In May 2009 a small group of Transition minded people formed as a Steering Group to promote the development of a Transition Initiative around Coal Point and surrounding areas.
Since then the group's activities have been mainly focused on raising community awareness about the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change, via
- Organising a formal "Transition Towns" training event
- Supporting or participating in relevant community events such as Sustainable House day (2009) National tree Day (2009) and Lake Macquarie Living Smart festival (2010)
- Running a movie festival (~10 movie screenings from Nov 09 to Oct 10)
Formally, the steering group is a subcommittee of the Progress Association and with the Association's major event of the year,The Art & Craft Show opening on the evening of Friday 26 November at 7.30pm,and running through to 2pm on Sunday 28th, at Progress Hall, the opportunity to gather some thoughts whilst the community was gathering was too much to resist.
This event provides a fantastic opportunity to further promote the transition initiative, and at the same time survey community opinions on what changes people here would like to see, and would be willing to support.
During the Art Show there will be a display and discussion area with resources for people to browse and someone to talk to. All interested peole will be invited to share their opinions on what initiatives they would support or prioritise using a "dotmocracy" process. Plus, anyone who wants to be more actively involved will be invited to form a working group.
On Sunday 28 November at 11am at the Hall there will be a meeting of everyone who wants to actively pursue some specific aspect of the Transition model and is interested in getting together with others to work as a group.If you are ready to act on one or more topics please come to the "kick-off" meeting, you can have a look at the Art & Craft too.
What's a Working Group?
Working groups form around an area of interest to a few people, for example, if you want to progress home energy efficiency, be it solar water, solar power, wind power, energy efficienct appliances etc we can find other like minds and work together on a project.
At the Sunday meeting people will nominate the specific topics they want to work on, and those with the same interest will take the next steps - whatever they are! So please come prepared with ideas, enthusiasm or both.
At this meeting the Coal Point Transition Towns initiative will either form some working groups, or fold due to lack of interest.
IDEAS BANK
The steering group's strategy has been to follow (however roughly!) the Transition Initiatives Primer, published by the Transition Towns organisation www.transitiontowns.org.
The overall goal is to stimulate and coordinate community level actions to decrease dependence on fossil fuels and promote overall sustainability in the community. What we would like to see is the emergence of active groups leading by example and helping to shape the evolution of our community into a (more) sustainable society, in areas such as:
- promoting local food / minimising food-miles
- garden sharing
- community gardens
- making public land productive ("Veges on the Verges" etc)
- promoting solar hot water
- promoting solar and wind power (could we be self sufficient?)
- energy efficiency in the home/at work
- promoting low energy transport options, such as walking bus" to get kids to school
- cycling
- making it easier / safer to walk (in preference to driving)
- develop a shared vision of what our local communities could be.
Hoping to see you on the 28th , 26th or 27th
