151208

Meeting Notes 15 December

Steve, Greg, Ronin, Susannah, Chris, Jenny, Heather

Lizie Fellows (Council for the Protection of Rural England) contacted us re. a food mapping exercise (details already posted to the list) and will be at Farmer's Market in Thurs. Steve's put her in touch with Gareth, and Heather will also get Leon (Grow Sheffield) in touch with her. It would be ideal if all the existing food-oriented groups in Sheffield could take this on as their contribution to TT in Sheffield.

National TT Conference. They are looking for a venue for the national conference in spring. Whilst some of us had enthusiasm for hosting it, some reservations were raised last time (around readiness, involving the city, our energy descent plan is not ready, we don't have energy to put into it). Heather spoke to Rob Hopkins about these points. Rob said it would be 2.5 days, and would leave a lasting legacy for the city, with:

• high profile evening speakers eg. Heinberg, John Croft etc. opened up to the city.
• an opportunity to use conference participants to act in a practical way in the city.
• paid workers organising it

Our discussion concluded:

• it would be important for us to have a diversity of speakers (ethnicity & gender)
• we could view it as an external conference with less relevance to the city
• it would be more relevant and useful to us to host a Transition Cities conference later on

Film festival - next set being organised by Steve and Chris

4 Tues evening dates booked at Sharrow, plus a Sun afternoon. Looking at venue for Meersbrook. They'll send an email out to the main discussion list asking for other areas eg. Crookes & Walkley who may be interested. Some funding is available from Shine on Sharrow which may help to make a bigger thing. Heather will order a copy of the Curcubita (sustainable city) film.

Group processes

We discussed a document from TT which highlighted potential issues that the group might face. We came up with the following as a first draft:

Aims We are motivated by the challenges of climate change and energy shortages to engage people, communities and groups to Sheffield to work towards the transition of our communities away from dependence on fossil fuels. We aim for healthier, happier, inclusive and resilient communities.

Guiding principles

• We are opposed to discrimination on the basis of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, class, etc..
• We believe in working in ways which empower others,
• We aim to avoid stereotypes, and aim to reach out to others to overcome divisions
• We support consensus decision making

Our role

• Taking on a visioning role
• Supporting local TT neighbourhood groups and/or groups within the region
• Supporting and networking with groups whose objectives are closely related to our aims
• Outreach to other types of community groups
• Where necessary, undertaking a liaison role across the city eg. with the council

Hub membership - open or closed?

We've agreed to carry this forwards to next meeting.

Discussion lists

There was some discussion about use of discussion lists - how not to overload people, but to provide people with enough to keep them interested. Ideas:

• Transition Times - something specifically about transition news
• Live the Cool Life - great model, but not all the items are relevant for TT (and vice versa)
• Can use Drupal site to post articles.
• Need to think imaginatively who we use TT list - not just another issue!

Date of next meeting

6 Jan 7:30 for 7:45 !