To the afternoon World Café participants,
It has taken me a long time to get the work you did in the afternoon session of the World Café online and I apologize for that. But rather than a sprint to meet someone else's deadline, ours is the marathon effort to progressively shift our local culture to greater resilience as we power down.
As you look over the results of the brainstorming we did around specific action areas, you will see that the outcomes are quite uneven and varied. I know that some among you may observe that there is little new in what the interest area groups came up with at the World Café. It is undoubtedly true that in the environmental literature and in the plans of other Transition Towns, these ideas and many others have been researched, adapted to specific situations, and set to work. But now it is WE who are deciding the best way to understand, adapt, and implement strategic changes, not in the abstract, but IN OUR CITY (or neighborhood, or faith institution, or civic group). We are the ones we’ve been waiting for and it is (for now) in our hands or in our hearts to make whatever change we can.
Some World Café participants have asked me how Transition Asheville will organize action groups to move us down the path. My answer is always that, like the Universe, the Transition effort is self-organizing. We use tools like the World Café and Open Space sessions to bring people together and to forge working relationships around shared passions. From there, groups move under their own steam and at their own pace. Until it is decided otherwise, no one is necessarily in charge or overseeing. Rather each person can spontaneously contribute whatever skills s/he possesses to do whatever shared and ongoing conversations suggest most needs doing. This sort of grassroots effort will inevitably be slow and messy, but results come at the right time and are often amazing. Believe it! I’ve seen it.
As you can see in this compilation, many of the action groups identified priority projects and next steps. In addition to these -- and most critical to the kind of sustained change that is called for -- is the task of continuing the conversation with others about how to keep your interest area group viable and growing over the long haul. There’s an agricultural image here that’s not accidental. It refocuses attention on the permaculture principles at the root of the Transition Movement. As we look to cultivate awareness and change on whatever scale and in whatever context, we might well remember to begin with small and slow solutions, and celebrate often!
I want to keep in touch with your action group and to support your work in any way that I’m able. Please keep my in your communication loop (cjansen@mtsu.edu). I also want to encourage you to share the ins and outs of your group process with others interested in Transition Asheville by contributing to the Transition Asheville Newsletter. (Send print-ready-pieces and/or subscription requests if you don’t yet get the Newsletter to debibrewer@aol.com).
I end with a heart-felt thanks for the contributions you have already made to the Transition effort by participating in the World Café. I look forward to the work we may do together on the Great Turning.
Sincerely, Chas
