Skyshine » Transition Town http://www.skyshine.co.uk The mess the world is in ... and what we can do about it Sat, 19 Dec 2009 11:25:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Is the transition town movement looking forwards or backwards http://www.skyshine.co.uk/2009/01/23/is-the-transition-town-movement-forwards-or-backwards-looking/ http://www.skyshine.co.uk/2009/01/23/is-the-transition-town-movement-forwards-or-backwards-looking/#comments Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:59:38 +0000 admin http://www.skyshine.co.uk/?p=116 I am involved in setting up our local transition town. I became involved because I thought it might be a good way to make a difference and meet people. 6 months later, I am still hopeful, but much of the time is spent wasted in bluster trying to sort out DQ-ER issues rather than ER-FS issues. It has really brought home for me just how hard it is to work in a genuinely FS way when the mainstream is oriented much more towards ER. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about whether we should call ourselves Transition Town Hebden Bridge or Transition Calderdale Valley. As a compromise we are currently calling ourselves Transition Hebden Bridge. This is a really good example of DQ at work rather than FS. Community at DQ is based on divisions and hierarchy, it is all about who you belong to. Community at FS is all about knowing people and as a result every person has their own community of the people they know. For some who come to the transition town meetings, they know more people throughout the Calderdale valley and so they see it as Transition Calderdale valley, for others, they mostly know people in Hebden Bridge so they see it as Transition Town Hebden Bridge. The point is that at FS, it is different for everyone and that is fine. It is more than fine. It is desired. I am not saying that a name doesn’t have importance. It is important to DQ, and many operate from DQ and need DQ structure and it is important that people forming an FS community/society include this, but it is not so important that a big issue should be made of it. It is important that the group discussing and deciding on the name understand this issue.

The whole point of the the transition town movement is to respond to global warming and peak oil. These are two meta problems have been caused by ER values though a disregard for the resource and waste stream and can only effectively be responded to through a move to FS values, which have evolved to deal with the shortcomings of ER values. The transition town movement will thus only be successful if it can embrace FS in an open way.

It might be better if the transition movement moved away from town based nomenclature. At first, this seems counter intuitive to me because using the town name allows people to reclaim their identity and it allows people to locate their town easily, this greatly aids the movement by making it seem to be spreading very quickly as more and more towns turn up on the transition town list.  On reflection though, I think these are appealing to DQ and ER values and are working with DQ-ER psychology not FS and as a result are encouraging a DQ-ER system rather than a FS one. FS spreads virally through grass roots word of mouth, it does not rely on trendy names (ER) or membership (DQ). The group still needs to appeal to ER and FS mindsets, but the way in which it does this should encourage movement to FS organisation. I am not sure how to practically realise this. A part of this would be to organise the website list via a postcode search so that the nearest transition group can be found without relying on boundaried names.

There are other things that give me cause for concern, such as the identity of the transition town movement being fixed in a set of rules rather than being a flexible evolving peer group discussed and edited identity.  Membership requiring filling in a form that is decided on privately rather than openly by a peer group of interested people. There are also many good things about the transition town movement, it encourages grass roots networking and the organisational methods described in the handbook lean strongly towards FS. The website is even based on a wiki. Only time will tell if the movement can resist the urge towards codification and top down organisation.

(See spiral dynamics introduction to understand DQ, ER, FS terminology.)

]]> http://www.skyshine.co.uk/2009/01/23/is-the-transition-town-movement-forwards-or-backwards-looking/feed/ 0 Posting myself on the web http://www.skyshine.co.uk/2008/03/07/posting-myself-on-the-web/ http://www.skyshine.co.uk/2008/03/07/posting-myself-on-the-web/#comments Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:10:35 +0000 admin http://www.skyshine.co.uk/2008/03/07/posting-myself-on-the-web/ I have been wondering if it is wise to post so much personal history on the web, after all it is here for posterity.

Then I came across this.

I’ve also been a bit too attached to getting the personal history finished before I write all the other crazy ideas in my head. But even though I’ve only got one post to go, it is taking too long.

I’ve got two of my Spiral Dynamics certification clients to see this weekend so I am not going to have a great deal of time to update the site. It’s frustrating, my replacement at Green Dot Guides starts on the 1st of May, then there will be a handover period before I have much extra time, but my head is bursting with ideas. I’m not even managing to write rough notes on them all. To boot, I am burnt out from two very demanding years as a web site development manager.To sum up I am tired but not sleeping great. Sigh. I am just going to start posting ideas as they come up. They will be a little rough for now, but never mind.

Things I am planning/doing with the site.

  • Working on the design for this site (current design is just the install default.) I’ve nearly finished a preliminary banner.
  • Finish my work history posts. Important because I will have much less work soon and want to get the ball moving on my next move.
  • Finish the ‘about’ pages. Write a post about how I want to organise the site; and why.
  • Work out how to turn on the Firefox UK English dictionary…. done. Right click > languages > UK.
  • Write posts introducing Spiral Dynamics and some of my thoughts/ideas about it.
  • Finish several book reviews I have been writing (in my head and on the computer.) And post them here.
  • Create a 3Am ideas category and start posting them.
  • Link this site up to the web. It is live but as far as I know there are no links to it. Very unlikely anyone has found it yet <checks log>Can’t find password… do it later.</checks log>
  • Write a post about discovering how people in Hebden Bridge are working towards us being a transition town.

Things I am doing off the web site.

  • Pregnant wife
    • Helping with extra housework
    • Discussion
    • Reading up
    • Planning
    • Preparations
  • Spiral Dynamics certification
    • Continue interviewing my volunteers for certification
      • Write about process
  • Permaculture
    • Monthly day class – studying towards foundation.
      • March 28th – I am hosting.
    • Write about permaculture.
    • Look after seed bed. Continue planting experimental guild of sunflowers, beans + root parsley/chard/lettuce.
  • Transition town
  • Socialise and go to Zen meditation group and Quaker meetings.
  • Exercise. Run. Run some more; burn off the sleepless energy so I can rest properly. I am crap at this.
  • Ohh yea, my day job.
  • Rest; please. And sleep.
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