How can Transition groups become more inclusive?

By giving bolt on talks for want of a better term. All kinds of groups are trying to include the green notion into their organisations and are encouraged to do so.

So identify a group you wish to target ,could be any really, and ask permission to give a short introductory talk before or after their main business.

Good to catch people where they are in tune with the sustainable notion. in context you know?

Just a few ideas.

Lov Luv Love

Hello,

Really so great that you're asking these questions!  My name's Catrina and I'm the Diversity Coordinator for the Transition Network.  Inclusion and involving more people are questions that crop up again and again and although there's no easy answers, there is a lot that you can do. 

For starters, see Rob Hopkins recent post on diversity and inclusion:  http://transitionculture.org/2010/11/26/ingredients-for-transition-inclusion-and-diversity/. 

This covers much of the approach we're trying to encourage in Transition.  As you can see in the post itself, it's more a case of thinking about how you can start from where people are at and more often than not, that means going out and being included by other groups rather than expecting other people to come to you.  I like what Pete described above about going out and giving talks, although I'd also say that in addition to giving the talk, the perhaps more important aspect of that would be to listen to the people that you've been invited in by and to find out what their prioirites are and how they relate to what you're doing. 

Over the next couple of months, there should be a lot more information on this website that we'll be uploading including something along the lines of a toolkit profiiing case studies that have really worked.  I'll post these as they appear. There's alos a diversity newsletter you can sign up to at: http://www.transitionnetwork.org/mailchimp/subscribe.

On an individual note, I'd be very happy to chat to you about this further over the phone/ email etc but am very interested also to see if others have useful tips and ideas to add to this online discussion...

Catrina

catrinapickering@transitionnetwork.org

Yeah, this is a tough question. I've just started blogging about our attempts to make Transition Town Stoke Newington more inclusive at www.inclusivetransition.wordpress.com

My latest post is about a joint event we did with an estate in our neighbourhood last night, which was lots of fun. A lovely mix of Transition people and people who live in the area but aren't involved in Transition came to it and joined in the carols. We didn't include any Transition 'content' but it was a fairly low impact event (reusable cups, home baking etc) and a good way to get to know more people in the neighbourhood.

  Try this GoogleTranslate rendering of this page into Urdu, use the usual buttons to move around TransitionNetwork site translating on the fly

                                          tinyurl.com/38eypu6

Try some other languages, have fun. 

I'm assuming that inclusivity will cover all our ethnic minorities.

 Hi Tiff / All

We try lots of different formats, leaflets, local paper, twitter, linkedin, facebook, face-2-face, library etc. But your right, expect the same faces at each event. I personally think it's about being different, fun, interesting, but also appreciating that any message from a TT group isn't going to be taken up easily by certain sectors of society with different attitudes and beliefs. It might be worth you reading up about Cultural Dynamics. See www.cultdyn.co.uk and some of their interesting articles on behaviour change a value modes etc. It might be that we need to adapt our train of thought to align more with the other motivating messages.

Also worth reading is Futerra's Sell the Sizzle.

I agree with other comments, get out, give talks, but beware to tailor your message to the audience, be positive from the outset, interesting, engaging and rewarding on different levels for different people.

Best of luck...

Thank you all for responding to my questions. The links you have all posted have been really useful. I've been putting together a list of local groups that we can go visit and see how we can link up with them over the next 12 months. Also, something that seems very obvious but didn't occur to me a while ago, as a Transition Town we should be the umbrella for all the groups in the community, to support them, promote them and help them be more successful. I think i'd seen our group as seperate to the other groups in the community but we should actually be a hub for them all - if we can sell this idea to them, then perhaps we'll be seen as a bigger part of the community.

I forgot to mention before, my TT is in a mainly white area but many of the locals are from low to middle incomes and we have problems with drug and alcohol problems. How can we get more low income individuals involved in our activities? Most of our events are free or very cheap to attend, in central locations so people can walk to them and we serve free refreshments at some of our events but we can't do it at all of them or we couldn't afford to run as many. I also feel that as most of the core group is middle class people it puts people off getting involved because they feel they are being looked down on. I can personally sympathise with this because i'm not as well-off as some of the people in the group, i'm also much younger than them and many of them are old friends. After being involved with the group for a number of years, I'm not as worried about voicing my opinions on issues but I don't know how to make new members feel more involved.

Also, I've created a new poster to hopefully recruit new volunteers to the group but it's different to previous attempts as it tells people we're not just a talking shop, we're a group that gets out there and makes things happen! Hopefully it will appeal to a different group of people than we usually attract! Fingers crossed!

Tiff
 

      It is important not to inadvertently put up barriers. This may happen if people are thought of as "those people", people on the outside of Transition. I'm tired of hearing people speak as though people of different cultures and ethnicities are so different from each other. We are all humans, and are all in need of the same basic rights and necessities. All humans are concerned with their health and well being, and desire access to fresh and clean food and water sources. We all have a need for affordable transportation, housing, heating, and cooling. People all want a secure future. These are all things that Transition can help with. The fact that people are even discussing being perceived as a "white middle class", "hierarchal power" makes me ill. Presentation is the key. How Transition presents itself to others, and how others perceive Transition will create success or failure.

      People of different cultures and backgrounds have so much knowledge that pertains to the Transition movement. People from many countries live daily with "reduce and reuse" as a way of life because it is a necessity. They have balcony and rooftop gardens because they are necessities. They conserve water and electricity because it is necessary. Therefore, immigrants of these countries have firsthand knowledge as to how to apply these ideas and can perhaps help us to integrate them into our own way of life. It is now just a matter of obtaining their help. Once we achieve this, I believe a natural occurrence will happen and we and they will become us, the Transition community.

      For example, in my community there is a large Chinese community. Many Chinese here have amazing food gardens, thriving with exotic herbs, fruits, and vegetables and these gardens were created with trellises and containers made from recycled materials. Their knowledge of how to create these types of functional gardens would benefit the Transition community. It seems to me then, that it is in our interest to approach knowledgeable people in our communities, and explain to them in brief summary what we are a part of and what we want to achieve. Then express that we are seeking people within our community with skills that would assist us in our goals and that we would be honoured if they would pass on their knowledge to us in whatever way is most comfortable for them. Perhaps they would be willing to hold some workshops or presentations. I believe that instantly people will feel a sense of pride in their knowledge and their culture. I think people will be eager to share in this way, and it will immediately tear down bridges. Obviously there may be obstacles such as language barriers, but I have no doubt that a person in the community, perhaps at a nearby university, would be willing to help. We need start being resourceful.

      This may help to get people on board once their interest is sparked in this way, but there still needs to be more. I think it is important that a Transition representative seek out leaders in other communities, cultures, and backgrounds, whether it be a nearby Italian community, or your local school for the deaf. We need to start approaching people and letting them know who we are and what we are about. Then we need to ask how they feel this movement pertains to them and their community and how they think we can all best work together to achieve common goals. I think Rob Hopkins says it well in his draft on Inclusion and Diversity:

The Solution

Building an Initiative that integrates all the strengths and concerns in your community means starting with everyone in that community and interweaving diversity into everything you do.  In practise, it’s about a lot more than putting up posters in a few carefully chosen places.   Rather than inviting people to your meetings and expecting them to come along, it’s about going out to other people and listening. It means finding out about the strengths, concerns and the passions that fuel the fire of everyone in your community and then together with your own ideas, using that as the building blocks for creating an inclusive vision that informs everything you do.  The result will be a just, fair and infinitely more resilient Transition.

I really appreciate Rob Hopkins' article, and these comments are also great to read.  We are a small mulling Transition Initiative in rural Maine, U.S.  Our "group" of two (myself and a high school student who wants to work on this as her senior project) is holding a "working meeting" on January 23rd to begin planning a process to introduce the Transition Initiative concept to the larger community.  We're spreading the word in various ways to invite people, but I know already that the majority of folks who show up will be similar to each other in terms of race, education, class, and economic status.  It is a meeting after all. Aside from the obvious work of GETTING GOING, I'm thinking of this meeting as a way to begin to understand who we are and who we are not, and we've got a couple of activities planned to do that.  One activity will compare the demographics in the room and the demographics in the community, not to create token representation, but just to get used the ideas that we are not necessarily representative of our community.  The other exercise comes from my experience of trying to describe "permaculture" to a large variety of people before I took a certification course this summer - this is still fuzzy - I'll share information after the 23rd.  I am so grateful for "Ingredients of Transition: Inclusivity and Diversity" - a link to this was included with every email invite to the meeting on the 23rd, and I'm going to place copies next to The Transition Handbooks for sale at our co-op. It seems to me that if a Transition Initiative is as diverse as its community, it will include places of comfort and places of discomfort for everyone.  Hurray!

I agree hugely with what Danielle Cohen has said about the need to be aware of power disparities, aware of our own cultural assumptions and expectations, and aware of our own selves. Sadly, there's no easy answer to "how do we get more diversity into our transition initiative?" - it takes reflection and self awareness. Part of which is maybe that those of us who believe that transition work is worth doing tend to come from the more privileged and empowered sections of the community. Obviously, if your experience of your world so far is of powerlessness and frustration, you're less likely to see the point in joining an initiative aiming to transform your community. So we maybe need to start sometimes with 'why bother?'

Two comments I'd like to make:

One is that the whole project of 'multiculturalism' gives a somewhat false notion that, if we get it right, everyone within a community can be happy together. Obviously, this isn't true. Fundamentalist Christians won't be happy with LGBT people, white supremacists won't work happily with black immigrants, climate change deniers won't work well with transitioners. Meetings that work at a high-powered level will not be welcoming to people with learning disabilities, and if they were, they'd be rather less effective meetings. You can't have it all. And many people out there may support our intentions but not be interested in joining a group, or not think that it will achieve anything, or just be too busy. So we give our selves too hard a task if we try to include 'the whole community'. We need to think about who can feasibly be reached, and how, and not try for the impossible.

Second, and more important, the point of transition is not to get the whole community involved in the transition movement. The point is to get people in our area to reduce their carbon footprint while making their community more resilient. So long as this is happening, I don't much care whether they would identify themselves as coming under the 'transition umbrella' or not. So as Peter says above, we need go out and talk to other groups about transition's core message and how it might relate to them, not just try to draw them into our process.

And, we also need to keep thinking within our own groups about how to make them as accessible as possible, psychologically as well as physically, to any new people.

Following on from the good points raised here, as a British Asian I would add that its not untrue or unkind when many from our community say they are "too busy!" Most of them I know are working long hours in family businesses, many have other obligations and when/if they do get some spare time they, like anyone else, often just want to "chill out" or party!

I am not as "conventional" culturally as many British Asians, I had a relatively liberal upbringing due to my mixed Chinese/Indian ancestry and my parents leaving their native Malaysia because their relationship was not accepted by grandparents.

So I was not coerced into faith group attendance or early marriage/fatherhood -  however my parents still instilled a very strong work ethic in me and unfortunately both (particularly Dad) were relatively socially conservative after a failed attempt to live "communal/hippy" lifestyles in 1970s London (an early attempt at "Transition" lifestyles?).

Dad went from building all his own furniture, trying to grow his own food to becoming a willing worker for a large oil company staunch supporter of Thatcho, and working hard for the rest of his life to support his family whilst never getting involved in any community stuff again for the rest of his days, and also was a complete petrolhead (ironically I don't own a car to this day and ride an e-bike everywhere!)

My mum became a teacher for a few years but became even more sceptical about communities and families (even mainstream ones) from her experiences in school.

Sadly Dad didn't live long enough for me to have a man to man chat about why he turned his back on "low impact" lifestyles - My mum, however, recently hinted that they had both become disillusioned by the alternative community who came across as "middle class slackers" and weren't as "welcoming as they should be" (i.e they weren't there for crisis situations or anything outside hedonism/partying) And this was all three decades ago!

I think things are much better today (that we are having this discussion is one good thing, also the Internet helps shrink the world and lean about other cultures without needing eco-unfriendly travel) - but the same mistakes must not be made.

I also agree with Sylvia about "multiculturalism", and especially after recent national events think it is very foolhardy to try and offer an olive branch to those who totally and fundamentally disagree with your views - they will simply snatch it off you and use it to thrash you with. And some opponents are physically and mentally strong and won't hesitate to fight dirty.

So there needs to be some boundaries, we need to accept there will be opposition (covert and overt) even to a relatively innocuous concept (in comparison to the harder eco-protest movements) as Transition, and to choose our allies carefully and not be seen as another "middle class group preaching to others".

Alex

But we need to TRY!

I said earlier that a truly diverse Transition Initiative will include places of comfort and places of discomfort for everyone.  Who gets to decide who belongs?  I was recently told by someone (who perhaps thought I was speaking code when I used the word diversity), that they "don't want a gay group." Should I stop communicating with this person?  Should they stop communicating with me? Neither of us appear to think so.  We had some uncomfortable and angry moments after that statement, but we both have a lot to give to the Transition process, and we'll keep talking.

We just observed Martin Luther King Day here in the U.S. - I know the dangers inherent in trusting those who can harm you, but I've been reminded how important it is to do just that - we don't have to live each other's lives, but we are all impacted by one another, and the more we interact on a personal level, the more likely we'll be able, as our Gandhi-inspired Dr. King said, to turn our enemies into friends.  We need all of us.  We truly do.

If you have a small but dedicated core team of members you can start practical projects right here and now. Somebody has a piece of land or large garden, start a community garden and invite people to join in. Somebody in your group may need to give up work to do this full time. The rest of you can help him/her with living costs.[an idea] Dedication.

Get yourself a grant from some organisation/ authority and start installing solar panels on old ladies' roofs.

Build a wind generator.

Drive around in a communal electric car with Transitionmobile written on the side. Offer people lifts to your farmers market. I can think of a thousand ways to engage the community.

Do all those practical things that need to be done to create a town that is more resiliant.

Stand as a councillor, all of you at the same time. Use your imagination.

Practical things, not theories and leaflets and talks and committees. Don't try to impose your ideas on others, show people by example. Doing practical things for people in your community will make them respect you. Give them very cheap veggies from your garden.

It is a slow process changing to a transition town, but you will already have made a start. People will want to get involved and as membership grows start new practical projects. Just get on with it and don't theorise too much. Everybody understands a community garden and what its good for.

Practical!

Hans [Hans-on, ha ha]

My experience, thirty years of Environmental activism has shown me that people like to get involved in practical, visible, beneficial activities. To be seen to be doing something is so much better than smothering people with information or opinions. Make your projects fun, dynamic, beneficial and positive.

Incidentally, those people of other cultural backgrounds see no need to become more resilient. They already are. But they would love to show you how to grow veggies.

Image; Elite middle class people will not look daunting in wellie boots, digging in the community garden, as long as they don't wear designer wellies.

Image; Transition is not an eco PROTEST movement, it is just ordinary citizens getting on with the job at hand. There are not many people in developed countries who don't know about climate change or that fuel is going to get scarcer and more expensive. So they will all know that what you are doing, as an example, is a good thing. As the effects are felt more and more they will come round. It is hard to be patient, I know, when there is so much urgency.

Hans

Our situation here as a very new transition initiative may not have much bearing on the original question for the thread, but we are making efforts to specifically identify people from the under-served populations, those we know to be interested in our objectives. We invite them to attend a meeting and perhaps give us their thoughts. Our decision has been to win people one at a time. They will bring in people who trust them. We don't spend time trying to win those who do not relate to the issues. We trust that as their friends/neighbors become engaged, or as our work becomes more far reaching, they will come to us. But right now, we are working to diversify across political parties so that attendees see more faces of their compatriots in the room. We have invited some primary school students, some elderly residents, and those with disabilities. After each meeting we consider who is still missing and brainstorm who we know, who is a local leader, or who do we already have a connection to for help with introductions.

I think the important factor there is the person who disagreed with Clare was still prepared to keep talking. Not everyone is willing to find common ground!

People themselves are free spirits - they will decide "whether they belong or not", same as youths form their subcultures...

That said as Hans mentions Transition deliberately does not try to overtly make itself a "liberal environmental protest group" so may be viewed as relatively non-confrontational, certainly compared to MLK and Ghandi who made a stand as activist leaders against strong and powerful enemies (and indeed both paid with their lives!)

This could well be the movements greatest asset. TBH I really cannot see much opposition to Transition, other than maybe from some of the "petrol head/Jeremy Clarkson fan club" types, and even they might learn sense when they can't afford to fuel their car! 

In my area (Ipswich, UK) I don't think we have a particular problem with regard to overt class differences, and very little racial tension (thankfully despite the economic depression the area is still resilient, in many causes because of the diverse communities).

Our Transitition group is very friendly and inclusive.

where I think there is a issue is simply with lack of resources (i.e a space to gather) and time. "Middle class" people more often manage to find the spare time to organise something like a meeting.

As an example I was doing a 12 hour workday today, and just about managed to fit in an online meeting for our Transport Group. I work in an office in rural Suffolk and cycle from Ipswich each day. As I rode back just before 23:00, I noticed a shop down Norwich Road selling all sorts of wonderful overseas produce and run by some mediterranean family was still open.

now I bet this family (and many others down that road running local businesses) could have many wonderful stories to share about their produce and where it comes from, and make other local connections, but where would they find the time to attend one of our meetings?

Where I come from, the talk comes while we work.  Sitting in a meeting to talk is a skill I learned in my middle thirties, and I'm still not very good at it (it helps if I am knitting).  That's one of the things I like about the practical projects Hans and others are talking about.  And if they are so practical that the benefit is obvious, people will find the time to help, the same way we find the time to help our neighbors and care for our families in spite of often feeling that we are too busy.

Stating the obvious in support of being changed as well as changing the hearts and minds of others:  Closed systems inevitably break down.  What we can completely control is always too simple to last.  Resilience is the weave, the weft, and the open space in a process in which we engage, but which we do not control.

Well said Claire. The whole concept of pragmatism/ practicality is also what Rob Hopkins is talking about. Weaving diversity into everything YOU DO.

Not having enough time; how can that be right? You don't have enough time because you are perpetuating the old, materialistic ideals. One needs to work on oneself and ask; Am I convinced, fully committed to the Transition concept? And change one's life accordingly. Setting an example. And that does not mean giving up work or lifestyle or becoming a social security bum. There is always a middle way, boring though it may seem to some.

hans

I agree with the principles of what Hans is saying, but myself and the members of my Transition Group are putting as much time and energy as they can; whilst also having to deal with the day to day realities of living (indeed many have been doing so for some time) - many people hre also very busy with such things as familiy commitments (East Anglia is an area of very strong family ties and values).

As we are however talking about inclusivity, and multicultural communities, I would stress that for many ethnic communities, what may be viewed by some as "perpetuating old materialistic ideals" (especially by doing well at private business /enterprise) is what their ancestors worked hard to achieve after their immigration to a more affluent country! 

Both the original immigrants, and their second generation English born offspring (like myself) aren't immediately going to want to "give this all" up after the struggle.

Understanding this is IMO key to engagement with such communities.

At least things seem to be moving on from my Dad's time!

Hans does correctly say that many ethnic communities are in fact very resillient and already doing things that are in keeping with the Transition ethos, but to engage with them does still require the communal spaces and opportunities.

For instance one issue discussed in our meetings, is that many take place in pubs. I have no objection to this, (I am a member of CAMRA ;) ) but of course this means that Muslim people cannot easily attend these meetings, and there is a strong environmental awareness amongst many Muslims in this area. We are working on ways to bridge this gap, but again this takes time and resources.

Another big community here are Fillipinos and South Chinese/SE Asians who work in healthcare. However many will do 12-16 hour shifts each day at odd hours so are also hard to reach via meetings, literally this community does not have much spare time, as they are working to support family in UK and often in their home country too. what spare time they do have they spend at home, in shared (or sometimes family) houses, but they also do not always socialise at "night-time economy" places like pubs due to the costs involved.

I suspect something food-related may be more appropriate, and/or getting leaflets/info into places where their community congregates - however they tend not to socialise in the "Western" way). However, many of the community are very computer-literate and have good English skills, so online approaches could work here..

Alex, I truly appreciate your comment on materialistic ideals, being someone with not a ton of stuff, but definitely with close ties in multiple directions, and lots of good work and family and friendship responsibilities.

Your other comments remind me of when I was doing AIDS prevention work in the 1990's - some of the best prevention work in Maine (US) was accomplished by training, working with (and yes, sometimes even paying) Peer Opinion Leaders who were able, because of their place in the community, to shift opinions and behaviors among people in their communities.  Peer Opinion Leaders are not necessarily the most "important" people; they are the individuals identified as trustworthy.

I hadn't thought about Peer Opinion Leaders in a while, but maybe this could happen to a certain extent in so-called "hard to reach" communities. The process whereby leaders are identified, approached and selected is important, especially in communities which may feel threatened or beleaguered, but I know there's a lot of information on the web.

Addendum - one of the more wonderful things about Peer Opinion Leaders in AIDS prevention work was that many of these folks were also willing and able to educate the people who were "training" them.  I suppose we all end up speaking (or sometimes are seen as speaking) for those with whom we identify, more or less accurately, more or less consciously.  I still don't know if the approach makes sense in this context, but I'm filing it away in the back of my head.

Another thing I just heard about on National Public Radio last night was a book by Jane McGonigal called Reality is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How They Can Change the World - I perked up when I heard that one of the "games" - intended to be played by real people in real time - was called World Without Oil.  The description I saw on the web says the game is a "six-week collaborative simulation of an oil shortage, and winner of a 2008 Activism Award at SXSW, [and] is designed to brainstorm the challenges of a worldwide oil shortage."  I know so many people who love reality-simulating computer games, and wondered if this could interest them.  Does anyone know anything about this?  If so, please let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Thanks for the post Alex, you have raised some interesting points from the ethnic community view.

It seems to me that you are justifying your material ideals and those of your parents/ancestors. Those ideals are no different to everybody else's.

Yes, they came to an affluent country and worked hard to to achieve their present place in society. No doubt it was harder for them than most. The trouble is that does not make it right for the future. The economics of growth and ideals of material wealth are now seen to be unsustainable. Even the very countries your ancestors immigrated from are beginning to accept that concept.

Now that they have achieved their affluent [relative] lifestyle, it is time to look into the future rather than perpetuating the system through their children. Gently does it, plant the seed and nurture it. I know it is hard but.....

Call me a skeptic [ It is a good thing] but I cannot imagine that ALL your members are too busy to do much more. Perhaps you need a committed and dynamic leader. It is all about commitment. If one truly believes in the concept of Transition [ and not all of us are convinced entirely, as it is in a state of experimental development] there is no alternative but to live it. For me committing is better than not. The argument is the same for all hopeful, positive and intelligent ideas. I would willingly give up material stuff for involvement in such an idea. As long as I have the basics. Commitment will also make you fundamentally happier, not a bad trade in!

As for "giving all this up"; it is not necessary, but more like changing the focus, the outcome of your efforts. If you or your parents have a business, think about how to adapt that business to cope with peak oil and climate change. That is how your business will become inclusive, and an example to others. Fly the Transition flag, put it in your logo. Advertise the existing inherent resilience of your community and you will already be included.

Transition is from the inside out, starting with yourself and spreading the energy. It is about example and practical, positive progress.

PLace; Pubs are NOT good places to hold meetings. Besides the distractions the alcohol blurs the mind and creates emotional imbalance leading to conflict.

Hans

I was born in Amterdam but spent the major part of my life in England and have a comprehensive knowledge of the pubs and society and quirkiness of English people. I have also travelled a great deal all over the World and [surprise!] have found that everyone is an individual. And, just about everyone is a member of a community too.

When you say individuality has to be adressed I think you are barking up the wrong tree. It is precisely that which can offer so much to the Transition idea, talk about including individuals not "adressing" the issue [what issue?] And whatever you do don't preach! As I said before plant the seed with reasoned but powerful logic and then let it grow, nurture it a bit. It takes time and there is a danger of being impatient for results [ hard for me too]. Plant enough seeds and a forest will grow. The logic of Transition will win them over.

It is a pity that community spirit has been lost in ALL developed countries. It is the result of the growth of PERSONAL wealth, a primitive impulse to defend ones property from others. [This has incidentally been scientifically proven, and not just my opinion].

A true leader is one whom others will follow, because they respect him/her for their conviction and wisdom. As an individual you can agree or disagree, discuss, persuade, reason... More practically speaking, anyone in your organisation, if they are deeply committed AND have some time can be an organiser/ coordinator/ administrator. They will need your support, and lots of it. Is there rearry no-one who would be able to fill this role?

Great to hear that there are so many businesses which are already in line with the Transition concept. Are they aware they are? Is anyone else [the general public/ coustomers]aware of that? Can they form a Transition Alliance, advertising the concept? In short, there are numerous ways in which they can contribute and be "included". There are also numerous ways in which they can improve the resilience of the community. It is a long process this transition. There are always ways to improve.

Bravo to those who are already running environmentally aware businesses, they are already deeply committed, and have made practical progress. I would not expect them to do much more. But what about the rest?

They will be persuaded by example, the visible success of Transition, a seed of calm logic, higher fuel prices and the next economic crisis.

I miss good ale here in Australia, but only ever drank it as a leisure activity, and when I was not required to think too deeply.

Cheers

Hans

I have felt so positive lately, because I can feel the energy. It is in the air. People all over the world are concerned, and looking for new ways. Can you feel it? I am the last person to speak of these kind of ethereal things, but I cannot help it right now.

People are ready for new ideas, we only have to fill the spaces, answer some of their questions. Give them some hope for a better future.