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.

Peak Oil activities

I've so many thoughts, ideas, questions and feelings I want to get down on the subject of oil-depletion, peak oil, the post-carbon world...call it what you will.

I'm trying to see how I can group my posts under headings, which will hopefully help to clarify things.

Here's my working list of Peak Oil activities (POA):

• budget - work out what we have, what we spend, where we can cut-back, where we can save
• growing food - starting with the back garden, moving on to the allotment (when we get one), a spot of guerilla gardening and even the balcony at work. All using permaculture design techniques.
  
• activism - mainly focused (for now) on Transition Town (city!) status for Ely
• theory - applying Ken Wilber's Integral AQAL approach to all this
• psychological / spiritual development
• physical health
• clear understanding of the facts, theories, options
  
• more, more, more, there must be more but that's it for now, dinner is calling!