Hi. Here are my comments on the document. Apologies if they seem abrupt, but time has been short.
OVERALL COMMENTS
This document is very large. This could make it impractical for many people to respond to given most people live busy lives. Part of the problem is that it contains a great deal of apparently superfluous information, such as some of the appendices, statement of aims and profiles of board members.
Since you seem to reject the idea of an intentional structure, is this document necessary at all?
There is much confusion caused throughout the document by inconsistent use of the term Transition Network – sometimes it means the movement and sometimes the limited company.
SECTION 1
How exactly do you “enable networking� I think this is too vague to be useful or assess success.
SECTION 3
“or worse, a top-down network†– Please qualify and justify this statement. I understand that you do not wish to impose authority from the top, but a top-down organisation does not necessarily do this. Most systems of organisation, such as the naming of organisms in biology, are top-down. If not, is it really an organisation at all?
Without top-down organisation, there is every possibility of groups duplicating function/decisions within the network.
Allowing groups to evolve is a free-market approach to developing a structure. This often does not result in an optimal solution, and a planned approach can be better. If a non-optimal group is established its existence may prevent the optimal group forming, such as when a business has sufficient control of market-share to prevent entry by other businesses. For example, the prior existence of Transition Wales could preclude or prevent the formation of the probably more useful Transition Severn (addressing the bioregion formed by the water catchment). Conflict could result.
TNL functions are not distributed, and so TNL seems over-centralised. For example, TNL is the catalyst at the edge of the organisation, implying it bears all responsibility for expanding the network. There is no delegation of this role to other groups within the network.
There appears to be no structure or mechanism to put TNL under genuinely effective democratic control. Mass-elections of strangers are a symptom of the problem we are attempting to solve.
There is no mention of functions/roles within TNL. This is one of the most important things I would have expected to see in this document.
What is a Strand?
SECTION 4
The statement produced by the Purpose Working Group was for TNL, not this new definition of Transition Network. It will therefore need to be revisited.
Agreement on a single statement of purpose needs to be made before doing any further work on the structure document.
Aims, principles and methods should be separated. Also, none of them belong in this document. They belong in a separate Terms of Reference document to which this document should refer.
Some of the stated principles appear to be aims or methods.
Endorsing campaigning makes the organisation political, which might invalidate funding and charitable status.
SECTION 6
A structure does not have aims; a structure supports aims. These are (ill-)defined elsewhere. This section seems instead to be a list of objectives necessary to achieve the aims.
“enable†is a word that evades responsibility for achieving or defining the objective. What exactly is required in order to enable?
“ensure†with what authority/mechanism?
“To†is usually the best word with which to begin an objective statement.
Objectives do not belong in this document; they belong in a separate Terms of Reference.
Aims need to be clear and agreed before attempting to define objectives.
SECTION 8
Again TNL seems over-centralised e.g. registry of transition speakers, “nationalâ€. Surely each locale should have its own registry.
SECTION 9
The board of TNL has no relevance to structure
Adding four more people to the board will invite a collapse in effectiveness. The absolute maximum should be nine. Six is optimal.
Two new functions of TNL have been added: communication and structure. Why aren’t these part of the five aims? How do those aims square with the aims of the Transition Network?
SECTION 8
Regional hubs are mentioned but not listed
SECTION 9
Suggestions:
Enable decision-making by providing guidance on how to run effective meetings and mechanisms for democratic decision-making such as democratic agendas and range (and approval) voting. Restrict decision-making groups to around six members.
Any business carrying the name Transition should be accountable and therefore is part of the network, not outside it.
SECTION 11
A proposal for a knowledge management person has no place in this document, which is about the structure of Transition Network.
The role appears over-centralised.
APPENDICES
Why do we need all these appendices to describe structure? This is too much content for me to respond to.
I hope you find these comments helpful and they make a difference.
Best wishes
Steve