June 9th Public Meeting Sparks New Transition Groups

It was a bit of an experiment; three presenters providing, together, an overview of the challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change, the Transition Towns model, and Transition Toronto. Daniel Bida, Andrew Knox, and I each wanted to bring our passion for specific aspects of Transition to the table. And according to our audience, it worked.

You can see our slides here: http://transitiontoronto.ning.com/page/presentation-slides

For the interactive part of the evening, Marel, one of the founding members of the very active east end group EETE, gave a very personal and engaging testimonial of how that group started (with a 6-week book study of the Transition Handbook), how the common interest was around food (growing, harvesting and preparing it together), and the way members have learned a lot from each other since then in their regular get-togethers.

An important aspect of the Transition process is around having fun! The incorporation of hands-on activities helps keep spirits up and can result in very creative ideas and, for example, in educational arts or crafts projects. The east-enders created a couple of great examples already! (see Photos)

For me, the highlight of the evening was mobilising the room full of people to meet others from their own, or a nearby Toronto neighbourhood. The aim was to get people talking, find shared Transition interests, and then commit to meeting again soon to continue talking and hopefully planning an activity in their area.

The result: The formation of one new Transition neighbourhood ‘pod’ in The Annex, and two existing but 'hesitant' groups with new life breathed into them. The former Riverdale group is now “Transition Don Valley”, and former Parkdale/Roncesvalles/Junction is now “West-end In Transition” – they liked the acronym WIT (as opposed to WET).

As well, the east end now looks like we can form a second group. [See my comment under “Groups – EETE” about the upcoming July Transition Cafe for the newbies to meet.] To see our current neighbourhood ‘pods’ and to message or join them, go here: http://transitiontoronto.ning.com/groups

So overall, we had a great evening and good results. Keep the good energy going, Transitioners!

Shame the rest of you missed it! ;-)

~Martina