East Anglian Transition Gathering in Downham Market

Last Saturday 7th March, 50 people from 12 East Anglian Transition cities, towns and villages met to talk, plan, network and celebrate.

The towns represented were:

• Eccles
• Bungay
• Cambridge
• Dereham
• Diss
• Downham Market and villages
• Ely
• Ipswich
• King's Lynn
• Norwich
• Mundesley
• Woodbridge

View a map of East Anglian Transition Towns



For the morning session we used Open Space technology and quickly set up an agenda with x workshops:



The choice of subjects was eclectic, mirroring the different needs and experiences of the cities, towns and villages present:



Once we'd decided which group to join we set off for the designated meeting rooms. Naturally, I scurried off to the 'Food' group.

After the Open Space sessions we all sat down for a well deserved lunch, cooked and served up by our excellent hosts from Downham Market. The food was delicious!

In the afternoon we all took part in a World Cafe session (additional info on World Cafe's).

The idea behind the World Cafe is to explore questions. A group of four or five sit together and talk through a topic, taking notes on the paper table cloth.

After the World Cafe we came together as a group and began feeding back our thoughts and impressions of the day. Gary from Transition Diss announced the launch of a online networking community for East Anglian Transition Towns ('Transition East), check back here for more on this.

All in all, it was an excellent event, great for networking, building links and sharing ideas. My thanks and admiration go out to our friends from Downham Market (and villages) for hosting the day.

Looking forward to the next one, in six months time.

The End of Suburbia

Just come back from seeing The End of Suburbia at a friend's house. We're planning to show this film at a public meeting in Ely this autumn.

The film is about how Peak Oil spells the end of this aspect of the American dream. The concept of suburbs was based on cheap oil, the ability to drive to and from your place of work, shopping centres, entertainment. All of this now threatened by the decline in easily available carbon-based energy.

And of course, this is easily applied to the UK.

After the film we retired to the excellent Prince Albert, a fine pub in the tradition of The Pineapple in the early days when it was the HQ of the the Tufnell Park Militia.

Over a few pints I talked to some new people who expressed an interest in getting involved with Transition Ely. Emails addresses were exchanged and slowly but surely we're connecting with others.

Here's the trailer for The End of Suburbia: