Gate Crashing

Capturing ideas from the NorCal Transition Leadership meeting

We arrived in Sebastopol to find a Northern California Transition Leadership meeting happening that Saturday....so we gate crashed. Despite being the water usurpers from the south, we were welcomed with open arms. We met LOTS of the Transition leadership from Transition Initiatives all over Northern California, all doing the work of all works. It was great to connect up again with Scott Mckeown, a founding member of Transition Sebastopol and our Trainer for Transition in Joshua Tree. Turned out we had good things to offer at the all day meeting about our successes particularly in transitioning to an elected Coordinating Council. Very few Transition groups have successfully made this change. We gave due creds to Scott who helped us with Best Practices suggestions through the process. Maggie Fleming, new co-director of TransitionUS asked us to write an article about it for the TransitionUS newsletter. 

Water harvesting systems at OAEC

Our OAEC digs for the weekend

We spent our 2 nights in the area at Occidental Arts and Ecology Center where I did my PDC in 2012. Tim got to meet one of my teachers, Kendall Dunnigan. We were able to hang with her a bit and hear about her recent work in Haiti with the SOIL group - putting together a humanure (cholera is rampant), soil building, tree planting program permaculture-style.

We stayed up on the hill in the tipi by the pond. Very sweet digs. The hot tub didn't hurt either.

Coffee and research to figure out our next destination

Take aways for the desert:

1. Reconomy efforts are working well in some of the Transition Initiatives, one in particular is Transition Humboldt.

2. We can be very proud of our Transition Joshua Tree successes! Having a well functioning Coordinating Council and learning group processes techniques are essential.

3. While traveling make sure to immerse yourself in a body of water every day (bath tubs and showers don't count).