people leave
or join, drives the project forward during the initial stages.
The hope is that the strength of the enthusiasm created and the tidal wave of activity as the people of Bridport join in, will sweep the steering group to redundancy.
Chris Holland
Step
2
Awareness raising:
The
world media sends us conflicting messages and it is part of our remit within
Transition Town Bridport to make available any tools which will
help to increase this awareness and thereby encourage the whole community
to formulate its own responses, and to work individually
and together with energy and enthusiasm towards a more
sustainable and less oil-dependent lifestyle.
Anne Rickard
During
the awareness building process we hope to encourage joint ventures to link
people together and form a web of support to encourage more participation.
Dave Rickard
Step
4
The great unleashing:
However,
the ‘Great Unleashing’ is a massive event where a bottom-up communal approach
involves every kind of age group and its needs.
It is a time when firstly the community will
recognise the need for increasing local ownership, secondly there will be
education at all levels and thirdly it is possible to have a network of local
food production and shared expertise.
Sarah Wilberforce
To
enable us to adapt to the effects of global warming and peak oil, all elements
of society must learn to manage our shared environmental resources.
We can best achieve this by understanding the
nature of the threat and so determine what action can be undertaken by
individuals and local groups to mitigate the effect we have on the environment.
The
best approach is for a small number of people with a common interest to form a working
group prepared to show the rest of us by example and by offering help to
achieve some objective.
Examples of
activities that can impact on our carbon footprint are:
education about the complex nature of the
threat, recycling, reduction of household waste, production of food, reduction
in fossil based energy use and utilising renewable energy.
Ian Gallon
In
such meetings there is no agenda or chairman and time is managed jointly.
Whoever comes are the right people and everybody
sits comfortably in a circle.
Whatever
happens is the only thing that could.
Whenever
it starts is the right time and when it’s over it’s over.
If somebody feels they are not contributing
or learning, they may leave.
Meetings
with open space ideals have: a beginning, when everybody welcomes and
introduces themselves; a middle, when a facilitator is chosen to steer
proceedings and an agreed method of record taking is undertaken; and an end
where everybody is celebrated and thanked.
Ro Gallagher
We
are hopeful that the Great Unleashing will also be the start of new and
innovative ideas coming from the people of Bridport.
Dave Rickard
We
hope to pull the generations together by asking older members of the community
to pass on their skills to current and future generations.
Dave Rickard
The
presence of at least half a dozen other transition groups in
Dave Rickard
Step
10
Honour the elders:
We
need to be seen to be attempting to put right the global problems to which we
have contributed and which have precipitated the need for transition.
Dave Rickard
Step
11
Let it go where it wants to go:
We
are all different, with different ideas as to how our lives will be affected by
the transition which will inevitably come about as oil supplies diminish - indeed
some prefer to believe that nothing will change.
All views and visions are to be respected,
and this means that a community vision is free to go where it wants to go, at
the collective will of the people.
Rigid
visions and fixed ideas can result in stress and failure, bringing with it
feelings of negativity.
Some
may wish to create groups with like-minded people; gardeners and producers,
creators and artists, scientists and engineers, meditators and thinkers,
finding a future path that is right and comfortable for them.
Others may need support and encouragement to
find their own way.
Jude Hopkins
Each
of the working groups put forward ideas based on their projects, such as;
producing fuel crops, large community pV arrays, consumer groups buying in bulk
from suppliers, creating electricity from local biomass, garden-sharing for
food production, tool and skill trading, etc.
The
best plans are implemented and, as a consequence, our damage to the planet is
reduced, our dependence on imported oil is reduced, more money is kept in the
local economy, the town’s carbon footprint is minimised and there are no more
wars for oil.
|
||||||||
|
|