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News Bulletin

FEBRUARY 2007

Transition Penwith is ready to evolve to the next level. It was launched on November 24th 2006, and for the last two and a half months has been focused on awareness raising through a series of inspiring and informative talks and films. These events have been a great success, well-attended and well-received, and with your help and support we can carry this momentum through to the next phase of Transition Penwith.

NEXT STEPS

1. FORMING GROUPS
 The next step for TP is for people to start to form Groups around their special interest areas (e.g. food / agriculture, health / medicine, transport, energy, education etc). It is clear from recent events that we have many people with specialised expertise who are ready to apply it. The special interest Groups will give people an opportunity to engage more deeply with peak oil issues. More specifically they will provide a networking forum for people to begin to feed information, research and ideas into the Penwith Energy Descent Action Plan, and ultimately to begin to design and build the infrastructure necessary for a low energy, low carbon Penwith.

The Groups will have their own meetings and once each has formed, a representative from each will sit on the TP Steering Committee. Rob Hopkins has produced the following set of guidelines for forming Groups:

Guidelines for Forming Groups

  • Each group should have a core of people who steer it, and who meet regularly, but also be open to whoever else wants to come.

  • Each group needs to continually ask itself "who isn't here that needs to be here?" and always be open to exploring avenues by which new people with relevant skills can be drawn into the group.

  • Each meeting could invite a "witness", someone who has expertise in the field in question, who could then be asked for their perspective on the issues, their experience and their ideas for subsequent witnesses.

  • The key task of each group is to explore the question, what is a vision for a low energy Penwith in relation to this field, and what might a timetable for that look like? The group is assembling ideas and information that will enable them to put together their section of the Penwith Energy Descent Action Plan.

  • Each group will have access to a relevant section of the Transition Penwith website (initially this will be through the online forum) and will also be able to use the Transition Penwith logo in its publicity materials. In exchange, it will keep a record of its business through the TP website, be it as minutes or as notes. Transition Penwith will also promote any events through its email bulletin.

  • Each group needs to be professionally facilitated to ensure its success. 

Online Forum
To help facilitate this Group forming process, we are currently building an online discussion forum for each of these Groups, and will email an invitation to join once this once it’s up and running. This online discussion forum will be hosted on the TP website. It is a community building tool, and is not intended to replace face-to-face meetings, but to facilitate the sharing of information within and between Groups. It is a tool that has worked for many energy descent action communities.

2. PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

We are currently putting together the next 6-month programme of TP events. This will include a series of events that focus on key topic areas (i.e. food / agriculture) and will be designed as an evening talk and / or film, followed 2 or 3 days later by an open space or world café event that relates to the talk or film. This gives people an opportunity to engage more deeply with the material, and is designed to help the Groups to form. We would also like to offer 'a series of Skilling up for Powerdown' courses, in partnership with other organisations and individuals in the community. If anyone has any ideas for the new programme, please could they email peak.oil@virgin.net or phone 01736 793876 as soon as possible, so that they can be integrated and included?