Mar 17 2009
Visiting Forres and Alness Transition Towns
Do you live on Orkney and would you like to visit a Transition Town?
If so, we’re looking for 2-4 other people to join us in visiting Alness and Forres in late April for a regional Transition Towns gathering, and a chance to see how these communities are responding to the challenges of peak oil and climate change.
The travel costs will be subsidised by Transition Towns Scotland, and this offers us an excellent opportunity to meet with many communities in the Highlands and Islands who are working on creative ways to help their community become more sustainable.
For those of you not familiar with Transition Towns, here’s how the Transition Towns website describes it:
It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?
They begin by forming a group, adopting the Transition Model, and getting a significant proportion of the people in the community to work together to increase self-sufficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
Then the group starts:
- awareness raising
- connecting with local groups
- building bridges to local government
- connecting with other transition initiatives
- forming groups to look at all the key areas of life (food, energy, transport, health, heart & soul, economics & livelihoods, etc)
- projects to build resilience and community engagement
- eventually launching a community defined, community implemented “Energy Descent Action Plan” over a 15 to 20 year timescale
It’s a massive undertaking, but one that has become hugely popular in the UK. As you can see from the map below, there are quite a few communities just in Scotland who are involved: (Google Map isn’t working, so click here for the map on the Transition Towns Scotland website).
You can get the book at the Kirkwall library, on Amazon or borrow our copy.
To be honest, I’ve come somewhat reluctantly to TT because it’s a massive project and I didn’t want to get sidetracked when there’s so much to do with Touchwood. I mean, do I really need another hugely ambitious project on my plate?
But then this past weekend as my friend Esther sat chatting with Malcolm about how the scientists are saying global warming is looking much worse than we’d anticipated, I asked them: “Are we — even just the three of us — doing enough to deal with global warming?”
And the answer’s no. Sure, I generally feel that global warming is too big to tackle, but how much longer can I wait for others to act? Besides, I’m already committed to finding out if Orkney is interested in doing a community project like Touchwood, so why not add Transition Towns to the mix. In for one wildly ambitious project, why not two?
The goals overlap so neatly, and the opportunity to meet up with like-minded folks and start to make things happen is just too good to pass up. So I’m heading down the road and seeing if anyone else would like to join me.
So if you fancy a trip down to Forres and would like to learn more about Transition Towns and how we might start one up on Orkney, get in touch with me at rachel [at] touchwood [dot] com.
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I will be interested to hear more about your trip after you go. I’ve heard about this movement and of course it interests me, but I share your reluctance to dive into such a deep pool just yet. Thanks for blazing the trail.