next Transition Town meeting: July 12

from Heather Thoma:

Thank you to all of you who attended the introductory Transition Town meeting in June, a lot of positive energy and ideas were generated, taking several pieces further after our various winter discussions.

The next Transition Town meeting for our region will be on Sunday July 12, at 5:30 pm, at Café in the Woods. The plan is to start with some discussion for maybe an hour, then break for a potluck, and continue after dinner to finish by 9 pm.

I will summarize the notes from the chart that evolved during the last meeting and send them out before this next meeting, to all who attended in June, and to anyone else who would like them.

Rough goals for this next meeting so far include:

1. clarifying an overall vision;
2. clarifying some initial priority areas for education and/or activity;
3. determining what extent of coordination is best suited and how it will be carried out, and by whom;
4. determining whether ‘Transition Towns’ or some other name/title is most appropriate for the direction/needs of our communities (if in fact any name is appropriate or needed).

This is probably more than enough to start us off, but any other ideas for this, or future, meetings are welcome.

Feel free to pass this info on to others who would like to be engaged in this process. Please RSVP (interwovenness -at- yahoo (dot) com) whether you will be attending, and also if you would like to participate but aren't able to attend this particular meeting.

Here is a brief summary of the intent of Transition Towns, and a few website resources:

Transition Towns are

focused on reducing our community-wide dependency on fossil fuels while increasing local resilience and self-sufficiency in food, water, energy and all other aspects of life, while encouraging community building and wellness. Transition Towns are made possible by regular people in the community taking action towards positive change, and are shaped and guided by all who are able to participate, in whatever capacity they can.

We seek to create as well as to connect, building a new model of grass roots transformation while helping to bring existing groups and individuals together to work towards a common goal of local resiliance in the face of a fragile food and energy system that we recognize as being threatened by economic, political and natural forces.

Links:

1. Transition Towns
2. Transition Guelph
3. Transition Town Peterborough

July 10-12: Kagawong Park Centre transformed into giant book store

Kagawong – It’s a feast for readers of all ages. It’s the biggest book store Manitoulin has ever seen. For three days, July 10-12, the Kagawong Park Centre will be transformed into a gigantic book store with over seventy writers represented in a diverse showcase of Northern Ontario literary talent. Book lovers will have an opportunity to meet publishers and to hear poets, novelists, short story writers and essayists share readings from their works.

Sudbury based Your Scrivener Press, a pioneer in Northern Ontario book publishing, will be participating in the unique event sponsored by the Manitoulin Writers’ Circle. Publications by Manitoulin/North Shore poet Charlie Smith and by former Expositor editor Diane Sims will be available for purchase. In addition, internationally renowned writer and broadcaster Bruce Meyer will launch his latest collection of poetry entitled Mesopotamia. Other Your Scrivener authors include Colin Hayward, Roger Nash, Sean Costello, Richard DeMeulles, Peter McEwen, George Case and Monique Chenier.

Mystery writer Linda Kennedy of Sudbury is sure to be a big hit with her parrot companion at the book fair. Kennedy has penned a series featuring our fine feathered friends including Bird Watching, Love Birds and Birds of a Feather.

Karen Trenouth, also of Sudbury, will present her intriguing take on the Jack the Ripper tales in Epiphany of the Whitechapel Murders. Visitors can also pick up Mamma Mia! Good Italian Girls Talk Back by Rosanna Battigelli of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild.

Readers will identify with many of the antics and foibles of family life in Blair Sterling’s collection of stories. The Blind River author’s memoirs are called Spittin’, Scratchin’ and Adjustin’ and Other Stories of Family Fun. Espanola author George Bois also joins the line-up.

Robert and Valerie Nielsen of Stoney Creek will travel to Manitoulin to share works published by Potlatch Publications. Titles include Green Light, James Parsons and his Magnificent Month of Adventures, Athlete’s Foot or How I Failed at Sports, Canadian Children’s Annual, Never Leave Your Head Uncovered – A Canadian Nurse in World War Two, One Man’s War and a selection of Potlatch humour.

Also joining the festivities will be George Straatman, owner of Amberdias Publishing of Timmins. He will be marketing The Converging and Mark of the Demon. Parry Sound’s Julie Boucher will bring her mystery Driftwood’s Secret and a children’s story entitled Small Fry on the Magnetawan. And Manhattan’s irrepressible Bonnie Kogos will offer a sneak preview of her upcoming book about Manitoulin and Manhattan.

Perhaps the prize for longest distance travelled to reach the Northern Book Fair should go to Gail Anderson-Dargatz. She has driven to Manitoulin with her family from Sorrento, British Columbia. The internationally acclaimed author is best known for A Rhinestone Button published in 2002, A Recipe For Bees which was a finalist for the Giller Prize in 1998 and The Cure For Death By Lightning, also a Giller finalist in 1996.

Manitoulin will be well-represented at the book fair as well with Kenjgewin Teg Educational Institute, Vincente Belenson, Ted Smith, Ann Beam, Anong Beam, Marion Seabrook, Linda Willson, Buck Longhurst, Betty Eley, Merdick McFarlane, Dylon Whyte, Jack Whyte, Dave Lawson, Bill Caesar, Kate Thompson and Sheila McDermid.

The Northern Book Fair is just one component of the 10th anniversary celebration of the Manitoulin Writers’ Retreat in Kagawong. The fair runs Friday 6 to 9 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Everyone welcome.

More on the Transition Town movement

A general description, from Peterborough, ON which was Canada's first TT:

The Transition Town movement is focused on reducing our community-wide dependency on fossil fuels while increasing local resilience and self-sufficiency in food, water, energy and all other aspects of life, while encouraging community building and wellness. Transition towns are made possible by regular people in the community taking action towards positive change, and is shaped and guided by all who are able to participate, in whatever capacity they can.

We seek to create as well as to connect, building a new model of grass roots transformation while helping to bring existing groups and individuals together to work towards a common goal of local resiliance in the face of a fragile food and energy system that we recognize as being threatened by economic, political and natural forces.

Another introductory description can be found at Guelph's Transition site.

Transition Manitoulin: Saturday, June 6

Pardon the lack of activity here lately – a symptom of my personal energy shortage, i guess.

The main relevant event so far in this cold month of May has been the opening of the Farmers' Markets for the season. There are some changes from past years – the Saturday morning market in Mindemoya is not in the Arena this year because of construction going on there, and the Little Current market is now on Tuesday afternoon. I hope to post a more complete schedule here when i have all the information together.

Meanwhile, a potentially major event in the Transition movement on the Island is coming up on Saturday, June 6th. Sally Ludiwig and Chris Mills are coming up from Transition Guelph to give a presentation, starting at 5:30 pm followed by a question-and-answer session. The evening will also include a potluck dinner and time for informal conversation. It's expected that it will conclude by about 9 pm. It's all happening at the Ski Club/Café in the Woods on Hwy 540 between Little Current and Honora Bay. Anyone interested is welcome to come (the venue will hold about 80 people). This will be a good chance to hear what's happening in an Ontario community where the transition has begun to self-organize.

More details coming soon, i think …

Spiritual transformation

In order to make the transition to a better society (here on the Island or anywhere), we need good information about what's happening and what's possible. But even more than that, we need some inspiration. Living into a better world is a spiritual enterprise.

Recently we've come across two DVDs that work very well for stimulating conversation on the spiritual side of things. One (that's the title!) was discovered by Heather and Paul of Loonsong Garden. Here a small group of first-time filmmakers embark on a quest for the meaning of life, taking a set of 20 questions to a wide variety of people and capturing the best responses with their video camera. The central idea that comes across is (as the title suggests) the unity of the human race; but the diversity is also celebrated here.

The same goes for Beyond Our Differences, though this is a more professional, beautifully shot and tightly edited film (bigger budget, no doubt). It was first shown on PBS at the end of 2008. Here the focus is more specifically on religion, sharply criticizing the fundamentalist versions of it, but mostly showing how the major religious traditions can and do motivate people to amazing works of service to their fellow humans. Core values of love, compassion and social justice are found in sacred Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist writings, and we see activists from all these traditions working toward a better world in their various ways.

There's also spiritual motivation beyond religion. Another DVD now in our resource library shows how the arts can be a means of salvation. Born into Brothels chronicles the work of photographer Zana Briski, who met the children of prostitutes in Calcutta and knew she had to do something to help them escape the situation they were born into. Taking her cue from their interest in her camera, she gave them all cameras and taught them the basics of photography. The results are amazing and incredibly moving. This film won an Oscar for best documentary of 2004, and the DVD we have is loaded with extras following up what happened to the kids later. (The title above links to Kids with Cameras, the foundation set up by Briski to continue the work.)

Electric car uprising?

Here's a transition idea that could make a difference on Manitoulin, although it's not coming from here. New York Times columnist David Pogue has recently published reports about ‘Better Place, a radical, overarching plan to replace the world's gas cars with electric ones – really, really quickly. The nutty thing is, it just might work; the streetside charging outlets for these cars are already under construction in six countries and two U.S. states.’ His column of March 19, in the form of an interview with Better Place chief executive Shai Agassi, explains how it's supposed to work. And near the end, Agassi mentions that the province of Ontario is interested. To me, that's an encouraging sign. If we the Canadian taxpayers are going to bail out Ontario's auto industry, we should at least make sure that the money will be put to better use than continuing production of the same old gas-guzzlers. Use the link above to read about a better alternative.

From phantom wealth to real wealth

Anyone who's aware of what's behind the current financial ‘meltdown’, as explained for instance in Chris Martenson's Crash Course, knows that all the government bailouts and ‘stimulus packages’ can only make it worse in the long run, by trying to preserve the status quo (i.e. the bad habits which got our society into this mess in the first place). So what can be done to actually improve the situation? This blog is all about what we can do at the local level, but eventually even national governments will have to get with the program, if they're going to survive at all. David Korten's new book, Agenda for a New Economy, explains how the U.S. and other governments could actually do something useful to turn the situation around. Back in January i posted about the release of Korten's book, with a link to the excerpt on the Yes Magazine website. Now that i've read the whole thing, i think it's a welcome addition to our resource library, especially as a follow-up to Korten's earlier book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (2006). Korten frames the crucial economic conflict of our time in terms of phantom wealth vs. real wealth, symbolized by Wall Street and Main Street respectively. Wall Street represents the most extreme and toxic development of ‘Empire’, the organized crime syndicate of predatory greed which has dominated civilization for five thousand years. Both of Korten's books bring a global perspective to the transition which is now under way. In another post i mentioned the Transition Culture website. I should have also given a link to The Transition Handbook, by Rob Hopkins, which shows how the move ‘from oil dependency to local resilience’ can be accomplished by rebuilding local community. Hopkins is among the leaders of this kind of transition as it's unfolding in the UK. Heather and Paul at Loonsong have copies of this book for the use of those active in making the transition here on Manitoulin. This book offers a handle on the localization movement which is complementary – and necessary – to the shift ‘from phantom wealth to real wealth’ of which David Korten writes.