Transition Handbook book discussion

We'll be reading the movement's original handbook (2007) through June. Th at the event we'll discuss two questions about applying it to now.

About this Event


Books available FREE at our office Tuesdays 11-3, or by appointment

Resilience Incubator, 1760 Mound St. Sarasota

Community Harvest SRQ was founded in 2010 as Transition Sarasota, a local affiliate of the international Transition Towns Movement that currently includes about 1,000 groups in nearly 70 countries around the world. Although we changed our name a few years ago, the idea of Transition - cultivating more self-reliant, sustainable, and resilient local communities - still inspires everything we do.


Please join us in reconnecting with our roots by studying the book that started it all: Transition Movement founder Rob Hopkins' classic (2008). While there are many amazing insights, stories, tools, and resources in The Transition Handbook that are even more relevant now, we'll also discuss how the Transition Movement has evolved over the past two decades and where it might be headed next.

We'll bring the conversation into the present with these two questions:

1) How should we frame the larger picture these days?

In the book, Rob frames humanity's challenge in terms of the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil. For a variety of reasons, this isn't the best framing for our current world moment. Can you suggest a different framing in terms of one, two or three interlocking challenges? (Hint: one Transition movement leader suggests Climate change and Justice; so we don't necessarily have to do away with both.)

2) If we didn't use the term 'transition' what would be a good word or phrase that captures what that says?

We changed from 'Transition Sarasota' to 'Community Harvest SRQ' because we felt that the word 'transition' often muddied the waters. That was a tough decision, because that term also conveys a connection between the global and the local. Both the world's climate and our local expereince of it are changing, same with global and local economics. These transitions are happening ready or not, but we do have an opportunity to shape our local experience of them. If we don't talk about this transition by using the word 'transition', what is the best alternative?