Transition Town Montpelier Makes Its Public Debut!
And a few MRVers were there (that I recognized, at least)–I spied Dennis Derryberry, Ben Falk, and Stan (the guy from Mass who will be here soon) in the crowd. The church sanctuary was filled, for a presentation by Naresh Giangrande, a New Jersey native who’s lived in the UK for 29 years and is a resident of Transition Town Totnes. Naresh began by having all of us turn and introduce ourselves to someone we didn’t know, and talk about what brought us there. As he pointed out, transition towns is first and always about community-building, and it was nice to have this experiential reminder right off the bat.
After the talk, folks gathered downstairs for refreshments and talking in a circle (actually several concentric circles), which is another part of the transition process. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay because I had a kid to get to bed, but I’d love to hear from others what that was like. Naresh’s point that transition is both an external and an internal process was especially poignant, I thought. He said that we have unsustainable inner psychology and we need to transition in that sense as well. I couldn’t agree more.
As several of us have already noted, the array of projects that happen under the umbrella of “transition town” reflects very closely the one we’ve got underway in the Valley. The one exception for us that I’ve noted is “health.” As a registered nurse and a certified nurse-midwife, I think about the waste and carbon-dependence that’s built into our healthcare system as it stands now, and I anticipate that we will also need to relocalize our sources for health care and wellness. Perhaps something for VFN to talk about supporting?
Transition Town Montpelier is beginning a study group of The Transition Handbook this winter. I hope that our group will get going soon too!
Also, a friend of mine named Chris Colt will be teaching a course this winter at Champlain College for which the texts will include The Transition Handbook and something by Bill McKibben, if anybody’s interested in a more formal approach.
Cheers~Kate
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