Transition in Practice

The course is taught by pioneers and leaders of the Transition movement both in the Transition Town Totnes project and the Transition Network which works at a national and international scale to support Transition initiatives. Teachers on this course will include: Rob Hopkins, Naresh Giangrande, Sophy Banks, Julie Richardson and Jonathan Dawson

This two week course looks at the Transition experiment through stories and models of change. What is the transition that is needed at this time? What supports engagement and shift in behaviour, for individuals, organisations and communities? What stories do we know of other cultures that have made the transition to a peaceful, inclusive and sustainable way of living? And what is it about Transition that has created such a widespread engagement around changing how we live?
Participants are invited to bring and reflect on their own stories and models of change, and to explore the archetypal nature of the journey. The course will give a deep conceptual and embodied understanding of the shifts we are living through now, and provide maps of the territory that support grounded and wise choices through these turbulent times.

Week one – Living the Transition
The first week explores the change process in depth, integrating understandings from psychological, scientific and social fields to give an in depth understanding of how our inner and outer worlds interact to shape the world we live in now, and affect how we engage with change.

We start with a shared enquiry into the global context for this particular time of change that we are negotiating. From this we explore stories of the future, and look at how the stories we tell reflect stages of a collective change process. Weaving together insights from the fields of addictions, integral studies, bereavement, behaviour change research and environmental and social movements, we explore models of reactive and proactive change, and how inner processes affect the individual and collective ability to respond effectively to the need for external change.

Transition Towns is a specific change model and proposes a specific process by which we can move to a sustainable culture. In the second part of the week we look in detail at the concepts and practice of the Transition model, and see how different communities have used it to create community scale solutions from local currencies to community gardens to large scale energy generation. Rob Hopkins will present a session and game involving the Ingredients of Transition.
We will end the week with a shared enquiry into different journeys of change, asking ‘what are the core characteristics of a healthy change process?’ and how are these findings relevant to change in my life?

Week two – Transition in Action
Week two is framed by the question – what is the Transition we need, and how do we know whether we are achieving it? Together we will develop tools for evaluating steps towards effective Transition which we will then apply and reflect on throughout the week, inviting an integral approach which includes looking at both inner and outer impacts of projects or activities.

The distinguishing characteristics of the Transition town model and process is that it is a real time social experiment and it not only proposes solutions, it also tests them on the ground. This week will include field trips to local projects, and teaching from leaders in the Transition movement who are addressing some core issues of our time, such as:

•     What does a successful relocalised economy look like and how can we start to build it now?
•     How can a community start to control key local assets – such as renewable energy generation?
•     What projects have been successful at engaging people in personal behaviour change?
•     We will also be looking further afield at other social change experiments and comparing their models of change.

Both weeks will be highly interactive and experiential. We will be engaging in processes that will work with participants’ own experience and awareness as a way to find answers to some of the vital questions of our time. We will use story telling, personal reflection, shared group enquiries, embodied activities and field trips. Both weeks provide a chance to dialogue with some of the pioneers of the Transition movement, and the Transition Town Totnes project in particular.

Tutors are Naresh Giangrande and Sophy Banks, who have been immersed in the Transition experiment in Totnes since its birth in Totnes in 2006. They are the creators of the highly successful Training for Transition, now renamed Transition; Launch, (see www.transitionnetwork.org/training) a course that has been delivered in over 30 countries, to thousands of people from the towns of rural England to the favelas of San Paolo, Brazil. Both have worked extensively for Transition Network, which was set up to to inspire, encourage, connect, support and train communities as they adopt and adapt the Transition model.

To help as many people actively involved in Transition we are pleased to be able to offer the following reductions:

• Any 1 week – 10% off full fees
• Two weeks –  20% off full fees
• In addition we can offer an additional 10% reduction to all those participants who wish to take the course as a non-residential and organise their own accommodation.

Course Fees

Any One week £750
Any Two weeks £1,300 (Save £200 over weekly course price)

PLEASE NOTE: Participants wishing to attend only Week Two of this course should ideally have attended the two-day introductory Transition training called Transition: Launch, which is run at different venues around the country – see http://www.transitionnetwork.org/training for further details. However, if you think you have relevant experience and/or training, but have not been to any Transition trainings, please write to us outlining your experience and why you wish to join the second week of the course.

All course fees include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College