Hi there Transition Towns UK!
We are in process of becoming a Transition Town (area) on the South Coast of NSW, Australia (also know as South East NSW).
John Champagne (locally renowned Permaculturalist) is leading the development of a transition towns network in the South East NSW region with a most worthy and active group of people who are very eager to see TT work locally. A lot of work has already been done towards sustainability - and the Transition Towns concept is a great focus for us to engage committed people, groups and businesses in a 'whole of community' TT process.
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Our Region
Among our many claims to fame, including Bega Cheese, we are the home of the group Clean Energy for Eternity (CEFE cleanenergyforeternity.net.au), the Bega Eco-Neighbourhood Develpment (BEND bend.org.au) and many other active environmental and education groups - see thebegavalley.org.au for the full list.
We are a mostly coastal community, large in an area, with many small townships dotted around the region - separated by big distances. Bega is the regional centre.
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The local scene - our Transition Towns Activity
You can view our (currently regional) website at transitiontown.org.au
Currently there are two groups that have formed Bega and Eurobodalla - and Eden (further south) are intending to form a working group in July. We are planning a series of roadshows throughout the region to educate and bring on board interested communities.
The Bega group have adopted the 16 points - I am yet to confirm the Eurobodalla group in that regard. We would like to be recognised in your Wiki site as a working group in process as Bega, NSW
We are all meeting regularly to plan the TT process and rollout of the program including active liaison with our local Council to embed TT concepts into the 20 year LEP (Local Environment Plan) which is being finalised later this year.
We met for the first time with Council yesterday and had a very enthusiastic response from the Councillors and especially the Staff - the previous Strategic Planner for Council, Garrett Barry, is on our committee. Many of the Council Staff are well aware of the TT process and are keen to engage with us.
We (the writer) also manage a local magazine, Sustain at sustain.org.au, and we deliver 12,000 copies (at no charge) to the communities in the whole region. We have two key articles in Sustain magazine about the Transition Towns activity for the Winter edition which you can read online.
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Our National Activity - A community Website Network
We (the writer and Associates) have developed a national community website network (not-for-profit - since 2004) at australiancommunities.org.au and have dedicated our activities to developing a national web infrastructure to help build sustainable communities - socially, economically and environmentally - with Peak Oil outcomes and Climate Change effects in mind. It is ground based; meaning fitted to community needs by the community of users - the network is therefore a 'bottom up' exercise.
To that end we have developed a range of web based tools to help communication between and within communities - locally at first (test and run) and nationally as an end point.
We are in discussion with a number of national groups (eg the Australian Collaboration at www.australiancollaboration.com.au) to provide a nationally focussed, user driven, sustainability network - to facilitate the development of living sustainable communities - on the basis that communities are best managing their own communications infrastructure - so it is free for any resident in Australia to register in the national network and begin editing their new website immediately.
We exist on Support Memberships ($110 pa), custom graphics services, and through advertising sales via our magazine Sustain at sustain.org.au. We are entirely self supporting.
Transition Towns is a focussed expression of the larger web resource we have already developed from within the South East region, expanding outwards. We feel that the TT process will require all members of the community to participate and hence we have already registered within the network well over 80% of local community organisations and about 30% of businesses. Go to thebegavalley.org.au to see the flagship local website. Other community networks around Australia are getting involved and growing daily.
We now have over 1,100 registered active website editors in the network - as people, groups or businesses.
We are recognised by the developers of our Open Source software (TYPO3) as the best expression of a community website network in the world.
We have been in contact with Peter Driscoll, Transition Sydney. They registered transitiontowns.org.au (plural) being for the purpose of a national network - which is our intention - I am not sure what communication you have had with Transition Sydney and what stage they are at - we are ready to roll - and have the communication tools installed and working for a project of this scope.
Under Option One of our model, interested national TT groups would register their own presence in their region in the network and develop their web presence and have access to edit the national TT site - not unlike your wiki. If they have an existing website (eg Sunshine Coast) they can just use the national events calendar - events.org.au and the RSS news feeds if they wish.
Under Option Two of our model would see each startup group provided with permissions to edit just their area of the national site - also not unlike your wiki!
Option one is our preferred model.
In all cases we feel it appropriate that groups go through your training and certification process.
The national network of community websites is a very good platform to allow localised groups to articulate and promote their activities - yet remain connected to the whole through events, RSS news, content sharing and other vehicles we provide such as mailing lists.
The transition process is all-encompassing for a community - enabling all members of the community to have a voice online to promote their own activities (eg a Pony Club) - and not just have a presence articulated as a Transition Town activity.
It is for this reason that we feel our model is flexible, expandable, and relevant to all members of the community - who will at some stage operate their presence in the network beyond the TT process as they make the network their own, in their own regions.
While we accept that there is the vital international network at transitiontowns.org - the Australian scene is (at this point) not able to benefit from a national scene central resource - as I mentioned we have been in discussion with Peter Driscoll and hope the Transition Sydney group do recognise that we already have a national network in place ready to go.
We are ready to engage the TT process online - and that will allow the communities who learn the TT process to transform their online presence into a living community network that is as big and broad as they require - to meet the demands of the future.
Thus the national network remains user driven - community focussed - and adaptable to the varying needs of communities throughout the nation.
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Many thanks - we trust you will acknowledge our presence in the Wiki.
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Geoffrey Grigg,
02-6492 5000
0447 273 342
Project Coordinator, Community Network
Editor, Sustain Magazine
geoffreygrigg@thebegavalley.org.au
The Australian Community Network
"The Central", Gipps St,
Bega NSW 2550
