What should Transition Norwich be?

Observation: There has been concern from various corners of late as to the condition of Transition Norwich, its support and following, its structure, and its membership.

Discussion: Transition Norwich was “unleashed” in October 2008 at a meeting of approximately 400 citizens of Norwich, who formed a core group and working groups to take action forward.  Three and a half years later, many of those working groups have collapsed and the core group no longer meet.  Some projects that came out of Transition Norwich have been successful, and I applaud them wholeheartedly – This Low Carbon Life (a blog which I write articles for), Norwich Farmshare (A community supported agriculture scheme), The Low Carbon Cookbook, Norwich Community Bees, to mention just some of them.

There is still huge energy within the city of Norwich for the ideas behind Transition, even where no projects have yet come into action.  We can see this demonstrated in the support that the Green Party have within Norwich; the number of people who attended and showed their support when the Occupy movement came to town; and the support that there is for other environmental organisations in the city.

The problem is not a lack of energy within the population, but the difficulty of tapping into that energy without sapping it and destroying it, but instead letting it grow and become more mainstream.  And Transition Norwich has failed to do this over the past few years.  It is a fairly closed community of individuals who are all immensely busy with their own things and don’t have time for outreach and newcomers.  When I first tried to get involved with Transition Norwich, it took me several months to find a way in, as it were, and I was really trying to engage with the people already involved.

So what should Transition Norwich be to keep progressing its goals, without becoming bogged down in its own politics, sapping the energy of its most committed members, and excluding those who don’t have the time to dedicate to the cause?

Transition Norwich has always been more of an network of people and organisations [12/6/12 used to read “umbrella organisation” – see comments] than an entity in its own right, and I think this should carry on.  A single Transition organisation may work in a small town, such as Totnes or Lewes (or indeed Bungay, which I get the impression has a successful and thriving initiative), but in a city as large as Norwich, no single organisation can take enough action on its own, and when small, is just too fragmented.

But if Transition Norwich is a network [12/6/12 changed from “umbrella organisation”], rather than a single unit, what does it actually do?  It seems to me that the name of Transition Norwich has been used by local events, organisations and projects to garner support from like-minded individuals who are concerned about peak oil and climate change, whilst Transition Norwich has little to do with the event’s organisation, the organisation’s structure, or the project’s activity.  Rather than condemning this activity as leeching on the name of Transition Norwich (which is tempting), why not provide a structure to do this more officially, and make the biggest feature of Transition Norwich the name.

Should such structure have a constitution, or any legal entity?  In my opinion, yes.  Although we don’t want to form a hierarchical organisation, the lack of constitution altogether means that some people think of Transition Norwich as an organisation in its own right, whilst others think of it as just a name that they can stick on their own projects, without consideration.  Both of these are not really correct, and the only way of making this clear is by writing a constitution that pins down on what terms an individual or organisation should use the name.

Conclusion: Transition Norwich should be a consortium of organisations and individuals in the Greater Norwich area who acknowledge that we are in a period of transition from a world dependant on global oil to a world of local resilience and limited energy availability.

Any organisation or individual should be able to join provided that they acknowledge this fact, but there should be further requirements for members to use the logo and the communication network (i.e. website and mailing lists), which may be a subscription charge or services related to the cause (e.g. a fund-raising or awareness-raising event).

The consortium should have annual general meetings that are held on a consensus basis in which the aforementioned requirements are determined, and in which the communications network is reviewed (including the allocation of money and voluntary resources to network-building tasks).

You may notice above that any action to be taken by a Transition Norwich organisation is not included i.e. TN does not plant gardens, ride bicycles etc. – that’s what its members do, and TN will encourage them in whatever action they want to take in order to progress Transition.

The above is my opinion, and I would love to hear yours, or to hear changes to or development of the ideas that I outline above, so please leave your comments below.  Any relevant comments will be fed back to Transition Norwich via the Norwich In Transition googlegroup, so sign up to that if you want to hear more.