I know that government has a role to play in all of this, but I am doubtful about any show of leadership coming from our civic or any other elected leaders. As David pointed out we don’t have a very good record for electing people capable of making wise decisions. The Sustainability Charter may well just gather dust (sorry to be cynical).

I am disappointed that they seem to be pulling this off in Britain and Europe and even some parts of the US, but in Powell River it’s uphill all the way. Perhaps life is too good for most of us…some hardship might do the trick.

While we understand, and in some ways share the frustration expressed here, we also think that discussions and brainstorming are important ways to draw more people into the conversation. Should we do it differently? Perhaps. Can we do it better? Probably. It’s true that we, as a community, need to start thinking outside the box, and looking at why new ideas will work, instead of why they won’t. As with anything new (and despite the fact that it seems like we’ve been working on and worrying about these issues forever, they are still relatively “new”), there will be time spent figuring out what needs to be done. There will be much time that is spent seemingly banging our heads against the wall. But the important thing is that we stay engaged.

All of these comments and observations are valuable. The conversation had to start somewhere…and now we are at the point of asking, what is the next step – how do we do it better? I think one of the dangers of the frustration that we all surely experience is the risk of alienating one another by criticizing what others are contributing, especially when that time is given freely. As mentioned, one of our greatest challenges, as a “movement,” to start with is getting people to show up and take an interest.

The Transition Town meeting offered several positive steps forward, not the least of which is the development of a comprehensive community list of groups working on sustainability issues and their activities. The idea of the meeting was to get people networking and connecting, and I think some of that was accomplished.

Work resulting from ideas presented at the City Meeting is being carried on, and though GreenStep is not involved in this process, we watch the proceedings with anticipation since the City is obviously an important part of this conversation. Information about what is happening with the City’s sustainability initiatives can be found here: http://www.powellriver.ca/siteengine/activepage.asp?PageID=125

Organizing ourselves to tackle this massive set of challenges is no easy feat. We must have patience and appreciation for each other – and be able to provide and accept constructive criticism on how we can move forward productively and effectively. Thanks for opening this discussion; we look forward to your further thoughts on this.

Emma & CaroleAnn

As you know, I was at both the meetings you’re talking about in this post, and to me there was a very real difference in the feel of the two “brainstorming” sessions. At the RRR:R meeting, the brainstorming session was supposed to specifically address “where are the gaps, the things we are not yet covering” – rather than a general “what can we do”. Admittedly, it did tend to spread a bit after a while from that focus, and the breakout groups afterward were larger than I wanted them to be, and not as focused. But we were learning as we went along, and will do better next time.

There are a lot of people saying “we want to DO something, not just have meetings”. I do get the feeling though, that some of those people want to be *told what to do* – and that’s a problem. Is no use running about “doing things” at random, either – preceding the “doing things” there is always a period of meetings deciding what to do and how to do it, as you know better than most.

At the moment, when people ask me about “doing things”, I’m saying “Transition Working Groups are coming!”. Which they are, but it takes a certain critical mass of people to get something moving. I am hoping that both the upcoming Training for Transition session, and the presentation event for the Sustainability Charter, will act as catalysts to help get them going.

Getting people involved who don’t already “get it” is a real issue. We (TTPR) do feel as though we’re making progress though. Having spent time building bridges with existing “green” (for want of a better word) groups in the community, more recently with larger institutions, and now seeing participation from Texada residents and youth… all those are steps on the path. Getting out into churches, business groups, seniors groups, service clubs and all those other traditional organisations is upcoming. Not all of our attempts will work. Some will stick. I have been plugging away at Toastmasters and I have actually seen changes in people’s views.

The main idea of RRR:R though, was not the brainstorming, but to address the very point you mention in your post, of not knowing what else is going on: hoping that if we got attendance from people over a wider range of sources (which we did) and asked them to tell us what else was going on that wasn’t represented (which they did), we would end up knowing more. Collation and publishing of the data we gathered is happening – it’s not going to get lost and disappear into a dusty pile of paper

All the best

Kevin

A lot of this is uncharted territory or (I suspect) territory whose outer limits began to be mapped out during the post-war period as part of the ‘human potential’ movement. Much of that work fell into disrepute, and now we need to reinvent a lot of wheels and quickly.