The Story So Far

Transition Wolverton is a growing collective of local people who want to see a community wide response to climate change and peak oil happen. We’ve come to the end of our first events programme and thought it might be useful to look back over each event and link to some additional resources.

Film: Crude Awakening

Our first event drew a good crowd to Madcap for this unrelenting and hard hitting film about peak oil. If you missed it you can find out more here: http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/

Talk: Molly Scott Cato – Green Economist and fellow Transitioner from Stroud

Molly gave a lively talk about money, power and taking back local control. She introduced the idea of a ‘convivial’ economy which means becoming producers as well as consumers and creating a deeper sense of community relationships. Find out more about her ideas on her blog at http://gaianeconomics.blogspot.com/

Workshop: Revitalising Wolverton’s economy – making it greener

A good crew came out on a Sunday afternoon to tackle this timely issue. Some wonderfully imaginative ideas were floated such as buying up Manor Farm and turning it into a local woodland coppice, running a local postal service and re-localising care services for older people. You can find out more about ideas from other Transition local economies groups, particularly around local currencies here: http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/LeakyEconomy

Film: Transition Film shorts night

We had a good laugh watching the incredible Rob Newman’s History of Oil and a bunch of other shorts. Most of them can be watched online from here: http://transitiontowns.org/Wolverton/Films

Talk: Mark Lynas

Mark gave us an incredibly well researched talk about what exactly climate denial is. He really got us going with his controversial ideas and was up for a bit of a good debate. You can read more on his blog here http://www.marklynas.org/

Workshop: Open Space workshop on how Wolverton’s energy supply could be more sustainable and resilient.

This was an energetic afternoon spent really getting into just what energy is, including our personal energy and who ‘owns’ energy. Ideas were discussed about bringing back ‘cottage and home industries’ and generating our own power through solar, wind and coppice woodland. Be inspired by the Stroud Open Homes scheme http://www.stroudopenhomes.org.uk/

Talk: Tony Juniper

Tony took us on a roller coaster ride of the shocking destruction of the planet by deforestation, industrial pollution and the effects of climate change. Then he gave us hope. Hope that ordinary people like us can make a difference, supporting green politicians and NGOs to legislate to protect the planet and reverse years of greed and growth. Everyone liked this very much. http://tonyjuniper.com/?q=node/1

Film: Power of Community

We had a great time munching on Cuban food and watching the now classic Transition film about Cuba’s experience of enforced energy famine when the country entered its special period of restricted energy imports. It made the audience want to go right out and plant trees. Well, they’re doing it in Totnes! - http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/nuttrees/home

Workshop: Open Space – Feeding ourselves in a world with scarce fossil fuels

A happy band came together to share enthusiasm for keeping ourselves well fed and identified local compost making, a group for sharing knowledge and skills about growing food and less food waste as good places to start. They were also very much inspired by the recent Farm for a Future documentary that was shown on BBC2 - http://transitionculture.org/2009/02/23/a-farm-for-the-future-essential-viewing/

Talk: An introduction to Permaculture

Everyone was inspired by Kerry-Anne’s talk of worm bins, forest gardens and abundance. She gave us some excellent resources to ponder on some of which can be found via the excellent http://www.permaculture.org.uk/

Workshop: The Work That Reconnects

A small group spent a lovely sunny afternoon learning just a little of Joanna Macy’s teachings from Karen Shipp who had been to her workshops in the U.S. Many of the most successful Transition communities are using the workshops and principles to inspire participants and give us new tools to move forward with.
Here are just a few of them:

Work increasingly in teams or joint projects serving common intentions. Build community through shared tasks and rituals.

Be generous with your strengths and skills, they are not your private property. They grow from being shared. They include both your knowing and your unknowing, and the gifts you accept from the ancestors and all beings.

Draw forth the strength of others by your own acknowledgment of them. Never prejudice what a person can contribute, but be ready for surprise and fresh forms of synergy.

You do not need to see the results of your work. Your actions have unanticipated and far-reaching effects that are not likely to be visible to you in your lifetime.

Putting forth great effort, let there also be serenity in all your doing; for you are held within the web of life, within flows of energy and intelligence far exceeding your own.