Are they in NY State ?

I've been looking forward to this discussion... Transition Towns have so much potential and as you pointed out, this is adaptation to the coming changes at the grass roots, not from the top down...which I think as we are seeing from events around the world, is less and less acceptable to people in general.

Everyplace on the map below, has some movement towards transition. It does seem the interest ebb and flow with the interest of the volunteers.

Transition Town Map

Ontario has various towns trying different things related to TT, but Peterborough seems to be the best organized and the most enduring.

Welcome to Transition Town Peterborough

Transition Town Peterborough (TTP) is an all volunteer, non-profit organization using economic localization to reduce our community-wide dependence on fossil fuels while increasing local community resilience and self-sufficiency in food, water, energy, culture and wellness. With a focus on community building, TTP is made possible by ordinary citizens working toward positive change. It is shaped and guided by all who are able to participate, in whatever capacity they can.

for another interesting Open Thread. Seems like I should have heard of transition towns before but I don't think I have. Searched and it looks like there is a little activity in the Denver area involving community gardens.

P.S. Good Morning, Everybody! Nice night last night.

have a lot of thoughts running through me brain this morning, have to do the whole Morning Routine here so Ill keep 'composing' in my head while I make breakfast, heh.

Can you convert to .txt?

Sort by
State, Person, Group, Candidate.

If .txt, send to:

gulfnhotsand at yahoo dot com.

Merci, Chien.
AB

It's a link to a comma separated file:

which you copy and paste

Instructions:

- Select All
- Paste into a text only document
- give the extension .csv
- Go to your application Excel or Numbers, open
- Go to File Menu, open in Excel or Numbers.

Should be there. No colors though.

It's a spreadsheet three columns wide by 714 (add an extra row or two) long. It's already sorted by state initials for easy finding. Or you can manipulate it any way you would like. The original is sorted alpha by last name of the delegate.

i believe the real power of the internet, to this point, is found in social media. if we can connect these movements and share what works and, maybe even more importantly, to KNOW they exist, it makes us feel there are ways forward.

people are doing amazing things, getting BIG results with little resource.

when we talk about the transition movement, so much is related, ie anti fracking, anti pipeline, anti bad development et al. how do we convince people to turn their lawns to better use, growing food or wildflowers for bees and butterflies. how do we turn our small patches of green into ecosystems that support the environment and all the creatures in it? How do we revitalize local economies and change the "political realities" from the ground up... because it's always trickle up, isn't it?

here are some of the "practical / pragmatic" orgs i follow:

Strong Towns . . . and you can follow them on FB, where they have great discussions on development, usage et al

Depave . . . a great site that shows us how we can reclaim the dirt and go "from parking lots to paradise" . . . follow on Facebook

Bear with Us... how to live with bears as neighbors, conservation efforts... these sites are among the most important, imo, because we MUST learn to live with the natural world instead of poisoning. You can also follow them on Facebook.

I think this could be an ongoing series, gulfgal. introduce us to sites and strategies being used and how we can use them in our communities. and we can reach out to these places and form a network for sane people. doing sane things.

in soon and I hope folks will bring us lots of stories about Transition Towns in their areas.

Here is Rob Hopkins talking about his hometown Totnes in Devon.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3L9n20myqk]

Very interesting topic that could really start to get some serious traction here. Enough people are looking at doing things in better more sustainable ways.

to many too simple, but though it doesn't get rid of the bug, it helps for diarrhea like conditions. Charcoal tablets. (I use them before Immodium - it's also standard as an emergeny medical supply for people who travel into tropical countries and usually are more prone to get "a bug" like that) And other than black tea (without sugar) I wouldn't eat anything other than unsweetened and unsalted cracker-like bread, something like Matzo or so. And to rehydrate a solution of equal parts of sugar, salt and baking soda and lemon juice.

Feel better soon. Heh, Bernie won 56.5 % with 99.8 percent votes counted. That should heal you in minutes.

Corruption’ as a Propaganda Weapon

We are now seeing what looks like a new preparatory phase for the next round of “regime changes” with corruption allegations aimed at former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The new anti-Putin allegations – ballyhooed by the UK Guardian and other outlets – are particularly noteworthy because the so-called “Panama Papers” that supposedly implicate him in offshore financial dealings never mention his name.

Or as the Guardian writes: “Though the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage. The documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.”

Note, if you will, the lack of specificity and the reliance on speculation: “a pattern”; “seemingly”; “suggest”; “appear.” Indeed, if Putin were not already a demonized figure in the Western media, such phrasing would never pass an editor’s computer screen. Indeed, the only point made in declarative phrasing is that “the president’s name does not appear in any of the records.”

and there is A LOT of "stuff" I have gathered and gleaned from all over the Web and through books... This is just a start....I will post more as I find it all...

In five minutes, Claude Lewenz covers the core elements of a VillageTown and invites the viewer to become involved. Claude Lewenz is author of "LIfe Liberty Happiness" and "How to Build a VillageTown (second edition, slightly renamed). A VillageTown is a 10,000 population town made up of 20 villages. Within there are no cars, it has its own local economy, and its purpose is to enable its citizens to enjoy a good life, understood as the social pursuits of conviviality, citizenship, artistic, intellectual & spiritual growth.

To learn more go to the VillageForum.com web site.

The skillshare workshops is how Totnes builds resiliency skills with local residents:

http://www.transitiontowntotnes.org/groups/skillshares/

What is the Skillshare Project?

The Skillshare Project was inspired by Rob Hopkins “Great Reskilling” idea and is listed as Number 8 in the “12 Steps to Transition”. The goals of the project (as from The Transition Handbook) are:

To bring people together, relaxing and learning new skills
To build networks and move our community towards self-reliance and resilience
To create a fundamental sense of ‘can do’ and feelings of positivity, creativity and empowerment
To establish and nurture links between old and young as skills are passed on
To organise practical and useful events
To work with existing groups in order to share and draw on local skills.

The Project encourages anyone of us to offer guidance on a topic likely to help increase our community's resilience, as a one-off gift (or more!). Contributions of all kinds are welcome! We can pass on valuable skills as well as experiment, stretch ourselves, practice generosity, form connections, inspire each other and have fun!

Check this out:

The residents of Transition Town Totnes work real hard at reorganizing their local economic framework away from how the capitalists organized the economy to make towns dependent, helpless, and feeders of local money to the financial centers. (You don't happen to think that your town got so fucked at random, do you?)

Totnes pushes for the town to become economically self-sufficient in the following two crucial areas: relocalization and resilience.

Here's how Rob Hoskins explains it.

Relocalisation - actively promotes the idea of going beyond the concept of ‘localism’. That is the devolving of political power to the local level; for example, as expressed in the coalition government’s ‘Big Society’ agenda. We work towards 'localization’; seeing the meeting of our core needs locally (food, building materials, energy...) as offering huge potential to our local economies, while also reducing oil vulnerability and carbon emissions.

Resilience - in Transition terms goes beyond the accepted idea of resilience as being about ability to adapt to shocks, instead seeing it is a desired state; the rebuilding of which could be hugely economically advantageous to our local communities.

In practice, Transition works by inviting people to take ownership of the process; by not claiming to have all the answers but encouraging creativity, and by building networks with other organisations. It is based on the model of ‘project support’, that is that the role of Transition is to catalyse and support, rather than to hold and manage a wide range of projects. An essential part of the Transition method is visioning. We believe in a positive vision of the future and work to make it real.

Totnes calls this work "REconomy." Very cool, that. One of the key planks in Reconomizing their local economy is their Local Economic Blueprint.

http://reconomycentre.org/home/economic-blueprint/

As an essential part of evidence gathering for this REconomy work, we have been working for some time on the Local Economic Blueprint project for Totnes and District.

Based on public data, we have estimated the potential value of four key sectors of our localised economy, and built a coalition of partners to turn these opportunities into reality. Together we agreed a vision for what our local economy should be and have identified some activities and projects that will take this work forward.

Here are a few findings, profiling the potential of the four key sectors we have worked on so far – food, retrofit, renewable energy and care and health.

Here are the slide show images that summarizes the four key sectors of the Totnes local economy.

Whaddayathink? :=)

I'd like to show you the Totnes Food-Link Programme. It keeps money local and grows the local economy through creating links between town residents and the food producers in a 30 km radius. They way things used to be before the capitalists destroyed local economies.

But before that, here is a screenshot of the Totnes Food Group. The Food-link programme is only ONE of the Food Group's projects!

w00t!

OK, the Food-Link Project

http://www.transitiontowntotnes.org/groups/food-group/food-link-project/

The Totnes Ffood linkood-Link project seeks to strengthen the links between local producers (within a 30 mile radius of the town), and retailers and restaurants within the town, building confidence and loyalty between both parties. We are always looking for new volunteers to get involved with all areas of the project.

The project was previously coordinated by Holly Tiffen, who has now moved on to manage Grown In Totnes. Food-Link is now being managed by Myrtle Cooper who will build on the strong networks developed over the past few years, to bring together local farmers, food processors and retailers to strengthen local food business connections, creating a stronger enabling environment for local food to be traded in our community.

£30 million is spent annually on food and drink, of which just one third is spent in the 60+ vibrant independent food shops in and around Totnes. By encouraging people to shift juts 10% of their weekly food spent to independent food shops we could bring £2 million to boost our local economy.

So moving forwards the Food-Link will be running a campaign in partnership with Grown in Totnes to encourage people in and around Totnes to shift a small proportion of their weekly food spend to local independent food shops and product. We'll be running a creative, visual and engaging series of events and activities locally.

Food businesses in and around Totnes have also told us they want to see a distinctive brand to increase the visibility of local food products so we’ll be developing one in 2016.

If you are interested in getting involved in any part of the Food-Link projects please get in touch with Myrtle – 01803 867358 or email myrtle@transitiontowntotnes.org

Whaddayathink? :=)