Staff and key contributors

Meet the team - here are Transition Network's staff and key contributors:

Sophy Banks: Transition Training

Sophy set up the first “Heart and Soul” group in Totnes that focuses on the psychology of change, as well as coordinating the TTT central office and systems.

A trainer for over 20 years she has worked as an engineer, information systems consultant and psychotherapist and has considerable experience of voluntary sector and community projects. 

Stephanie Bradley: Events administrator, Transition Tales storyteller

Hot News: Steph is currently on a 6 month walk around Britain, using green lanes to link up Transition Initiatives, gathering Transition Tales and blogging exquisitely.

From walking everywhere she can, pretty much exclusively in flipflops, to cooking freshly picked local food, Steph tries to live now how she envisions the future.

She has a background in language teaching - every age from 4-80. She lived in Brazil for 14 years where she developed a feel for working with teenagers, and trained many teachers to teach the person, not the subject, designing, developing and facilitating many courses for schools, always tailored to the individual.

Her big interest is in the stories we believe, and how they impact on our relationship with others, and our environment.

Ben Brangwyn: Transition Network co-founder

For many years, he put his ecological aspirations on the back-burner, focusing on the world of business and hi-tech, with occasional forays into charity work. However, the inner eco-warrior was on the rise, especially with peak oil and climate change looming fast.

Realising he could no longer countenance being part of the problem, he backed irrevocably away from his bizarre day job of manipulating abstractions while feigning enthusiasm and started planting acorns with a vengeance. Once he ran out of acorns he moved down to Totnes and co-founded Transition Network with Rob Hopkins. Within Transition Town Totnes, Ben is part of the local currency team.

Ben has two sons, Josh 21, Ollie 18, and hopes they'll inherit a human-scale world.

Jo Coish: Office manager and finance guru

 Jo blew into Totnes (well Dartington really) in Sept 1992 to attend Dartington College of Arts where she passed out in July 1995 with a ‘Desmond’ in Theatre and Arts Management! She met and married her hubby in 1999 and has been in Totnes ever since. In 2012 she will have lived in Totnes as long as she lived in Cheshire. Will she be a 'local' by then?

She has worked in a pub/restaurant, a call centre (which she hated and left after 2 weeks!), a shop, a solicitors, research in practice from 1998 – 2007 (which grew from 4 to 30 members of staff), and a prison. Employed as the Office Manager at Transition Network in 2008 with 3 members of staff, it is looking like Transition Network will be growing faster than Research in Practice at this rate! I am looking forward to the challenge and working with such a great team of people. 

Naresh Giangrande: Transition Training and Consulting

Pioneering co- founder of Transition Town Totnes (TTT) and Transition Training, Naresh has been involved in designing, running and evolving many of the events, groups, and trainings that have been at the heart of the enormously successful Transition Towns project.

He has delivered  the Training for Transition, Transition Talk Training, Train the Trainers, and Transition training for Local Authorities and organisations to hundreds of participants in 11 countries. As one of the Transition Town founders he has given dozens of lectures and interviews, and spoken at many conferences and other public events.  He set up and coordinated the energy group of TTT, and is currently a director of TTT ltd.

Prior to Transition Towns he has lived and worked in an eco community, was Managing Director of a small to medium sized enterprise, and a gaffer in the film industry. He has also taught meditation, has a chemistry degree from the University of Pennsylvania, was an Eagle Scout, and is father to two lovely daughters.

Helen La Trobe: PA to Rob Hopkins, film co-ordinator, volunteer co-ordinator

Helen started life in Devon, and moved to London in her early 20s. She's worked in cafes, bars, a bingo hall, and as a motorcycle dispatch rider, seamstress, policy officer with FoE in London, researcher and lecturer at Uni, and then everything from sorting IT problems to writing communications, fundraising and policy documents at FoE in Ghana where she went in 2004.

She spent her spare time in Ghana supporting and sponsoring children’s education, so crucial to their futures and something she continues to do today. She also enjoyed many an hour sitting under trees mending the children’s uniforms and shoes, and dancing and chatting with Ghanaian friends.

Now she's back in Devon at Transition Network, which, she says, "Is a great place to be, with so many wonderful people and very rewarding work". 

Ed Mitchell: Web co-ordinator

Ed studied Development Studies way back in the early 90s and found it very stimulating but upsetting; what can we do in the face of such enormous crisis? Following that he tried all sorts of jobs ranging from the serious to the ridiculous to the extraordinary, but none quite hit the spot until he met the web. He has been working on the web since 1997 when he met a North London pirate radio station crew and agreed to be the studio manager for their early UK community webcasting startup, GaiaLive.

Since then he has worked as a web producer and online community facilitator for membership bodies, charities and government organisations. He also likes growing vegetables, bicycling, climbing, camping and generally being outdoors.

Catrina Pickering: Diversity co-ordinator

 Catrina started to find out about climate change and peak oil in early 2007 and decided that this was the most important issue of our time. 

She has since worked as the Coordinator for Winchester Action on Climate Change and more recently as the Mobilisation Project Manager for the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) where she undertook mobilisation projects with low carbon communities, refugees/ migrants, trade unions etc. 

She has also worked in human rights, community regeneration and HIV/AIDS.  Catrina has a strong passion and interest in diversity and the ways in which a community can become more resilient by utilising the ideas and skills of the diverse peoples that make up that community. 

She has lived in India and Mexico as well as many towns, cities and villages in the UK.  She has been a practising Nichiren Buddhist for most of her life and among other pass-times enjoys being in nature, spending time with people, swimming and most recently learning to dance flamenco.

Fundraising - Ed gathers that there is news on this subject...

Fiona Ward: Transition Training and Consulting, Transition Streets leader

Fiona is the co-founder of Transition Training and Consulting (TTandC) - part of the Transition Network. She has worked with companies of all shapes and sizes over the last 20 years to define and deliver business transformation strategies. 

After realising that these kinds of transformations weren't generally what our communities most need to help build our reslience, and best sustain our well-being, Fiona moved from London to South Devon in 2006 and quickly became involved with Transition Town Totnes (TTT) and then the Transition Network.

With the TTandC team of practitioners she is exploring how we might best bring transition-thinking to the businesses and organisations in our transition communities, and help ensure sustainable and equitable employment, products and services for all of us.

Like most people in the TN team, Fiona is also heavily involved with her local transition initiative where she co-manages TTT's Transition Streets and Transition Together  projects.