Folks in Scotland were very fortunate to be able to invite Transition Trainer, Tina Clarke from the USA to visit on on the 2nd & 3rd of March 2019.
The first day was a Scottish Communities Climate Action Network Spring Gathering and Skillshare event. (more text here to summarise the day - David S to supply). Tina wrapped up the first days session by sharing her experience of helping grassroots initiatives across America, Canada and Europe. The second day was entitled 'Transition Training for a Carbon Neutral Scotland' and after a go-around to introduce ourselves, and what we wanted to gain from the day, Tina took us through what she called the 6 ways to create Social Change:
Tina also talked about the suitable scales of action. Neighbourhood Level - smaller local clusters of neighbours/households (say approx 15 people within 15 mins walk of each other), where action should be focused on the practical (hands-on) activities. In Permaculture speak this would be the herb zone, chicken zone, etc. This could be communal growing spaces, orchards, compost bins, etc. Focusing on a Resilience of 1-3 weeks worth of resources. Municipality/Community Level - town sized populations, where the outlook is broader in scope, looking and lifespan and legacy elements, food supply, water supply, heating, cooling, sanitation, with a Resilience focus on say 1-3 months. and the Regional Level - were the focus might be on 1-3 years ahead, and be about local economics, energy plans for 100% renewables, 50% of food supply, etc. Understanding these scales will help us to apply the right activities and planning at the appropriate level. ie there's no point in focusing on local economic issues at a neighbourhood level, and equally at a regional level it's very complex to organise big hands-on activities. In Scotland we need to look at streets, towns, villages, regions of cities as well as the larger regions and local authority levels of society and to channel our efforts to where they will be most effective an efficiently adopted. Recommended Resources from the weekend are: - Mark Jacobson - see link - Story of Stuff - Transition HealthCheck - Climate Challenge Fund - Scottish Government funding for community-led projects. - (more here) Reflections from attendees: <name> - <reflection here> <name2> - <reflection here> Many thanks to David Somervell for organising the weekend and to Tina for making a deviation from her trip to Denmark to see us in Scotland.
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In May, Eva Schonveld and I had the opportunity to attend the international Transition Hubs gathering in Santorso, Italy (not far from Venice). It was preceded by an Inner Transition training organised by Transition Network’s Inner Transition coordinator Claire Milne, together with Madelanne Rust-d’Eye, a body-based psychotherapist, and Peter Cow, specialising in social permaculture and the 8 Shields work. The theme for the training was how we create regenerative group cultures. Much of it was learning by doing, and we spent a large part of our first day identifying and creating “the container” which would help us feel safe and comfortable enough to be able to be honest, understand each other, express empathy, and ultimately feel the self-sustaining creativity that can emerge in such an environment. So we introduced ourselves, played a couple of games, agreed on group rules, stated expectations and made agreements with the group, but also with ourselves, about what behaviour we would like to see. Peter introduced the acorn model of group leadership of the 8 shields, where people take on qualities and actions of the eight directions of the compass to help spread out and share the support needed for a well-functioning group: As more people stepped in to take on these different roles and tasks, the pressure on our three facilitators obviously decreased, but it also created a shared sense of responsibility, and things did seem to just happen of themselves at times. Madelanne brought a very interesting piece on how our nervous system works, and influences our behaviour in a group. The part of the nervous system we want to be in, the Social Engagement System, regulates our digestion etc. – it makes us feel relaxed, safe, and able to interact with others. However, our nervous systems haven’t changed since the Stone Age, which means that our everyday reality of traffic, big workloads, noise, verbal or online disputes, deadlines (etc. etc.) often trigger our fight or flight response, without us having the opportunity to act on it. So we can find ourselves with a lot of energy built up inside coming from our nervous system wanting to respond to its perceived danger by attacking back, or running really fast and far. But we very seldom do that, leading to conditions of anxiety, stress or burnout. So if we can give ourselves the opportunity when working together to move, shake things off, make noises, breathe, and practice simple things that automatically push us back towards the Social Engagement System, such as eye contact, physical touch, etc., we will probably see much more productive meetings. We also spent some time looking at empathy – our ability to feel and deeply understand others. As such, it is a quality of presence that can help people’s nervous systems to feel safe and relaxed, leading to creativity naturally arising in the group. My experience was that when somebody listened to me and repeated what I said in their own words, trying to understand without making suggestions, I could take my ideas further and together we arrived at ideas that were much more exciting and fun than if I had just kept my thoughts to myself. The suggestions was that if this empathetic environment can be created in a group, there are no limits to its creativity and regenerative capacity. Connected to this is how we give and receive feedback. How do we communicate with each other, and how do we become aware of how our responses affect the other person? The statistic of the day was 5:1 - we need five positive feedbacks to one negative to feel good, appreciated, and constructively develop. We discussed practices to create a safe and supportive way of giving feedback, such as agreeing on formats for feedback beforehand, discussing emotions and related needs, opening meetings with regular gratitude rounds, creating structures to give the group regular permission to express feedback so it doesn’t come at an inopportune moment. We spent an afternoon experimenting with a version of the theatre of oppressed, which we called theatre of cooperation. We played out a scenario I think many of us can relate to, where members of a Transition group have too much to do, there aren’t enough people, and they struggle to recruit more members. Trying to intervene and set the destructive dynamics of the group right, it became clear to us that the best intervention would have been to have spent time and efforts creating a healthy group culture in the first place, rather than trying to save already stressed out group members or replace them by new.
My conclusion from the training is that Inner Transition is not only the touchy feely emotional heart stuff that some feel very comfortable discussing, and others feel shy or nervous about, and is often left on the shelf of “nice things we’ll do when we have time”. What I realised is that Inner Transition is the backbone of creating a healthy, creative group culture, which in turn is vital for sustaining our Transition Initiatives and their role in local communities. So often, our groups rely on the efforts, stamina, and courage of individual volunteers. Without that backbone, no wonder we can suffer from stress and burnout, conflict, miscommunications, mission drift, stagnation… And the right time to do something about all these things is not when they occur, but create practices that reduce the likelihood of them in the first place. So, ending on a practical note – how can we do this? Claire has some plans to develop a year long investigative journey into what Inner Transition can look like across the world, so keep your eyes open for that. We resolved during the course of the Hubs gathering to create an Inner Transition community of practice, where there will be an online meeting once a month to connect with others thinking about Inner Transition, and share what we are doing. And perhaps, if we have enough energy and time and motivation, we could look into having an Inner Transition training and sharing event in Scotland soon. What do you think? Members of Transition Scotland will be at the forthcoming SCCAN gathering (see below) and we'll be running one of the afternoon workshops on the health of your organisation. We are also having our own Transition Scotland mini gathering after the main event. Transition Scotland gathering Feb 4th, Edinburgh These are exciting times in Transition Scotland!
We plan to meet, celebrate all these things, and discuss many more after the Scottish Communities Climate Action Network gathering on February 4th in Edinburgh. We will gather outside the venue at 5pm and head to a nearby pub. Do come along if you can! SCCAN Gathering - Feb 4th 2017, EdinburghThe Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN) are having their Annual Gathering 9.30-4.30 on Saturday 4 February 2017, David Hume Tower*, George Sq, Edinburgh EH8 9JX. Book at https://sccan4feb.eventbrite.co.uk A day packed with inspirational talks and workshops with lots of space for you to share as well!
Highlights of the day include:
Social evening 6-9pm Friday 3 February, David Hume Tower. For those of you nearby – or coming the day before to stay over – we invite you for an informal Social with food and drink on the Friday evening. This is a chance to get to know each other more. Paul Allen will join us for this – to share his experience of moving ideas into action. Register at https://sccan3feb.eventbrite.co.uk Draft Programme9.30 Registration opens. - refreshments
10.00 Welcome and warm up session 10.30 Plenary Session Suzy Goodsir of Greener Kirkcaldy, on Lessons from Fife CCAN’s pilot regional network Paul Allen of Centre for Alternative Technology, on Zero Carbon Britain 2: Making It Happen 11.15 Workshops 1
13.25 Workshops 2
14.40 Open Space: topics generated by participants
A Special Guest gives feedback from Open Space discussions: sharing the next steps 16.30pm Close then.... 17:00 Transition Scotland folks head to the pub to discuss TS stuff. * Location map at https://goo.gl/lb1Q92 Transition Scotland’s (TS) 2016 annual gathering was held on September 10th and 11th. This year it was hosted by Transition Black Isle in the beautiful village of Cromarty. Based at the Old Brewery run by Cromarty Arts Trust, we ventured firstly to the Cromarty Community Market which provided us with an excellent learning exchange around how to run community markets, as well as tasty local produce, plants, and crafts.
In the afternoon there was an Open Space discussion around different aspects of the question: "How can we, as a national movement, be more effective in facilitating a move to a low-impact lifestyle?". It was followed by a delicious pot-luck dinner and plenty of chat and getting to know each other - as always - probably the most important part of the weekend! The Sunday was spent walking around Cromarty, learning more about the local history of how the area around the Cromarty Firth had gone through its own transition from crofting, fishing, hemp production, brewing, sea-borne trading, oil rig construction and now looking over to Nigg where wind turbines are being constructed. . This provided us with time for informal brainstorms giving birth to exciting future ideas and projects which may be a part of Cromarty’s future. Who knows.... Reflections from visitors and TBI’ers. |
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