Should TT have formal relationships with other groups and of what sort?

I am posting here a discussion that has been coming through the mailing list. Howerver, conversation there was somewhat incomplete, as the first round of this discussion was not attached. In order to not spam everyone, I'll post those threads here to try and make them accessible for everyone.

 

So please see below - in reverse order - the discussion. I am also attaching the (draft) agreement between Lower Hutt TT and the church that triggered it all. I have taken out names etc though, because it is still a draft - but I think you need to see it to know what this is about.

 

Cheers, Natalie

 

Hi Natalie and Brent,

I'm tempted after last night's discussion to phone the Dean and accept his offer about the use of the Anglican Cathedral without any more ado. However, I would prefer to get agreement in principle from some other TT groups in Greater Wgtn before I do that. Alison Hoffman (Kelburn TT?) sounds on side, but I really don't know the Greater Wellington scene.

 

You two seem to be the ones within TT Lower Hutt with the contacts with groups beyond Lower Hutt. Could you take responsibility for securing the 'buy-in' of a few more of them? We don't need absolutely everyone at this stage, and at this stage we certainly don't need agreement on the details, but if there was convergence on the general principle of holding a week-long very inclusive event at the Cathedral with the five listed aims, that would be the most helpful. We would go on later to determine the exact form of the week in the light of agreement about the aims. You might nevertheless like to mention the outline I sketched out as one possible form the week might take.

 

I will give the Dean a progress report now  including the news of the good reception the idea got from last night's meeting and from Alison.

 

I think we need to add a fifth aim to the four I'd listed, to keep DOC aboard the exercise - especially if they will financially help with publicity and perhaps in other ways. (They have been the traditional partner in this Week, and it was good to have Pam from DOC at last night's meeting - serendipity). So the proposition would read:

 

The various TT and Resilient Community networks and groups in Greater Wellington (and especially 'the Wellington Community Resilience Unit') join with the Cathedral and as many local church communities of all denominations as choose to, in mounting Conservation Week this year (6-12th September), with primary focus on the goals and values of Transition Towns.

Goals: 1. To organise an ‘Information Fair’ at which all local groups whether ‘TT’ or not, whether ‘church’ or not, exchange information about their projects and plans, and their resources, in relation to the goals and values of TT. Inclusiveness will be of the essence of the exercise.

            2. To make progress towards, and if possible launch, an EDAP process for Greater Wellington, and link individual groups with that process.

            3. To publicise ‘350’ in preparation for the 350 event later in the year in preparation for the Copenhagen Conference.

            4. To encourage those local churches which are taking their share of responsibility in responding to the gathering environmental challenge, and to stimulate others to do the same.

            5. To share information about, and celebrate, all ongoing local projects to protect or restore the environment.              

 

What do you think? I would like to get finalise the fact of the event as soon as possible. And if the other groups say yes to the event, we'll need some mechanism (a small representative working group) to take things further.

My phone number is 562-6067. I'm also a somewhat hesitant newcomer to Skype.

Best wishes, Peter

 

 

PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO YOUR TT NETWORKS!!

 

 

 

Hi all at TT Wellington Hub,

 

 

 

Please see below for an exciting opportunity which arose out of a partnership we (TT Lower Hutt) are in the process of establishing with the Anglican Church. We are, in short, given the opportunity to – for a whole week – use the Anglican Cathedral in Wellington to inform about Transition Towns, its values and projects. The proposal includes putting up displays, showing lunchtime movies and giving lectures during conservation week (6-12 September). Some other initiatives we would involve are the “350” campaign and DOC, or any other which we can think of. The “Wellington EDAP planning team” has already given their thumbs up to make the Cathedral the venue for our big launch event that same week (though the details have yet to be worked out).

 

 

 

I think this is a marvelous opportunity, but timing is short, so we need –

 

 

 

VERY URGENTLY

 

 

 

for you all to pass on this message to your local teams and networks. We then need to – equally urgently – set up an organizing group / team – be it to put together a program, create displays, organise speakers etc etc. I imagine collectively we probably already hold a lot of these resources and contacts, but need to put them together.

 

 

 

Most urgently, however, I need from you a “yes” as to our involvement (see below).

 

 

 

I am happy to coordinate this, so please contact me on this email or 04

5769596

 

 

 

Come on, let’s all pull together and do this!!

 

 

 

Natalie

 

 

Hi
I must have been forgotten on some emails I think.....didn't realise the Cathedral had been offered to us for the EDAP event let alone accepted - or did I miss something at our last meeting?
Anyway, sounds like it will be a great venue - is this the one on Willis Street?
nga mihi mahana,
Nicola

 

Dear all in TT Wellington

I think this is an excellent initiative and I will promote it with TTKelburn-Highbury, a new TT group in Wellington.

Alison Hoffmann

 

 

Kia ora koutou,

Transition Towns and Religion

The Conservation Week event sounds like a wonderful opportunity and a great initiative on the part of TT Lower Hutt. Churches are often good meeting places, in fact the first Transition Towns of Wellington meeting was held at St Andrews on The Terrace. I chose that venue myself and am not at all against holding meetings or events at churches - they are often centrally located and affordable, as are community centers.

However, I am deeply concerned by the use of the word 'partnership' with respect to TT Lower Hutt's relationship with the Anglican Church. Could someone from TT Lower Hutt explain to the rest of us what is meant by this please?

I appreciate that the church is a community minded organisation, and I applaud their desire to become involved in environmental issues. I would also like to thank the Anglican Church for their very generous offer of the use of their facilities without charge. However, I hope that they can respect the need for Transition Towns to remain outside the religious arena - it is essential that our message is accessible to everyone and to do that we must not enter into partnerships/associations/affiliations - particularly with religious organisations and/or political parties. The key for TT is to engage with as many groups and communities as possible, rather than developing a partnership with any one group or community which will inevitably alienate other groups.

Hopefully I have got the wrong end of the stick on this one, but it seems that this certainly needs some more discussion prior to going ahead with committing Transition Towns of Wellington to participating in the Conservation Week at the Cathedral.

nga mihi mahana,
Nicola

 

Hi Nicola and everyone.

(1) I can well understand the questions being asked in this email, but you can be reassured that the churches are only one of the many sorts of local organisations which TT Lower Hutt is seeking to establish a link or partnership with. e.g. schools, service clubs, marae, other faith communities, community associations, business groups, eco groups - whatever.

There is no way that TT in any community can or should bypass the multiplicity of sub-communities in that community, and still achieve TT aims, without their involvement or support in some form. The trick will be to make these partnerships and links as inclusive and various as possible.

Yes, it is important to avoid identification of TT with any one religion/ideology/organisation/whatever. But we have to start somewhere,  some Anglican churches in the Hutt Valley seem to be stepping up to the mark, and it would be foolish to say 'no thank you' to this or to any other intentional specific link.

 

(2) So far as the Cathedral event is concerned: Conservation Week is a longstanding annual event in partnership with DOC. DOC has never found the cooperation difficult or compromising. A TT focus in Conservation Week would, I think, be a 'one-off'. Though who knows?

It's also worth noting, by the way, that it was quite fortuitous that the offer for the use of the Cathedral comes to the Wgtn TT groups via TT Lower Hutt. The initiative came from the Dean of the Cathedral, and he approached a personal contact who happened to be in TT Hutt.

I hope all this reassures people.

Best wishes to all.

Peter

 

Hi Peter and Nicola

Would it be better, as Peter mentions here, to talk of establishing links rather than partnerships?

Warm regards

Alison

Thank you very much for those clarifications Peter.

I like Allison's suggestion for using the word 'links' rather than 'partnerships'.

I can understand going into partnership with another organisation for an event, however a general partnership is a different and deeper thing. I very much doubt that DOC would describe it's relationship with the Anglican Church as a 'partnership' in general although it does an 'event in partnership' -  this clearly defines the limits of the partnership to be with respect to hosting an event.

In any case, what you choose to do in Lower Hutt is up to you. I would still offer that if you start telling the general public that you are in partnership with the Anglican Church, you will alienate the non-church people and quite possibly the non-Anglicans. I don't believe that this would be the case if you simply had links to the church (and the other organisations that you mentioned).

I would be interested to know how other Transition Initiatives in New Zealand have handled this type of situation. Are other Initiatives in 'partnership' with organisations and if so which ones? How do other TT's manage this and are there any concerns? Perhaps a query out to the TTNZ group would be useful.

As you say, we don't want to be turning organisations away that are keen to be involved and help, yet neither do we want to marginalise our message by forming partnerships with religious and political groups.

nga mihi,
Nicola

 

Hi Nicola,

 

 

 

Your concerns don’t come unexpected and we raised the same issues at our meeting on Tuesday. Fact is, we have put together a long list of organizations (church and non-church etc) that we would like to approach to build “relationships” with… in whatever form. Trouble is, you have to start somewhere, and until we have worked our way through our “wishlist”, there may be a time where things seem a bit lopsided.

 

 

 

No-one disagrees that Transition Towns should remain supra-denominational, non-party and basically owned by noone other than themselves.

 

 

 

I think the ideas are all the right ones – lets just make sure we use the right language to make that clear… Links works for me – or maybe liaison? – As for the conservation week, I would think that “Transition Towns, on invitation by the Anglican Church…” can do whatever it needs to do. Lets work that out at our meeting on Wednesday.

 

 

 

As for other groups, I know that the Upper Hutt group started out of a strong base within the Baptist (?-I think) church.

 

 

 

(Oh, and I learnt by doing this exercise last Tuesday, that there is a Buddhist monastery in Upper Hutt! I had no idea!) 

 

 

 

Thanks for your thoughtful contributions – it is important we get this right!

 

 

 

Natalie

 

Dear Nicola,

I agree with Peter, and Natalie et al in what they say. It is good to work together to reduce emissions and fight climate change, and the language is important to make our aims clear, but let's get on and do it! Time is pressing!

Regards, Tricia

 

 

Dear everyone,

On my walk this morning I began to ponder the practice of mulling over issues. That maybe we need to allow for this, i.e. Make decisions but also allow for sometime for people to digest the implications of these.

Some of my mulling over:

1. Conservation Week

Are we geared up to run the whole week? What people power will we need? Do we risk burning out the small group of volunteers who seem to be on a lot of the organising groups? What is the projected budget for advertising awareness raising etc? What funding could we get at short notice?

I only realised at the end of the Lower Hutt Core meeting that we were committing to the whole week. I had envisaged we would be part of a wider network and that we would have a day or two allocated to show films and explore Energy Descent Action Plan?

Do we risk moving away from the vision of a community /local response? Would have it been better, for say Lower Hutt to use St James Church during the week to invite a local community response? Could the local community responses be impacted by organising this large event.

2. Partnership with the Anglican Church

As I raised in the Lower Hutt Core meeting does this risk us being aligned as a Christian group? That we all worship the Great Anglican in the Sky. There has been in fact some critique of Christianity recruiting people into a belief structure that ‘others’ them from nature. That the earth was made for us, that we have dominion over nature, that we are separate from nature, that the laws of nature don’t apply to us. Daniel Quinn outlines this in his book Ishmael, Where he describes Leaver and Taker societies, Leaver societies believing they are one with nature and have a spirituality that reflects this rather than Taker societies, who have beliefs of dominion, ownership, conquest, that the world is for us. He also unpacks evolutionary theory which can also hold us as top of the evolutionary ladder that again gives us rights to ignore the rules of nature, ie overshoot, resource depletion etc etc.

Should we not be encouraging the uptake of ideas, practice, that encourage an energy descent. That we can acknowledge and work with the Anglican Church on issues, shared projects rather than developing a formal partnership.

At times I’m not even sure who we are, what are our structures, decision making and communication processes, let alone thinking we are something to be in partnership with.

3. Energy Descent Action Plan

I think this needs to be worked on locally and regionally and then dovetail in all our education programmes to aspects of this plan. Not ignoring the continued need for awareness raising.

Anyway just some mulling over.

Cheers

Brent

 

I think it’s good that we are having this conversation and I don’t have a problem with revisiting things later if viewpoints change.

 

 

 

I am totally not affiliated with any church and highly skeptical about a lot of their practices (throughout history, mainly). This equally goes for the Christian belief system they are promoting. However, fact is – there’s lots of people involved in churches and, on a day to day basis, churches are doing a lot for communities. I don’t think we should take things down to too much detail. Name it whatever – if partnership is too strong, find a different term. I think the things outlined in the agreement that Peter proposes are all positive and good and helpful to our cause. And if people want to sing chorals while planting gardens, that’s just fine with me… maybe I’ll do a little tribal dance around the fire in the meantime – or howl at the moon for a while.

 

 

 

I think we will come across many, many things we don’t agree with in other groups. Lets look for the synergies, not the differences. Know who we are ourselves and focus on the areas where we can benefit from each other.

 

 

 

And by the way – the Anglican church would probably have issues with some of our practices, as well – e.g. us promoting and showing films like “Zeitgeist”, which basically knocks the floor out of Christianity in the first 10  minutes. I don’t know that we should be showing that at the cathedral – out of respect for our hosts. At the same time – I am all for showing it on any other occasion.

 

 

 

Again, this is all about new ways. Unusual circumstances require unusual measures (as we say in Germany). If we want to let the fact what god, spirit, universe or other enlightened being we all happen to believe or not believe in stop us from working together on a smoother transition into the future, we may as well not even start. Or are we only “transitioning” those who don’t believe in anything??

 

 

 

And, as one last thought to share – a story that Andrew from Kapiti was sharing with us in Taupo last year:

 

 

 

The US government put together a huge team of the best scientists a few years back to come up with a way how to preserve the American cultural heritage for eternity. The task was to find a way to record the history of the American people. Paper obviously wouldn’t last – or any digital medium, or space material. And what language would you use? Where would you put it??? – After a long time, the scientist came back to the government, shrugging their shoulders. There was no medium, or place or language that would do the job. The ONLY way to preserve this history, they said, was to create – a religion.

 

 

 

This only shows to me the immense power religion and its manifestations have over people. If we can use that to our advantage at this point – that’s fine with me. Maybe we should start our own church. 

 

 

 

Natalie

 

Hi everyone,

I too think it's good we are having this conversation. It had to come up sooner or later - if not in relation to the Churches then in relation to other organised groups with a distinct world-view or ideology. And I think it goes to the heart of both the rationale of TT and of the structural and strategic way ahead. I've chosen to put in my cent's worth not as an Anglican but as a TT member - tempted though I was to respond as the former.

I attach a set of propositions which from my point of view sum up the issues we as TT are facing. They dovetail with much of what Natalie has written, from her own different starting point.

Best wishes to all,

Peter Stuart

 

                       Transition Towns

Propositions concerning partnerships, alliances, links and relationships with existing groups and sub-communities

 

1. History is littered with the wreckage of reform movements which have splintered into ideologically ‘pure’ factions or languished on the sidelines as isolated ineffective minorities. We cannot afford this in the light of the challenge which faces us all.

2. The task of small TT groups of volunteers, acting in our discretionary time, is that we are seeking to [help] change the hearts and minds of a city community within a conurbation so that individually and collectively they/we change basic paradigms and lifestyle behaviours.

3. To achieve TT aims in any local community we have two options:

 (i) to form an organisation with mass membership from scratch, which means a strategy for recruiting individuals;

 (ii) to form a series of continuing partnerships and links with the sub-communities within that community.

Not only is option (i) pragmatically beyond our capacity, while option (ii) has real pragmatic advantages, but also to ignore and bypass existing sub-communities subverts one basic TT aim – the fostering of resilient local community. You don’t create community by ignoring what manifestations of community already exist there.

4. The sub-communities of any local community include groups of varying philosophies, ideologies, and religious world-views. There is no ‘view from nowhere’.

5. Many of these sub-communities share values and aims which overlap with each other and with the aims and values of TT.

6. The pluralism of any local community means there will have to be ‘ideological promiscuity’ if that community is to come together to achieve TT aims.

7. If any one sub-community conscientiously ‘signs up’ to the TT overview, other sub-communities who may have difficulties with that one will have to decide which is more important: those difficulties or their own commitment to TT. Such groups may have to swallow dead rats, some of which may be real but some of which often exist only in their own minds. Mutual enlightenment may await in unexpected ways!

8. The relationship which presents the greatest difficulty is that between TT and the instruments of formal political power – and the parties (local or national) which compete to control these instruments. On the one hand, sooner or later TT has to intentionally influence the decisions of those instruments. On the other hand, it cannot afford to become identified with any one party. ‘Partnership’ with political parties is counterproductive – unless all political parties accept the TT agenda, in which case celebrations are called for.

9. It is legitimate and often strategically necessary to form ongoing relationships between TT and individual sub-communities with the aim of achieving agreed goals. What these ongoing relationships are best described as is a matter of semantics, but the normal term for a continuing relationship to achieve agreed goals is ‘partnership’.  (‘Links’ can mean anything.)  TT should in fact aim to have multiple partnerships, and also to facilitate partnerships amongst its partners.  If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, why not call it a duck?

10. Neither secularism nor theocracy will achieve community unity in the face of the over-arching challenge TT perceives and is seeking to respond to.

 

                                                            Peter Stuart 20 June 2009

 

Tena koutou

I would like to discuss the subject of Transition Towns in 'partnership' with other organisations as this has come up in the Wellington Region and I imagine that it will have elsewhere as well, or at least will at some point.

What do people think about Transition Initiatives going into 'partnership' with another organisation - maybe a church or a political party?
Would it matter how partnership was defined? Would it be okay to use the word 'links' rather than 'partnerships'  instead or would that amount to the same thing? If it is not okay to have a partnership with churches or political parties, what types of organisations would it be okay to go into partnerships with if any?

I personally feel strongly that TT should not go into partnership with religious groups and political organisations (in particular) as people do tend to become polarised very easily around these issues. I feel that we would certainly alienate many many people. However, I also understand the desire and need to create links with all communities within the community, partly to get everyone involved and partly to leverage off their resources and networks. And, in being inclusive, we obviously  include churches and political parties.....so what to do?

I was talking to  Bryan Innes yesterday about this and he suggested that as Transition Initiatives apply to many different sorts of communities - we have Transition Suburbs, Transition Cities, Transtion Islands......any community can be 'in transition' so we can have 'Transition Iwi', 'Transition Schools' and yes, 'Transition Churches'. Perhaps this is the way that we can be inclusive to all groups without going into 'partnerships'. And it is a way for those communities to really take ownership of their own transition - it is using the model that we already have rather than trying to re-inventing the wheel.
I particularly like the idea of a 'Transition Government' ;)

Anyone have any thoughts to share on this?

Nga mihi mahana,
Nicola

 

Religions by and large are static and immoveable objects that are a major cause of the current culture of ignorance. Just look at the bible. Education and a willingness to understand new science are not their forte. Besides religions are different to other groups of people. Towns, Villages, Cities, Islands, Iwis, Schools are all collections of people that are not bound by a unifying ignorant idealogue. Religious organisations are. When you transition religion you're actually talking about the ongoing atheist revolution. You educate people enough to break out of their religious memes that they've had drilled into their brains and it's a very slow and nauseating process. I'm an atheiest and I don't think it'll work. You'll get the occasional one, but they're more afraid of change than the slack religious , agnostics or atheiests.

Transition Governments (really bad phrase) come to my mind as being interim governments that largely follow coup de etat's e.g.  Fiji. The best government is no government. Mutual associations between groups, cooperatives organisations. It's permaculture political function across the whole range of business and personal...yes I'm speaking about anarchism = permaculture politics.

Cheers,
Sam

 

Dear Nicola,

I would like to offer my sixpennyworth, used to be twopennyworth but what with inflation and the national debt etc., it went up!!!!!!!!

Seriously though, one of the things that appealed to me about Transition Towns was/is that the movement is, as I understand it, "apolitical" and "areligious," and I would like to see it stay that way. I am not, however, averse to "a Transition government." That may sound contradictory,but if we had a Transition Government" it would consist of like minded people of the people,elected by the people for the people, unlike now where we are governed by what I call "the unholy trinity," comprising the Oiligarchy and the Bankigarchy who are ably fronted by the puppet Politigarchy. I heard of one transition town that had an influx of Green Party members who tried to shanghai it and use it for Green Party political gain, they got booted out.

I live in the far north and, like Martin Luther King, I have a dream. My dream is that Transition Town Kerikeri, Transition Town Kaitaia and any others that might get going up here, will have done such a good job within the Far North that by the time the next local election comes round, in just over a year, we will be able to put up a full slate of candidates and throw out the present council, including the mayor, neck and crop. We never invite politicians to any of our meetings and I hope we never do.

OK, now for the churches.  I am a Christian (non denominational) but I no longer attend "church." I find that I have much more in common with my fellow "Transition Townies" who are trying to do something in "the here and now" as opposed to the church goers a/k/a/ "the sheeple" who are just getting ready for "the hereafter." I don't know if there any other "Christians" in my local TT and I am not bothered. If any "church goer," and I include mosques, temples, synagogues, tents, tin huts, whatever, wants to individually get involved with TT and what it stands for, good for them, I would welcome them with open arms but, as for "partnerships" or "associations" with churches in the broadest sense and even more so with anything political, I am with you all the way and agree that we could alienate people by appearing to be aligned with one particular church or political party.

My sixpennyworth, in  a nutshell, is that we should stay as we are and anyone who shares our views and aspirations will get involved no matter what their political or religious views may be.

While on this topic, I might as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb.

I have, and have had for over 30 years, a "thing" about the debt money system. As far as the debt money system is concerned, the "church" is part of the problem not the solution, but so are the politicians, all of them. The Bible condemns debt and usury and yet the church promotes it, I am not going to start quoting scripture as it would not be appropriate in a TT discussion, but that is one reason why I personally am glad that we are areligious.

Sorry I went on a bit, but you struck a nerve. I will be very interested to see what other folks think and have to say on the matter.

Kind regards

Geoff. Waterhouse

 

Hi everyone,

I would like to weigh in on the partnership debate because I strongly believe that partnerships with all kinds of organisations, including churches are necessary to achieve our vision. 

I was motivated to write about partnership because I object to the suggestion that Nicola put forth that because "we have Transition Suburbs, Transition Cities, Transition Islands......any community can be 'in transition' so we can have 'Transition Iwi', 'Transition Schools' and yes, 'Transition Churches'." The difference between transition suburbs, cities and islands, and transition churches and iwi are that suburbs, cities and islands are all geographic regions and churches and iwi are otherwise defined.  What would it mean for the region to have a Transition Towns Lower Hutt separate from Transition Churches and Iwi? If we advocate for churches, iwi, political parties and other social organisations to become Transition Churches, Iwi etc. without a partnership arrangement, don't we run the risk of these groups changing the core vision and fractionating the Tranistion message? Don't we as Transition Towns members want to retain some control over the Transition brand--and the assumptions that underpin it, for example that we will have less energy in the future.

As a non-religion person I understand TT member's reservations about going into partnership with the Anglican church.  However, I think it is preferable to go into partnership in which we have an ongoing dialogue than it is to cut off this dialogue and let the church go at it alone as a Transition Church. Isn't formalised dialogue with and support of these groups preferable  to letting them use the the Transition branding without any checks and balances?  It is my belief that the worry about the partnership with the Anglican church is due to the fact that it is progressing so much faster than any other partnership; I think it is fair for people to be concerned that TT will become labeled as Christian.  But I propose instead of distancing ourselves from the Anglican church that we challenge ourselves to urgently seek partnpartnership other faiths and organistations so that we are not seen as Christian.

I agree with Peter "To achieve TT aims in any local community we have two options:
 (i) to form an organisation with mass membership from scratch, which means a strategy for recruiting individuals;
 (ii) to form a series of continuing partnerships and links with the sub-communities within that community.
Not only is option (i) pragmatically beyond our capacity, while option (ii) has real pragmatic advantages, but also to ignore and bypass existing sub-communities subverts one basic TT aim – the fostering of resilient local community. You don’t create community by ignoring what manifestations of community already exist there." 

The Lower Hutt group has agreed on a vision, "All people in Lower Hutt live sustainably within their geographical region in resilient communities”.  Are these relisent communities that we envision neighborhoods (place based) as Peter seems to suggest or are they Christian communities, iwi communities, school communities, political communities etc. separate from the main TT community as Nicola proposes?  Perhaps we need to clarify?

Warm regards,
Babs

 

 Here's something that came from the Transition Training in Northland. I think it is very relevant here, as it points to lots of different levels of partnership, and embraces the diversity that we need to create resilient communities.

Partnering Continuum

Coexistence
- Know of each others existence
- No direct relationship with other agencies
- No dependency or need to collaborate

Networking
- Information sharing is the basis
- Informal discussions
- About knowing and understanding who is doing what

Cooperation
- No longterm relationship implied
- Acknowledgment of common issues, interests
- No ongoing commitment to each other

Collaboration
- Has trust implicit
- Based on negotiated and agreed actions and principles
- Shared decision making
- Giving up power and control

Partnerships
- Work from an agreed shared value base e.g. trust, honesty, openness
- Sharing risks and rewards, resources, accountability, visions, ideas and decision making
- Degree of formality and two way contractual and relationship obligations
- Agreements (MOU's)

James

 

Hi to everyone   Just a quickie!!    The exchanges in this dialogue are fabulous and wonderful to see such topics being grappled with.  What comes to me when reading them is that much of what is said is based in Fear!!  Fear that we'll be seen as this or that, Fear that we will lose people..........etc.    The Transition movement is a completely new way of doing things and therefore we must move on without fear of what might or might not happen. We already know that we attract people from every walk of life with hughly diverse lifestyles and beliefs but as long as we are moving in the same direction eg: buiding resilience within communities that are equally diverse, then we must trust that all will be well.   I have attached a piece that helps me greatly whenever I get stuck in any decision!  It has served me well throughout my life.  Hopefully it may help!!    love and smiles Juanita  

LOVE AND FEAR

 

 

“EVERY action taken by human beings is based in love or fear, not simply those dealing with relationships.

 

Decisions affecting business, industry, politics, religion

The education of your young,

The social agenda of your nations,

The economic goals of your society,

Choices involving war, peace, attack, defense, aggression, submission;

Determinations to covet or give away,

To save or to share,

To unite or to divide

Every single free choice you ever undertake arises out of one of the

Only two possible thoughts there are: a thought of love or 

a thought of fear.

 

FEAR is the energy which contracts, closes down, draws in, runs, hides, hoards, harms.

 

LOVE is the energy which expands, opens up, sends out, stays, reveals, shares, heals.

 

FEAR wraps our bodies in clothing, LOVE allows us to stand naked

FEAR clings to and clutches all that we have, LOVE gives all that we have away.

FEAR holds close, LOVE holds dear.

FEAR grasps, LOVE lets go.

FEAR rankles, LOVE soothes.

FEAR attacks, LOVE amends.

 

EVERY HUMAN THOUGHT, WORD, OR DEED IS BASED IN ONE EMOTION OR THE OTHER.  You have no choice about this, because there is nothing else from which to choose. But you have free choice about which of these to select.”

 

(excerpt from CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD Book 1 – Neale Donald Walsch)

 

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