On January 31, forty-seven dedicated people congregated at Providence Friends Meeting to see what they could create together. Transition Town Media’s 5th Annual Planning session continued the trend of having more and more people come together to brainstorm our goals for the year. Last year we had 32, next year we may need a bigger space!
So, what did we come up with? A lot! This year we decided to focus our brainstorming around 5 main topics, those we felt were most crucial to our mission and those which were also the most popular among our members. They were: Food (including Reskilling), Energy (including Emergency / Resiliency Response), Economy (including the Timebank and Free Store), Heart & Soul, and Marketing / Outreach.
The Food Group‘s interests revolved around water filtration for drinking and for plants, including aquaponic growing. They also want to organize some Farm Tours with some possible Crop Mobbing (in which a group of folks come to a farm for a work day). The idea of having community dinners featuring some alternative diet (gluten-free, vegan, etc) appealed to many of the group. There were also a number who were drawn to intentional communities or eco-villages.
The Economy Group decided to focus on their ongoing initiatives – the Timebank, Free Store, Free Market event in September, the Facebook Swap group, Green Sunday Holiday Fair – and keep developing and improving them.
The Marketing/Outreach Group came up with several ideas about getting across a simple message about who we are, putting together a basic presentation that we could use to communicate our message to groups, streamlining our event publicity, getting more coverage in the press, and using Plum Street Mall and other locations for community engagement. The Outreach section was interested in working more closely with Borough Council, particularly on pieces of the Comprehensive Plan, as well as other civic groups in Media and nearby, partnering with them on topics of mutual interest.
The Heart & Soul Group would like to put on workshops, solstice/equinox celebrations, nature walks, conversation salons on social/economic justice, diversification, service, economics, food security, and so on. They are also already working on this year’s Happiness Celebration which will take place the first or second weekend in May.
And last but not least, the Energy Group had wide-ranging but achievable goals to raise the community’s awareness of their energy usage, doing a survey of people’s knowledge of energy issues and interest in learning more about how to weatherize their home, using renewables, climate impact and mitigation, and so on. They hope to take advantage of the Transition US program, Transition Streets, which encourages neighbors to meet regularly with others on their block to share ideas on reducing their energy use.
Besides all these, we will be having regular Reskilling workshops and dinners, and other events, including those which we co-sponsor with other groups. We hope you see something you like in this high-level to-do list. We can always use more heads, hearts, and hands in putting this all into action. Contact us at [email protected] and let us know how you’d like to jump in and play!
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