Wow!
Our Annual Planning Summit on February 1st, 2020 was even more exciting than we had hoped! Thirty-six intrepid souls, TTM members as well as some of our favorite partners, joined us for a day-long exercise in visioning and empowering each other to make a difference on our planet. It was a day of honoring those who have made our work possible over the past ten years and on into the future—our generous donors, our dedicated volunteers, our hard-working partners and friends. One of most fun projects of the day was writing little notes of appreciation in the “thank-you” cards we brought, one for each participant! Everyone went home with a card, filled with gratitude from their admirers.
We started the day by honoring the Lenape people whose land we inhabit, and whose care of that land we hope to emulate. After more than two centuries of abuse and destruction, we are finally learning to heed their wisdom and act to protect the land that sustains us as they did before us. This was followed by a brief meditation to focus us on our purpose for the day ahead. And finally, to get us in touch with the earth that gives us life, we had a short seed-planting exercise—each table planted some sunflower seeds in a small pot on each table, and one lucky person from each table got to take the pot home.
Aleisa, our President, walked us through what Transition is all about, what it encompasses in terms of scope, scale, and structure, why it’s crucial to the times we find ourselves in. For a review of her talk, click here. Then, Sari gave a review of the past year, what worked and what didn’t, what we hope to continue and what we might want to replace or revise. Here’s a link to her talk.
We jump-started our visioning process with a circle exercise, in the bracing outdoors, tossing a ball around and tossing the gifts we wanted to give to the world, to our region, our town, and our selves into the circle. Then, we came indoors for some paired and group sharing. By then, the juices were really flowing, and we started getting the ideas down on sticky notes and up on the board. Ideas started to coalesce around some broad themes. It seemed like a good time to break for lunch.
During lunch, TTM elves Martin & Rhonda, organized all the stickies into categories and after lunch, we asked for a show of hands for each category to see if it would pass on to the next stage. A few bit the dust but most came to the “put-your-name-on-the-table” vote. Everyone received 5 votes—2 for leadership-role level of interest, 3 for willing-to-chip-in level. Cards with short descriptions of the main categories were laid out on the table and everyone chose the categories they were willing to commit to by putting their sticky on the appropriate card.
Here are the winning categories:
- Recycling / Waste reduction Event
- Youth-centered Climate Forum
- Story-telling Circles / Healing Spaces
- Community Outreach
- Community Make-over
- Videos / Media
- Regional Economy
- Local Farm
- FreeStore 2.0
- Green Sunday Holiday Fair
- Solstice & Spirit
- Media Open Streets
Teams are already forming and having their first meetings to start planning their efforts. Some may not continue, if the level of interest isn’t high enough to sustain the work involved. But the explosion of energy we felt in the room on Feb. 1st is bound to produce some extraordinary results. Interested in jumping in? Contact us and let us know your interests.
Stay tuned to see where this movement takes us next!
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