Seven TT Poole members attended the Transition Gathering in Dorchester today. Enthusiastic members from most of the 13 Transition Towns and Villages around Dorset were there, sharing great ideas, problems and aspirations.
Using Open Space meeting techniques, we debated lots of the issues around supporting and developing Transition across the county. Open space takes the idea that coffee breaks are the most interesting bit of many meetings – networking and exchanging ideas with others. Ideas for groups get promoted by individuals, and potentially combined. There is one rule – two feet. If you don’t find you have a contribution or the discussion is interesting, free to leave and find another group. Bees are people who pollinate ideas between the groups by wandering, and butterflies are those who can’t find a group, but luxuriate by the coffee pot, potentially having useful conversations.
Output from the Dorset-wide energy discussion
In the morning, I was in a group looking at Energy – reduction of consumption, and production by renewable techniques. The Beetroot backdrop to our summary was because we were in the ‘Beetroot’ corner of the room !
How to achieve efficiency in Transition groups
For the afternoon, I joined a group on efficiency (of core groups). Problems of burnout and bottlenecks of being a focal person in the movement. Some of the larger TT locations have resorted to a paid facilitator. The best idea in this session seemed to be to advertise, potentially on the website, jobs that need doing, thus empowering people to apply to get involved, and passing out work that needs doing, relieving pressure on the same individuals.
Would be interesting to look at the Transition Stroud website, they have apparently documented their various organisational forms, and struggled through the growing pains. TT Bridport have become a company limited by guarantee, with directors rather than trustees. This protects the directors from individual liability, and also protects the TT from people coming in for a topic and then departing, having voted money for their cause. Mark from Bridport is the expert.
Talked to the organiser of the Casterbridge Co-op (Dorchester group), they tend to buy every 2 months or so, 20 members in the group. Their 5% markup covers ensuring that the bank balance does not go negative, and cover some collaborative events – AGM and functions including barbacues. We’re tending towards no markup to see how it goes, but interesting to compare.
The Co-op Transition Town funding is very easy to go for, only 2 sides of A4.
The technique Weaving Magic was recommended – Nick Osborne, see School of Everything.
