Transition Culture

26 Jun 2007

Transition Towns Going Virally Viral.

This whole Transition thing is really quite extraordinary. I spent a morning last week at a TTT Project Support group meeting, getting a sense of all that is happening in the various projects, it is quite amazing. Then I got back to see an email from Ben Brangwyn, who co-ordinates the Network, with a list of all the communities who have been in touch and who are ‘mulling over’ becoming a Transition Initiative, eyewatering. It was over 90 towns, in addition to the 17 who are now already officially Transition Initiatives. And this from there only being two (Totnes and Kinsale) last September. The momentum is growing and feels really quite unstoppable.

I had an email from a lady at the Rural Community Council of Essex who wants to do their annual conference on the theme of ‘Transition Essex’ which would introduce the Transition concept to 280 rural villages in Essex. I had another email from a friend of mine who had been at the launch of the Third Sector Declaration on Climate Change at the Every Action Counts consortium meeting in London. He wrote that *”the Transition Towns initiatives are being talked up all across the third sector as being the most exciting grass-roots environment and community project for years – there are a lot of players interested in knowing what we are up and looking to support it”*. Last week I spoke at the ACRE conference in Keele which went down very well and generated a lot of interest.

There is a sense that this whole thing is moving so fast it is impossible to keep up with it. We are trying to get the Transition Primer printed and out there so there is a printed document for people to work from. I am also trying to get my book done which should be out in the early Spring. The momentum behind all this is unstoppable and is really stunning. One of Scotland’s major radio stations was in Totnes yesterday interviewing many of the key people behind TTT for an hour long programme on Transition Initiatives which will no doubt trigger new initiatives there too. Ben recently created a Google map showing the location of all these places, which is useful in getting a sense of the scale of all this.

I think that the Transition movement may well become one of the most important social movements of the 21st century, as communities up and down the country take the lead on the building of resilience. Here in Totnes, it has all moved forward so fast, we are currently exploring the structure that we put in place to underpin it all and enhance its public accountability. We hope to have that in place in time for our first anniversary in September. For now just hold tight, and enjoy the ride!