Transition Troubleshooting

The Troubles We Have to Shoot
There comes a point when you realise - Transition is hard work. The Handbook makes it sound like a breeze. Doors are supposed to be open when they are shut. You’re supposed to be positive and you feel downhearted. People are telling you the movement is too radical, not radical enough, not inclusive, too middle class. Your inbox has 101 emails. The press don’t return your calls. You NEVER want to put on an event again. Nobody turned up to the screening. Your family doesn’t want to hear one more thing about Local Food or Peak Oil (even your cat has turned against you – so what happened to all those nice radiators that used to be on, huh?)

Somehow however you know that you can’t just give Transition up. Peak oil and climate change are not going to go away, whether you are part of the movement or not, and nothing out there quite captures the zeitgeist and makes such sense as Transition culture. Tell me , you say to yourself, What are you planning to do with your one wild and precious life? Before you know it you are heading off to another core/communications/transport/food meeting.

This document came out of one such meeting and one such moment when the Transition East Support Group met in Norwich just as autumn arrived, and I was beginning to think resilience was a modern version of the stiff upper lip. It started when Josiah admitted as we began our shared meal that his dish of perfectly gleaned beefsteak fungus was in fact quite inedible and we didn’t have to be polite about it. We all roared with laughter. Afterwards we sat in a circle and went round introducing urselves as is customary in our meetings, saying how Transition was going in our respective initiatives. Nigel from Woodbridge spoke first. "I would say it had a negative effect,” he reported calmly.

Several small gasps were unleashed into the room. Negative? We’re supposed to be positive, aren’t we? Part of this uplifting, fantastic, power-of-now, power-of-community Great Reskilling of Humanity, aren’t we? Before we knew it everyone was admitting that things weren’t going quite as smoothly as the Handbook suggested they might be. None of us wanted to indulge or offload the bad news (most of us having joined Transition as a welcome relief from the doom-laden anti-everything activist stance taken by most environmental groups). However we didn’t want to do a jolly Transition marketing spin on our experiences either.

One of the key facts about Transition is that we have to face the very real realities of the triple crunch and the radical changes these will effect in our lives. Not just in the way we go shopping but in the way we think and feel and perceive the world. Another fact is that we can’t do this on our own. We can’t go forward unless we learn how to work and communicate as a group. And those groups are tricky things to negotiate. By its very nature Transition is a process (“A verb not a noun,” said Nigel), and even though we would like it to be plain sailing, sometimes you have to weather the storm and go through stuff.

Shortly after our meeting Josiah sent round Rob Hopkins’ post on Transition Culture from September 22. It was from the initiative in Oxford that had stalled. All of us recognised the situations that were recorded so frankly. It seemed like we had simultaneously reached a turning point. We had come so far and now we had to start inventing ways of dealing with our common difficulties. Transition Troubleshooting was born.

Transition Troubleshooting aims to take the form of a freestyle workshop that can address any issues people would like to look at: Head issues, Heart issues and Hands issues (practical things like funding, publicity, how to run events, running a community allotment, a community blog etc). It’s a chance to share our experiences and give each other a hand and voice things out loud that might not get said otherwise. In preparing for the Gathering many initiatives shared their difficulties that ranged from unhelpful and antagonistic Town and Parish Councils to lack of success with publicity and events.


Some of these were practical questions which we could help each other with:

๏ how to find funding, what are its advantages and disadvantages?
๏ who to ask about public liability insurance, entertainment licences etc.?
๏ what kind of official status (charity, public company) works best for Transition?
๏ What is the most effective way we can publicise through the media?
๏ What is the best way to deal with officialdom?

Other difficulties are the kinds of things that are easy to admit to oneself but hard to articulate with people you don’t know that well. Transition challenges the status quo and old ways of doing things. We have to work co-operatively and we’re used to running things our way as individuals. Control and power issues often arise within groups. It might be rosy at the beginning but then the storm hits the rigging. Sometimes people use Transition as a way to further outside agendas or to tick boxes. This can create unrest (not of the blessed kind) and sometimes tips the boat rather than the point.

Of all the difficulties spoken by far the greatest number were those that occurred within the core and theme groups: people losing interest, walking off in a huff, groups dissolving, initiatives stalling. (“You are not on your own” was a line I found myself repeating several times in the course of speaking to everyone involved). What helps is that we create real working relationships with one another and that our meetings are warm and friendly. It’s not easy to know how to speak to people you don’t live or work or have lifetime experiences in common with. Meeting in people’s houses and sharing food often encourages this, rather than draughty church halls or noisy public places. It is an art to create the kind of flexible communication that is neither too stiff and committee-like - which inhibits free speech and creativity, nor too relaxed and social - which results in nothing being discussed in a structured way or at any depth.

Here are some of the difficulties mentioned during the in-depth phone conversations I had with the people in Transition East initiatives and that we might be able to look at and address on November 14:-

Individual Effects of Transition
๏ Overwork (40 hours regular work, plus Transition work) – balancing two worlds at once, whilst bringing another world into being
๏ Feeling on one’s own as core organiser
๏ Pressures for time and work (especially when everyone in the core group is in fulltime work and with children)
๏ Exhaustion
๏ Feeling you haven’t achieved anything
๏ Overload of negative feelings to deal with after meetings
๏ So easy to get dispirited and say sod it
๏ Zero energy return on energy invested
๏ Struggling with time and money

Working in Groups
๏ Too few active members, too little willingness in planning stage, people limited to helping or attending events (once organized) and making comments
๏ Restricted to a small group of doers within initiative
๏ Working with enthusiastic volunteers without necessary expertise, leading to bull-in-a-china shop situations
๏ trying to get people involved and engaged at any level, having to persuade to do
๏ Lack of steering group
๏ Lack of people to commit to anything
๏ Lack of warmth in human relationships in meetings; lack of fellow feeling.
๏ Shooting off with mega-projects to rule the world and not having enough volunteers
๏ Fall out within groups - people participating and drifting away, booms and busts of energy
๏ Slowness and reluctance of group to engage in projects and events, leading to frustration
๏ Steering group in-fighting, not dealing with the conflict
๏ Storming within some groups, leading to fall out (especially within Heart and Soul)
๏ Not enough awareness within core group about what we are doing and need to do, that Transition is a process, something we are doing, not just a label we can stick on ourselves (i.e. Transition Town)
๏ Resistance to visioning and other Transition techniques to do with inner work
๏ Lack of realisation of the profound changes we are going to experience
๏ Danger of dwindling (numbers in group), theme groups dwindling
๏ Unsure how to proceed with new people once the groups are up and running (not same energy as when at their initiating creative stage)
๏ Different levels of understanding about the process of Transition within the core group, some of whom are sceptical and concerned that Transition is too radical and will put people off.
๏ Not seeing how to evolve, not having the energy to evolve
๏ Not enjoying meetings at all
๏ Talking too much and no action
๏ Too much fixed and conventional thinking in group, affiliations with outside institutions (church, university, councils etc) leading to people pushing their own agendas, often unconsciously
๏ Tendency to rush analysis which could derail the whole thing

Places
๏ Towns without any grassroots infrastructure

Events
๏ Difficulty with events without proper booking system or team (one person running around all the time) and being dependent on people turning up
๏ No way of properly measuring and valuing the activities (beyond our own sense of personal integrity and purpose)
๏ Not sufficient people working for events, key people working too hard
๏ Exhaustion, too many events at once

Working with local government
๏ Old School Town Council – negative, badly-disposed towards anything environmental. Fall out suffered in group after clashes with council, leading to loss of confidence and depression.
๏ Parish Councils too parochial (!), lacking in leadership, not structured for social enterprise, antagonistic regarding publicity
๏ Struggle to find suitable official status e.g. charity. company etc.

Working with Public
๏ Conflict of interest when working with local business and Transition (wanting to encourage business outside of town)
๏ Initial interest not maintained after event (example of planting a community woodland with 150 people turning up, but only 6 people afterwards continued to manage the wood)
๏ Apathy within village
๏ Low response from public in spite of publicity, leading to loss of enthusiasm and common Transition feeling of zero return on energy invested
๏ Lack of engaged relationship with public
๏ Climate change deniers and the Daily Telegraph (!)
๏ Not good at catching people’s energy at events and capitalising on them
๏ Not seeming to make any impression
๏ Getting people involved

Publicity and Communications
๏ Lack of press attention beyond notices and reports of events. “They don’t tell the story.”
๏ Unsympathetic press. Cognitive dissonance “They just don’t get peak oil” and see us as an environmental green fringe group
๏ Being dismissed as “tree huggers”
๏ Organisation of publicity
๏ Information overload and too many emails, leading to difficulties in group
๏ Lack of awareness in on-line forum discussions, leading to negative feedback
and misunderstandings
๏ Anti-tech bias within Transition
๏ Swamped by emails

Text and Research: Charlotte Du Cann

For full report of the Transition East Regional Gathering including the Troubleshooting sessions visit http://tinyurl.com/yl9ys3t on the Transition East website.

Transition East Gathering - 14 November

Welcome to to our Second Transition East Gathering and to our new blog, transitioncircleeast, which brings together all the 28 initiatives in the region for an informal exchange of Transition ideas and experiences throughout Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

Today some of us are are coming together in the market town of Diss to explore our connections and future collaborations, to find ways we can best work together in Transition - share in our successes, grapple with our issues and identify people who can provide specialist support and expertise. The day's programme includes mapping, open space, Transition Troubleshooting and of course lunch.

Here is an round-up all the intiatives below. Many thanks to all those who contributed for today and for the future.

See you there!

Full details about the day can be found on our website http://www.transitioneast.net/. or contact Gary Alexander garyalex@earthconnected.net or tel 07766 711999.

Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire

Village: pop. 4000
Timeline: Started Autumn ‘08

Bassingbourn Transition Village have a core group of 12-15 people who meet on a monthly basis. They work within four main areas – Food, Water and Biodiversity, Social and Awareness, Transport and Travel (including safer routes to schools) and Energy and Homes. They have working parties around these themes which have just begun to develop beyond the core group.

BTV evolved from the 2008 Parish Plan and as a result has good working relationships with both the parish council and the local community centre. Their screening of The Age of Stupid was a sell-out and their first Harvest Market (in partnership with the parish church) with 23 stalls selling village produce from food to paintings, is now set to run quarterly.

At present the Energy and Homes group are working towards to becoming local energy advisors, gathering information and setting up an insulation project and home energy audits with the county council, as well as working with the local Primary School who have just installed a wind-turbine. The Food group has spent the last 18 months setting up a CSA with the local council and a local farmer and the Transport group meanwhile is working on an engineering plan to create a cycling and pedestrian route to nearby Royston.

BTV also runs very lively on-line communications pages and their plans for the future include car-share, a commuter bus, a vegetable and food growing club, a seed exchange and a series of films at the village hall.

Bassingbourn Transition Village's shopping bag, made as part of their plastic-bag free village campaign

Main Website: http://bassingbourntransitionvillage.ning.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BassingbournTV
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/BTVFacebook
Parish Web Site: http://tinyurl.com/BTVParish
Contact Person:
Simon Saggers
Tel: (01763) 243 960
Email: simon.saggers@gmail.com

Beccles, Suffolk

Market town: pop. 10,000
Timeline: Started November ‘08

Inspired by Sustainable Bungay’s Growing Local Food Conference, Sustainable Beccles began last November. Originally the group was supported by members of a local church who had a strong interest in the environmental and community aspects of Transition, and their first event was a successful screening of Power of Community. The initiative stalled when numbers dropped and there was a lack of commitment to move projects forward.

However a renaissance occurred when a working party began the Apple Share project in the summer. This is a scheme to collect unwanted apples from gardens and neglected orchards to redistribute back into the community and make into apple juice. The scheme was inspired by the many urban gleaning and scrumping projects that have recently sprung up all over the country, from Shef f ield (http://www.growshefield.org/) to Walthamstow http://www.growingcommunities.org/). On October 10 SB had a stall in the High Street identifying and giving away many different varieties of apples, apple recipes and freshlypressed apple juice. Next year they hope to team up with neighbouring Sustainable Bungay to map and document the fruit trees of the surrounding district. Another high profile event SB organised was a well-being day on October 31 when Neil Chadbourn (of Transition Town Totnes, responsible for the planting of the TT well-being garden) came to talk about the relationship between Transition and the health service in the future.

Beccles are now waiting for other members to join the steering group who will take SB forward. (“We would become official provided we can maintain sufficient interest.”) Meanwhile another working party is neogtiating with the Town Council to renovate an old school playground another working party is negotiating with the Town Council to renovate an old school playground and turn it into a community orchard and educational centre.

Poster for Apple Share Day, October 10 '09

Website: www.transitioneast.net/
groups/sustainable-beccles
Contact Person:
Netta Swallow
Tel: (01502) 470 135
Email: swallownetta@btinternet.com

Bedford/Castle ward

County town/electoral ward: pop. 140,000/5000
Timeline: Zero Carbon Castle started June ‘07,
Unleashed April ‘09, Seeded Transition Bedford June ‘09.

Castle is an urban village within the town of Bedford and was already engaged in low-carbon community activities before becoming a Transition initiative. Zero Carbon Castle began on a similar time-line to Transition Town Totnes. Unusually they unleashed before becoming official (still to do so) by holding a Street Fair in the high street with stalls, a cycling event and children’s competitions (with Mr Zero). Their other very successful events have been a Garden Give Away with 30-40 gardens actively exchanging plants and produce in the neighbourhood, all-day clinics on energy, transport and waste, and several film showings. They have four very clearly defined food-growing areas within the neighbourhood - a herb-planted roundabout, a corporate space behind a restaurant, an allotment in a Christian Society and a guerrilla garden - and many of their present activities are based around the growing cycle in these gardens. Their recent Food Day at the roundabout attracted about 100 people with workshops and harvesting of herbs.

In June the ZCC Core group (about 6-7 people) moved to seed Bedford the town. Unusually for an Eastern town Bedford started within a neighbourhood first (Norwich, Ipswich and
Cambridge for example started as a hub and now are beginning to branch out into the suburbs and hinterlands). “We’re in the next phase, “ said organiser Shane Hughes. “Asking ourselves
how can we replicate and support both these groups? How can these two groups work together and evolve?”

After a successful and well-attended open meeting, Transition Bedford has grown quiet and reflective. It’s a certain stage of evolution many initiatives are experiencing at the moment. High activity followed by a period of dormancy (“Four months meditating in a corner,” laughs Hughes). The present Bedford core group is larger than ZCC (about 12-14) and has pro-actively
sought people with the right skills and knowledge base, so that all areas are covered, such as media, politics, well-being etc. They are therefore now at a planning stage and developing a
series of events in 12-13 segments, designed so each one will build on the success of the previous one with a follow-up mechanism afterwards (something Transition events tend not to
do). They have deliberately fended off the attractions of funding in favour of constructing a base with strong working partnerships, in order to find “creative ways of taking people over the threshold”.

Herb gathering day at the ZCC's roundabout gardens, Sept '09

Website: http://www.zerocarboncastle.org/
and http://www.transitionbedford.org/

Contact Person: Shane Hughes
Tel: 0207 193 5242
Email: shanehughes@lycos.com

Bungay, Suffolk

Market town: pop. 4500
Timeline: Started November ‘07, became official June ’08,
unleashed May 09.

Sustainable Bungay was formed at the end of a Climate Change conference organised by the local Emmanuel Church. At the beginning the group were primarily engaged in discussing local environmental issues and the way forward before they became an official Transition initiative. One of the original group had met Rob Hopkins at a Soil Association conference and was keen to use the Transition structure. The core group then shifted its focus and began to hold stalls at local events, talk with local groups in the town (Rotary Club, Royal British Legion, Horticultural society) and to neighbouring towns, giving advice on local food and starting up initiatives (Beccles, Diss, Halesworth, Framlingham and Woodbridge). They also held a series of Peak Oil films during the summer at the local Fisher Theatre.

Bungay’s most successful events have been their Growing Local Food conference, A Give and Take Day in the Community Hall and a Carfree Day, as part of World Carfree day (Sept 22) in which local schools participated. At their Unleashing in May they invited Shaun Chamberlin to talk about his recently released book, Transition Timeline, and invited everyone at the celebration to join in with creating the Bungay Timeline for the next 20 years. Recently they have held an Energy Day at the local library (where they have a shelf for books on low-carbon living, climate change and peak oil) and presented their Carbon Audit, using the ReapPetite carbon calculator, which they plan to distribute to 400 households in different neighbourhoods in the town.

At present Sustainable Bungay has a core group of about 10-15 people, a mailing list of 100 and working parties engaged in setting up a solar panel buying club, a car share, a pig club, land share and community-supported beehives. The core group comes together twice a month, officially for a core group meeting and unofficially for Green Drinks at the Green Dragon pub. They also produce a quarterly newsletter which is distributed throughout the town and to their mailing list as a PDF, and have made positive links with the local press and enjoyed interviews on Radio Suffolk and the Politics Show on BBC1.

Their main focus in the coming year is the creating of a permaculture garden and Living Library in the local Library courtyard. Like other initiatives in East Anglia they are running a Permaculture course (taught by Graham Burnett of Transition Westcliff) which will take place this January.



2010
After our initial permaculture course, the Library Community Garden was constructed, planted up and formally opened in September. The big news in 2010 was the extraordinary success of the Bungay Community Bees, the first Community Supported Apiculture in the UK, which attracted wide press attention as well as 35 members and six hives. The group also ran a second Give and Take Day, an Apple Day, gave a talk on economics, took part in Transition Suffolk, the Big Climate Connection and a local Cycle Strategy, procured a bio-diesel still, began a reskilling sewing sessions and a themed Green Drinks with speakers and enjoyed desseminating all Transition news on their new website and blog. Next year the food and farming group plan to start an Abundance of Fruit project and work with the local Black Dog Arts to create a Harvest Festival.

Website:http://www.sustainablebungay.com/
Contact Person: Josiah Meldrum
Tel: (01986) 897 097
Email: info@sustainablebungay.com
Twitter: Sbungay

Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

City: pop. 120,000
Timeline: Started February ’07,
became official July 08

Transition Cambridge is one of the Eastern region’s longest running initiatives and so far has successfully run more than 40 events. Helped by being in a thriving university town with a tradition of green and grassroots activities, TC has a particularly strong food group which works closely with the Trumpington Allotment Society. They have a core group, several active theme groups and a mailing list of 1,100 people.

The Transition Café is held fortnightly at a community café. TC also has an action-packed website and runs a concise weekly bulletin, keeping everyone in touch with what is happening. Their most successful events have included a participation with the Environment Festival in June in which they organised events most days, including workshops on wild food, education and psychology, a plant swap, The World Needs Your Passion and local and global food. They have also run two Storytelling events, two Open Space sessions, a Grow Your Own course and several film screenings (their Power of Community screening sold out, helped by distributing 150 posters through the town “we could probably have sold the tickets twice over,” reports core member Anna McIvor).

In spite of this high activity the group is keen to evolve and is aware of many of the difficulties faced by a movement that is itself in Transition: how to keep momentum and not suffer from
burn-out; how to proceed with new people once the theme groups are up and running (not same energy as when at their initiating creative stage); how to capitalise on the events. These
are all questions now being asked.

TC are presently forming a new training group for that will include Non-Violent Communication and group facilitation, “because it’s about working well in groups as much as it is about being in Transition.”

Recently the area of Cherry Hinton has become a Transition initiative and in the future TC see themselves developing into a communication and co-ordination hub with smaller neighbourhoods and villages in Transition working on a more local level, and facilitating their unleashing.

Future house from Transition Tales and Visions, April 25 '09

Website:
www.transitioncambridge.org
Contact Person:
Anna McIvor
Email:
transitioncambridge@gmail.com