Irish Transition Network April 17, 2008
Posted by Graham in : General , trackbackLast Saturday at the Powerdown Symposium at Cultivate saw the inaugural meeting of people from around Ireland interested in starting a Transition process in their town.
More than 60 people attended the meeting with a dozen or more towns represented.
The main meeting was lead by Ben Bragwyn co-founder of the UK Transition Network who spoke about the origins of the concept and took us through the 12 Steps to Transition. Davie Philip will co-ordinate the network here through the Cultivate Centre.
A discussion took place as to what the criteria would be for joining and how “local” could the process be made in terms of specific process. Ben assured us that the key thing to remember for a Transition town - as opposed to, say, a purely Climate Change group - is building community resilience. This is a response that recognizes the wider implications of fossil fuel dependency and works to create sustainability rather than reduction of emissions.
Davie Phillip of Cultivate writes:
“The first step in getting the Irish network up and running is getting a few more communities recognised by the Transition Network in the UK. There are currently only two official Transition initiatives in Ireland, Kinsale and Hollywood. From the meeting it is clear that Newbridge, Monaghan, Cloughjordan, Kilkenny and Tralee could all be very close to fulfilling the steps to be recognised officially.”
Cultivate are also running a series of Transition Training events to give communities some of the tools they need to follow the process- the first one is already fully booked but check the Cultivate website for updates.
Comments»
I have one big problem with the transition 12 steps there is no strategy for draging local politicians kicking and screeming into the real world or by any other means that would work. The difficulty we have is that politics works in the opposite way to “us” it is hierarchical and we can only infulence it from the top down. These turkeys will continue voting for christmas until we find a way to convince them to do otherwise.
surely one of the best ways we have of persuading politicians to change the way they behave is to demonstrate that their electorate have an appetite for change.
Politicians have two most important things to think about: 1] get elected 2] get re-elected.
If they stand too far out ahead of their electorate they know what will happen. So start putting new ways of organising and living into practice and if they are successful they will be all over them and want to be associated with them.
It really is time for us to ‘be the change we want to see in the world’ as Ghandi said. We can no longer wait for ‘them’ to do it for us. The best way to predict the future is to start creating it.