LAUNCH The essential guide to get your new Transition group off the ground

This booklet belongs to:: Our group launched on: NAME & GROUP / 01

cOntents Introduction 03 Introduction to Transition 04 Global Context 08 Vision 10 Building Alternatives & People Power 13 Understanding Local Context 17 Engaging the Wider Community 19 Building Healthy Groups 24 Inner Transition 34 Power and Privilege 37 Taking Action 43 Next Steps 44 Further Support 45 CONTENTS / 02

Welcome Our Launch training is designed to help you get a new Transition Group off the ground. We have over 10 years’ experience supporting groups to transition your local community towards a more sustainable and socially just future in towns, cities, villages and institutions in more than 50 countries across the world. We have a pretty clear idea now of what works and what doesn’t, and we want to share that with you so you can be as effective as possible. We have created a lot of different resources to support groups doing and being Transition, you can find them online here. In this Launch Guide we will share with you key tools and techniques that will help you build the power and skills you need to transition your local community towards a more sustainable and socially just future. Think of this as your Transition Starter Pack. Take it, run with it, do amazing things. WELCOME / 03

This booklet is designed to be used alongside our one day Launch training, this is the best way to learn and engage with this content. You can find the next Launch training date here. However, it can also be used offline, by your group to guide you through the process of starting up. We recommend you put aside a couple of days of your time to work through it as a group collectively. The guide is designed to be as interactive and participatory as possible and is full of prompts, questions and practical exercises. Some of the exercises will need to be lightly facilitated, so if you have someone in your group that knows how to facilitate, that will help as you move through. • Understand what makes the Transition movement and groups unique • Develop your own vision of how your group can contribute to creating change in your local community • Understand the practical tools and techniques needed to build a successful local Transition group and start organising on the ground • Understand the relationship between inner and outer change • Learn some techniques to build personal and collective resilience • Understand how power and privilege is embedded within all the work we do • Create a practical plan for how to move forward and get started Using this booklet This booklet will enable you to: WELCOME / 04

• 2 truths 1 lie: this is a quick and fun way to learn some trivia about other people. Each person in turn shares two true things and one lie about themselves - this could be about anything from family, work, hobbies, silly experiences, likes, dislikes and more. Everyone else must then guess which of the three facts is a lie. This way you learn a few fun facts about people and how good their imagination is! • Find an item in the room that means something to you (if at home) or represents how you are feeling (if in a shared room) and share with the group. This is a nice warm up which allows people to check in or share a little about themselves in a creative way. • Share something you love about your local area. As we are coming together to work out how we can collectively transform our local area, a good place to start is to focus on why we are all in the room, what makes our area special and worth putting energy into. • Count to 10 as a group. An upbeat icebreaker, either standing or seated in any format within the room you must collectively count to 10. The catch? Only one person can say a number at a time or you have to start again. No eye contact or planning required either. Repeat until you successfully reach 10 and watch the relief pour over everyone. • Spectrum lines. This activity requires people to move around. Draw an imaginary line from one side of the room to another. People organise themselves or stand on a specific end of the scale based on these questions. - Who has lived in your town the longest? - Map where you live in relation to the centre - How long have you been involved in Transition? - Who has been involved in a community project before? Or choose one of your own favourite ice breakers! Exercises: Getting to know each other Relationships, connection and common purpose are the threads that bind a group together. We recommend you begin your journey as a group by getting to know each other, your stories and what has motivated you to join or set up a Transition group and work to create positive change in the world. You can choose some of the exercises below or use some you already know. Getting to know each other WELCOME / 05

Introduction to transition Transition is an international movement of communities coming together to reimagine and rebuild our world. Since 2005, thousands of groups have emerged in villages, cities, universities and schools in more than 50 countries across the world. Transition is about people taking practical action together in their local area to address the big challenges we face. In practice, groups are setting up renewable energy projects, re-localising food systems, sparking entrepreneurship, rewilding cities, creating important community spaces and weaving webs of connection and support. Transitioners dream of a world where we live in thriving, equal, connected, democratic, sustainable and nourishing communities and cities. About Transition Exercise: What words do you associate with Transition / or want to be associated with your Transition group? (5 mins) INTRODUCTION / 06

There is no blueprint for how to do Transition, but there is a set of Transition Principles that guide groups and individuals within their work. As part of setting up your new group, we encourage you to consider and explore these principles to ensure the Transition movement is the right fit for you and the hopes and aims of your community group. • Respect resource limits and create resilience • Promote inclusivity and social justice • Freely share ideas • Pay attention to balance • Decentralise power • Experiment and encourage learning • Collaborate and look for synergies • Use our head, heart and hands to build change • Foster positive visioning and creativity Transition Principles Exercise: (15 mins) • Write down the Transition principles on a whiteboard or flip chart paper • If you are working online with your group you can try using a jamboard • Invite people to mark using pens, post it notes or small stickers which principles resonate with them most • Identify the ones with the most votes and encourage members of the group to share why these principles are important to them • Discuss briefly how those that are important to you might shape your group as you move forwards INTRODUCTION / 07

Global COntext You don’t need to know everything or grasp every global issue to be able to get started or act locally. But sharing what we do know collectively is a good starting point for understanding the context for change we are acting in. This section will help you to consider ‘ What Is’ before we move into dreaming about how we would like the future to look, and the steps we might take to get there. Transition groups are holistic in nature, and seek to explore and understand our local community, broader context and how different issues are interconnected, before taking action. Understanding this enables us to make smarter decisions about where to put our energy and on what specific issues to focus. Exercise: What Is - The Big Picture (20 mins) • In your group collectively map the global context in which we are living • Brainstorm all the different elements you can think of: for example climate change, cost of living crisis, food insecurity etc • Discuss the relationship between these different parts of the picture. How do they interact with and affect each other? You can see an example of what this might look like in the systems thinking image on the next page • Once you have done this, take a moment collectively to pause and take some deep breaths. It can be quite overwhelming to look at the big picture and take it in, so try to hold yourselves gently in this. Take a moment to do a check in and share any emotions this process may have brought up GLOBAL CONTEXT / 08

Systems thinking is a way of making sense of the complexity of the world by looking at it as a whole and in terms of relationships and connections rather than by splitting it down into parts. This helps us see that when we make change in any part of the system, it will impact another part. GLOBAL CONTEXT / 09 Systems Thinking

Vision Now we know the reality in which we are acting, the next step is to collectively imagine the future your group wants to see. You can only build something if you can imagine it first. Finding ways to tap into our collective shared visions for the future is a key part of involving everyone and being ambitious in our actions. One of the most precious things Transition groups can do is to facilitate ‘What If’ spaces in their communities- spaces where, with a clear understanding of the present challenges, people are supported to dream big and to speak about the future for which they truly long. When we do that, we often find we have a lot more in common than we might have realised. This visioning process will support you to fire up the collective imagination of your group and come up with a vision for your group, community or the area of focus that you want to work on. It will help sustain you during difficult times, act as a guiding star of what you want to move towards and unleash collective creativity and hope. We recommend you do this first in your group, however it is a process that can also be repeated at a bigger scale with your wider community. If you would like to delve deeper into visioning, generate specific What If? Questions or do a visioning process with your wider community please check out our detailed Visioning Guide here. VISION / 10

Exercise 1: Use your Time Machine to travel forward 10 years (20 mins) Aim: To use your collective imaginations to bring to life the future that may yet be possible. Mindset: • It is fine for there to be multiple visions, they can potentially co-exist with each other. • We need to cultivate, in our groups, a culture of ‘Yes, And’ rather than ‘Yes, But’. • Seek out the ways that different visions could complement each other. Steps: 1. Choose a person in your group to read out the text below and help the group time travel to the future. Invite the whole group to get comfortable, ask them to close their eyes, and to take a breath. Then read out the following, or something similar: “In a moment we are going to take a journey through time. This is a historic moment, the first time in [insert name of your community] that an act of collective time travel has been attempted. I have with me here my Time Machine built during lockdown from bits I had at home and using plans I found online. When I turn it on, we are going to travel forward 10 years. The times we travel through, were the times of the most profound and remarkable transition in human history. Change that previously felt unimaginable built and built in positive and accelerating cascades. Institutions that felt so permanent crumbled and fell, and new, infinitely better ones bloomed in their place. Those 10 years were the most thrilling time to be alive. They are times that those who came afterwards told great stories about and sang great songs about. I am turning this Time Machine on and we are travelling forwards together. Let’s step out, emerging blinking into this new world. It’s not a Utopia, but it is the result of everything that could possibly have been done being done. Take a walk around it in your imagination using all your senses.” 2. You then ‘turn on’ your Time Machine and leave people sitting in silence for 3 minutes to explore the future apart from an occasional prompt, with long pauses between, such as. • What do you see as you walk around? • What sounds do you hear? • What does it smell like, feel like, taste like? • What are people doing for work and leisure? 3. In pairs share what you saw, experienced and felt in your imagined future (5 mins) 4. Come back together and share as a whole group (10 mins) VISION / 11

Exercise 2: Creating & Clarifying Group Vision (30 mins) Use these thoughts and ideas as well as the broader Transition values and principles we explored previously to create or check in with your shared group vision. Developing a new collective vision: • Use a flip chart paper or a jamboard to write down key words from the time machine exercise that could form the basis of a visioning statement • What kind of future would you like to see? What values and ways of being underpin it? • Is it a vision for the whole town/ city/ institution you are in or a specific project? • Spend some time writing/ creating a draft vision statement for the group that can be worked upon and refined. This could be two lines or a page, create something that is useful for your group and context, that you can refer back to when needed Revising Current Vision: • Take a moment to read your current vision statement • Following the previous visioning exercise and/ or time and experience since you first created it, take a moment to reflect and share if this vision still rings true and is motivating for your group? • What do you like about it? What changes might you make? What is missing? • Choose some members of your group to go away and revise your vision statement and then bring back and share with the group for agreement VISION / 12

BUILDING ALTERNATIVES AND PEOPLE POWER / 13 Building Alternatives & people power Now you have a clear vision of the future you want to see, the next step is to explore how you are going to get there. Transition is powerful because our network finds and builds community based solutions at the local level to some of the biggest issues we face. To do this we need to develop strong relationships within our communities, identify the strategic issues we want to work on and engage a broad range of people in our projects. Other parts of the social justice and climate movement focus on pressuring or persuading people in power to give them what they want. Transition takes a different approach. We use organising to build people powered alternatives, resilience and the capacity to resist the current systems of oppression. Community organising is a process by which a group of people who live in a specific area or are part of another shared community, identity or workplace come together around a common issue to take collective action to change things. They do this by building people power in order to transform local and national power structures so people have more agency to shape and direct their lives. One of the unique things about Transition groups is that they don’t just say what should happen, but are proactive in bringing it about. Sometimes this means running a campaign and sometimes it means setting up a project that directly empowers the community to take control of their lives and live differently. Often Transition groups do both, and what works in each local context will vary. For example Transition group Portland 4 the Planet have been involved in a campaign against a new waste incinerator on the island, but they’ve also taken practical action to help people reduce waste and consumption by organising clothes and toy swaps and setting up a community fridge, removing the need for a waste incinerator. What is organising? Organising for Transition

BUILDING ALTERNATIVES AND PEOPLE POWER / 14 The most important word in organising is POWER. Our definition: “Power is the ability to act” In organising we relate to two types of power. Dominant power is power over people. This is when a person, institution, government or business exerts power over others through things such as laws or pay. Relational Power is power with. This happens when people come together as equals to work towards a common aim. This might happen in unions, organisations or communities through the methods we share in this booklet. People Power Exercise: On your own or in pairs write down your definition of power Exercise: ( In pairs - 2 mins each way) How do you feel about having power? Is there a time in your life when you have experienced either dominant or relational power?

Transition uses collective power to build alternatives that support communities to live more thriving, connected and sustainable lives. But what kind of future are Transition groups creating? Here are three examples to get you inspired! Transition Town Lewes members formed a community energy company OVESCO back in 2007. It’s first project was installing 545 solar panels on the roof of the local Harveys Brewery. Since then, they have put up 9 solar installations on schools and other local sites, generating 300,000 KWh of electricity each year. They’ve raised £600,000 in local investment in renewables and are saving hundreds of tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. OVESCO has worked to share their learning with 20 neighbouring communities through a mentoring scheme. They also offer energy saving advice, warm home packs and are exploring what it would take to get a whole rural village of fossil fuels, slashing bills in the process. Building Alternatives BUILDING ALTERNATIVES AND PEOPLE POWER / 15 Community Energy - Transition Lewes

BUILDING ALTERNATIVES AND PEOPLE POWER / 16 Growing local food - Southall Urban Orchards Southall Transition wanted to reconnect the local community with food and make ‘Grow Your Own’ accessible to more people. They started in 2017 with a roadside ‘incredible edible’ bed, inspired by other communities where fruit, veg and herbs were grown in public space for anyone to harvest. Next the group planted a network of five urban orchards in green spaces around the area. Their planting days drew many volunteers and became celebrations of community action. Another raised veg bed was built in 2021, right outside a local nursery and children’s centre thanks to funding from Transition Together seed funding. Now they are working with the council and local partners to transform a disused allotment site so it can produce food and share gardening skills once more. Re imagining community space - Transition New Mills When the town’s heritage centre was faced with closure, Transition New Mills took over the lease with a vision to “work with our community to create a space where we can share local knowledge and adapt to global challenges together”. After just a few months, the building hosts a pop up café, exhibition space, a library of things and lots of regular and one-off events, from storytelling for the solstice to regular crafting groups to a milling day. It’s being made available as a warm welcoming space through winter, and they’ve invited local groups to use the space too, including youth projects and a bike repair service. Throughout they’ve invited the community in to share their ideas for the space, so Rock Mill Lane Centre can become a hive of community activity, as well as a hub for climate action.

UNDERSTANDING LOCAL CONTEXT / 17 Understanding Local Context So you want to set up a group that is going to shake things up in your community… The first thing you need is PEOPLE. In many social movements, including Transition, involvement is often only possible for those with a certain amount of money, politics, class. Sometimes this reflects the people who initially set up the group. Part of today’s session is about how we intentionally build our groups and projects so they meet the needs of and are accessible to the whole community, not just a few. Here we share a number of tools that will help you explore and understand your wider community, the varied needs and issues within it, and connect and listen to the different people that are part of it. Mapping is a method that organisers use to build an understanding of the community we live and organise within. It allows us to understand the issues our community faces and the people we can bring together to build power and alternatives. Before we make a decision about what to work on in a new area or a community we know well, or develop an idea we already have, we need to build a community map. Below is an example of what might be included in a community map. Community Mapping

• You can organise this information in whatever way you find best for your group: mind maps on flip chart paper, lists on paper, spreadsheets on excel • To gather the information you will need to do both online research and speak to people. This means starting by googling community groups, news and activities in your local area and scrolling through facebook groups and other social media to find out what is going on, with who, where. Secondly you will need to speak to local people including community groups, community leaders, new and old residents and neighbours about what they know and who they know. We will talk about this more in the next session on 121s • Remember community mapping is an ongoing process and you will continually add to and build your map throughout your time as a group How do you map? Exercise: Start Your Community Map (1 hour) Implementation Plan & Next Steps: 1. Map the people you already know who you think might be interested in your Transition Group. This might be people already working on building alternatives within the community, friends or neighbours. 2. Map the people in the community you would like to get involved in your Transition group. This might be people who care about a specific issue such as climate change, a specific demographic such as young people, people living on a certain estate or set of streets, people impacted by a specific issue such as housing problems or access to mental health services. Think about in which organisations, institutions and spaces you might find these people. Key Questions to reflect on as a group: • Can you name these individuals and do you have their contact details? • Does who you do and do not know tell you anything about your group? • How might you go about building closer relationships with those you do know and getting them involved? • How might you get to know the people that you don’t already know? UNDERSTANDING LOCAL CONTEXT / 18 Continue mapping specific areas either collectively or individually so that you have a list of people you want to engage with.

Engaging the wider community Self interest is simply what is important to someone. Instead of approaching someone to get involved in the thing you want them involved in, for the reasons you want them involved in it, you need to take the time to understand what is important to that person. Then you can see if that aligns with your self-interest (or the interests of your group/ project) and either frame what you are doing through the lens they use or see if you can modify what you are doing to include their self-interest. Either way you are looking for a mutual interest - i.e. where your self-interest overlaps. Everyone has ‘self interests’ in common - which are normal, healthy, and almost universal. These include: Self Interest Self preservation - the need for food/drink/sleep/recreation/ touch/affection/security/safety Key institutions Key relationships Key patterns or habits Central drivers to ambitions Telling moments or stories that help define this person Hobbies or special interests outside of work and family Intellectual, values, politics, ideology Worst fears or anxieties How the person spends time, energy and money ENGAGING THE WIDER COMMUNITY / 19 Now you have made a map of the people, projects and organisations that you already know in your area, as well as identifying the gaps and people you may not know and want to understand better or build relationships with. We are going to share two tools, Listening Campaigns and 121s that will help you reach beyond the usual suspects. When connecting with new people that might have different values, priorities and life experiences to you, its useful to understand the concept of self interest.

ENGAGING THE WIDER COMMUNITY / 20 When people are deciding whether to give their energy and time to a project they are normally thinking about these aspects of their self interest: Belonging - is this a group of people they want to spend time with, do they feel comfortable, at home and safe there. Is there a shared interest that makes them feel supported? Mastery - will being involved in this group allow them to do the things they love and are good at as well as learn new things and grow? Recognition - will being involved in this group mean they are seen and appreciated by others in the group and recognised for their role within the wider community? Meaning - will being involved give meaning in their life, meet their goals based on their values and ideology and make them feel like they are really making a difference? Exercise: Stick Person - What is my self interest? (10 mins) Take 5 minutes on your own to draw a stick person and around the edge write the different things that make up your self interest including the things and issues that matter to you and motivate you to engage in creating social change. Then in pairs take 2 minutes each to share: • What did you learn, notice, reflect on? • How does this fit into your involvement in Transition?

To embed your Transition group in your local community, it’s useful to really listen to and understand different peoples views. You can use a listening campaign to help you identify what key issues your group should be focusing on. Or if you have chosen an issue already, it can help you deepen your understanding of how people in your community relate to or are being impacted by that issue. Your group will be more successful and effective in making change if you’ve listened to a wider range of people, and more voices are included in designing solutions. It can also help you bring new people on board. Listening Campaigns • Build relationships with the people affected in order to build power • Identify peoples’ issues and understand the issue more deeply • Start to discern the action we could take collectively Two approaches: 1. Talk to a broad range of people with open questions in order to help you pick your issue. For example: what are the top three issues affecting your life? What one thing would improve your local area? 2. Talk to specific groups of people about a specific issue. For example: Are you affected by this issue? How does this issue affect you? What do you think the solution is? Do you know anyone else we should speak to? Would you take action on this issue if we called a meeting? There are different ways to listen to people, here are some: • Door knocking - knock on the doors of people in a specific area to talk to them directly • Phone banking - if you have phone numbers of people who have been involved before, or who are involved in another organisation, give them a call to have a chat • 121s - we will discuss in detail below but this is about having 121 coffees with people to share experiences and find commonality • Street stalls - set up in a busy area locally such as outside a shopping centre or train station and ask people for a minute of their time for a discussion. It can be good to do a survey or visual activity such as getting people to vote using stickers • Online - ask people questions in local facebook groups or forums • Listening Meetings - invite people to come together for a coffee morning or afternoon tea to share their experiences or thoughts • Attending existing events - arrange to go along to existing events to speak to people, have a stall or run a section of their event, or just to listen • Get Creative - think outside the box about how you might engage your community - giving out ice cream with a survey on a hot day, dropping off seeds to your neighbours while you ask them a question Why do we do it? LISTENING CAMPAIGNS / 21

Exercise: Practise Listening Campaign conversations (In pairs for 15 mins) Talking to people you don’t know can be deeply energising and rewarding, however it can also feel a bit daunting, so it’s helpful to clarify in your group what kind of questions you might want to ask and to practise on each other before going out and about. Based on the group of people you identified from mapping: • What do we want to know? • What questions do we want to ask? You will usually only have time for a couple of questions so pick a few that will give you a range of helpful information. For example an open question and a specific question that allows you to narrow down a focus. You may also want to start with something lighter and less intrusive to open the conversation, before delving into a deeper question. We want people to be excited about engaging in our project so make sure to include both negative and positive framing. For example you might start with “what one thing would most improve your family’s life or the local area” followed by “what is the biggest strain on you/your family’s life right now?” How to have the conversation: • Introduce yourself with a name and that you are a neighbour or live in the local area • Ask them how they are and if they have one minute to answer questions • Pick one key question if they say they only have a second • Listen and don’t change the subject if there is something specific they want to talk about • Next steps: after a good conversation make sure you offer a next step - getting their email/phone number or inviting them to a meeting Practise a few conversations in pairs. Implementation Plan & Next Steps: Arranging your first Listening Campaign Once you have decided who you want to map / what issue you want to work on and have practised listening campaign conversations, it’s time to decide which one of the listening campaigns options from above (e.g.- door knocking or a stall) you want to try. As a group, agree a time and date for your first listening campaign and plan what you need to do to be ready - this might include writing a short survey or printing some materials. Make sure you have a group of you and buddy up for initial conversations as it is much easier and more enjoyable to do this with others. We don’t recommend doing it alone unless you have done it before. LISTENING CAMPAIGNS / 22

You will do a 121 with people in your local community who you have identified would be interesting or helpful to build a relationship with from your Community Mapping or Listening Campaigns. They might be a local teacher, resident, land owner, fellow neighbour, and talking to them could lead to taking action together. Reach out and ask if they would like to meet for a coffee / chat to get to know each other a bit better (Note: you do not call this a 121 externally) The 3 Elements of a good 121: 1. Self disclosure: offering a sincere insight into your own motivations, experiences and values. Maybe a short story of a moment in your life that moulded you into where you are today. Many of us do this naturally anyway when relating to people – here we are just being intentional about making sure an opportunity occurs. 2. Enquiry: gentle curiosity about the motivations and interests of the other person. Discovery of shared interest or purpose: deliberately noticing the things you may have in common, both in experiences/values and in your ‘work’, whatever form that takes. 3. Discovery of shared interest or purpose: deliberately noticing the things you may have in common, both in experiences/values and in your ‘work’, whatever form that takes. This often leads to the opportunity to plan a next step or make an ask – but doesn’t always have to. Exercise: Practise 121s ( In pairs / 45 mins ) Implementation / Next Steps: 10 mins: One of the keys to a good 121 is preparation. Before going into a conversation take five minutes to write down a few things: • What do you know about the person you are meeting? Do you know anything about their self interest? • What is your self interest going into the conversation? • What might make someone indifferent to being involved in your group, campaign or project? • What emotions or values are important to your group, campaign or project? • What stories of anger and hope can you tell about the issue you will be working on? 30 mins: Practise having a 121 with someone in the room. This is a real conversation about how you might work together and allows you to get to know someone in your group better. 5 mins: Feedback on 121s • What went well? What did not go well? How did it feel? • Main reflections? • Any relationships made? Anything to work together on or build? • Go back to your community map • Each identify 3 people you want to have 121s with in the next couple of weeks • Book them in! 121S / 23 121s

Building Healthy Groups One of the most important factors determining whether a Transition group will thrive is the health, structure and relationships within the group itself. In this section we will be exploring how to create and maintain healthy groups. At Transition we care as much about how we do things as what we do. We try to foster groups that have trusting, caring and compassionate relationships; make decisions inclusively and effectively; run nourishing and successful meetings and events; avoid burnout; navigate conflict well and maintain members in the longer term. We strive to embody the change we want to see in the way we work and organise with each other, to foster an inner as well as the outer transition. If you set up clear group structures in the beginning then your group is much more likely to be effective and sustainable. This is not the end though, as your group develops you also need to tend to its needs to keep it healthy and productive, particularly when new people get involved and you develop new projects. At a minimum, it is great to: • Have an understanding of how groups develop • Decide how to make decisions • Know how to run successful meetings • Record action points and carry out tasks • Encourage people to stay in your group • Understand how to deal with conflict We will cover the basics of this in this guide, however if you would like more detailed resources on any area please go to the ‘Healthy Groups’ section of the Transition Network website. BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 24

The concept of Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Mourning describes the five stages of psychological development a group goes through as they work on a project. Groups move through each stage as they overcome challenges, learn to work together and eventually focus on accomplishing a shared goal. How groups develop BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 25 Exercise: Take a moment to reflect in your group on what stage of the cycle your group is at? Maybe you are just starting out? Or are you already forming and storming?

BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 26 One of Transition Network’s core principles is decentralisation and therefore we encourage group structures that are collaborative, democratic and distribute leadership and responsibility. Working in this way not only leads to higher levels of engagement and commitment from the whole group, but it is often a more effective way of getting things done. In the dot structure you have one key leader or organiser who is the person who is responsible at the centre. The arrows are all the people in the team who want to be involved. In this centralised model only the leader knows what’s going on, and is able to make decisions or push projects forward. The dot will burn out quickly because they have too much responsibility and if the dot isn’t there nobody knows the plan or has the power to enact it. People drop out with frustration as they don’t think they are being effective and their ideas are not heard. Dot Structure Snowflake Structure Snowflake structures centre trust and leadership development across the group. They distribute tasks and responsibilities in relation to skill, capacity or working group/ topic area. The group takes the time to understand what skills people have, what they want to learn and what they are passionate about and therefore gives people the opportunity to participate in the way that suits them. The dots in the middle still help lead and make decisions but this team operates in both directions with people having different decision-making power and responsibilities. We want to build and develop leadership teams that are capable of expanding quickly and doing multiple projects at once. Group Structure Dot Vs Snowflake Structure

We cannot build a team without a clear purpose. A team must be clear on what it has been created to do (purpose) and who we will be doing it with (community). Your purpose should be significant to the people in your group and easy to understand for new people coming in. If not everyone in your group can clearly explain their purpose then it is not shared. You’ve already worked on a shared vision - an overarching picture of where you want to get to. This exercise builds on that by clarifying the aim and focus of your group, the role it will play in achieving that bigger vision. For example your vision might be “Thriving local food production where people can get the majority of what they eat from within 20 miles” The purpose of your group might be: “To work with our local community to set up 5 sustainable local food projects and build trading relationships between them” Shared Purpose BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 27 Exercise: Draft Purpose statement (Whole group / 30 mins - 1 hour) Aim: Come up with some two-three line sentences that outline your purpose as a group. Steps: 1. Take some time on your own to brainstorm and write down some ideas 2. In pairs share the ideas you have drafted, give feedback, edit and bounce ideas around 3. Add the draft sentences from your pairs onto a whiteboard, flip chart paper, or a jamboard 4. Ask people to read some out, then discuss as a group the commonality and divergences, which ones you like, don’t like, are there any clear options that stand out? 5. Either try and collectively come to agreement on your purpose statement, or task one or two people to write a final draft to share with the team at your next meeting Now we are going to explore some of the practicalities of running your group effectively. Everyone should have a clear understanding of how the group operates, how you will run meetings, communicate and make decisions. Groups with explicit operating rules are more likely to achieve their goals. Making norms clear allows your group to have open discussions about how things are going, avoid misunderstandings and conflicts and hold people to account when things go wrong. Running a group - The Basics Exercise: Group Culture: (15 mins) • On post it notes write what words do we want people to use to describe our group? • How do we want to describe the culture of our group? • How do we want to describe the meetings of our group?

Meetings are crucial to the effective running of a group. They are the time that a group spends together where important decisions are made. However lots of groups spend more time meeting than doing much else! The trick is learning when you do and don’t need to call a meeting and how to make them engaging and enjoyable for participants. Meetings Exercise: What makes a good meeting? (20 mins) In your group discuss and reflect on the following questions: • Has anyone ever stopped being part of something because of bad meetings? Why were they bad? • Anyone ever participated in some good meetings? • Brainstorm - what do people think we need for successful meetings? Here are a few things that can support a successful meeting: • Have a clear agenda • Have a good facilitator • Make sure people know how the meeting works • Agree roles for the meeting like a facilitator; keeper of the time; keeper of the record (notes); keeper of the heart (aware of emotions & energy levels, need for a break or a time out) • Allow space to welcome new people • Give people time to check in and centre themselves • Encourage everyone to participate • Don’t let the same people take on all the work • Provide different ways people can engage • Share resources beforehand • Make sure you have the people needed to make decisions in the room • Create space for collective joy and celebration of what you have done so far • Allow space for reflection Running Successful Meetings (Detailed guide here) BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 28

Exercise: Draft Purpose statement (30 mins - 1 hour) As a new group you may want to agree to some ground rules in order to make sure everyone is on the same page. In your group brainstorm and agree some key rules or guidelines that will form the basis of a group agreement and how you might want to act an engage with each other during meetings Here are some examples that could be helpful for your group: • Step back step forwards, listen 70%, contribute 30% • Gender-balanced participation • Keeping contributions to under 2 mins • Respect and take people at their best • Make sure everyone is able to contribute More talkative people: show a little restraint Quieter people: your contributions are very welcome • Only one person speaks at a time Put up your hand if you want to speak and wait for your turn. • Respect each others’ opinions even / especially if you don’t agree with them • Participate! • Confidentiality - some things shouldn’t be repeated outside of this meeting. • Be conscious of time - help stick to it, or negotiate for more • Mobile phones off to minimise disruptions • Regular breaks Choose, reject, discuss and add your own! BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 29

One of the most crucial roles in a meeting is the facilitator. It’s important to understand the facilitator is not the boss, but the caretaker of the space and there to ensure the meeting runs smoothly and everyone is able to participate. A facilitator is a person who holds the energy and focus of the room. Imagine a balloon floating around the room that represents the energy. If the balloon gets below hip-height it is your responsibility to raise it. To do this effectively, a good facilitator is flexible and ready to mix up conversations and activities or move people around in order to change the atmosphere in a room. You are also responsible for providing all the information participants need in order to have a productive session and to be aware of dynamics in the group - this means preparation is key! Facilitation Exercise: What makes a good facilitator? (10 mins) • In your group discuss, brainstorm and share - what do you think makes a good facilitator? • Identify whether you have any people with facilitation experience in your group? If yes, perhaps they can support and train others. If not - you may want to support some members of your group to go on an in depth facilitation training with a training organisation such as Navigate. Or request training from Transition Together, SCCAN or the national Transition hub in your country Exercise: Facilitation Practice (15 - 20 mins) Split into groups of 3 people. You are now each going to get a chance to practise facilitation using the following hypothetical scenario “You are running a meeting of your local transition group discussing whether or not the group should campaign on rising energy bills” There is a facilitator, someone who is loud and interrupts and talks a lot, and then a quiet, more shy person. It is the job of the facilitator to help the conversation run more smoothly and ensure everyone’s voice is heard. Choose a person to take on each of these roles: • Character 1: facilitator • Character 2: Interrupter/difficult person • Character 3: quiet person trying to explain a good idea Give yourselves 5 minutes in each role, and then rotate, giving each person the chance to practise facilitating a small group discussion and to try some techniques to stop the more chatting person dominating and enable others in the group to participate. BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 30

It is important to agree as a group early on how you will make decisions, as this makes your group accountable and transparent. Different cultures have different forms of decision making. It is important to use the right decision-making process for the type of decision you are making, for example you probably don’t need a unanimous vote to set the date of the next meeting, when spontaneous agreement will achieve that fine, alternatively wouldn’t want to use spontaneous agreement for major decisions affecting your group. Decision-Making Sometimes it can be more important to consider who makes the decision rather than the decision-making process. • If you have a person in the group who has a lot of knowledge around the subject of the decision then it may be better to ask them to come up with a proposal to the group, or give them the power to make the decision • Sub-groups can also be set up to decide on issues around a specific topic. There is an element of trust to this process • Some groups have a rule that major decisions can only be made if a certain number of people are present Who makes the decision? BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 31

Spontaneous Agreement This is a quick way of getting minor decisions made and it is something that we all regularly use without even thinking about it. It is where a solution is favoured by everyone and agreement seems to happen automatically. Good for: Small issues such as deciding when to have a break in the meeting, setting meeting dates and so on. It is not a good decision making process if a discussion is needed. Majority Voting One or more proposals are put to the meeting, with time for questions and discussion. Voting is a simple process where people vote for the option they most prefer, or vote for or against (or abstain). This can be a show of hands or secret ballot. Good for: When there are two distinct options and one or the other must be chosen, when a decision must be made quickly. Can also be used if consensus cannot be reached. It’s not good if those who “lost” the vote will be genuinely badly affected by the outcome, if this is the case then it may be better to carry out a consensus or consent decision making process. Consensus or Consent decision making Both these styles of decision making aim to get either full agreement (consensus) or consent from the whole group in order to make or proceed with a decision or proposal. Ideally you need a facilitator who understands the process well and it can help to practise it as a group so everyone understands it. More info on the difference between Consent & Consensus and how to do these decision making processes here. Good for: Making decisions that will impact the entire team and when it is really important that people are supportive of the decision, especially when their effort will be needed to make that decision happen. As it can be a lengthy process, it should be used for major decisions that justify it. BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 32 There are lots of ways to make decisions and these are the ones that we know Transition groups have used effectively. We hope they can help your group to function well, feel free to use other forms of decision making if they are more appropriate. The most important thing is to have agreement about how decisions will be made so everyone feels heard and trusts the process. Types of Decision Making

Exercise: (30 - 40 mins) • Take some time individually to read through the different decision-making styles • Make space for people to ask any clarifying questions, so you all understand and are on the same page about what the different options are, or to add any you think might be missing • Make a list of the different types of decisions your group might need to make (Eg - date of next meeting, what project you decided to work on next, a plan for engaging your local council) • Be clear who might be involved in making different decisions (Eg - there might decisions that can be made by individuals and others that need to be made as a group) • Decide what decision-making styles you would like to use as a group • Make sure this is clearly articulated and written down There is a full guide to support you in this process here. Here is a checklist of the things it’s good to have in place as your group gets off the ground. Use and come back to this checklist to keep track of how you are progressing. Please tick. Our group has clear and agreed shared purpose Our group gets things done Members are clear about their responsibilities and roles We have an agreed code of conduct (working principles or ways of working) We have clear and agreed processes for making, recording and following up on decisions We have effective meetings with a clear agenda, discussion and minutes We spend time in our meetings reflecting on how we work together We have thought about how our meetings are facilitated or chaired We have discussed and come to agreement about how power and leadership work in our group There are processes for new people to join, and existing members to leave When differences or conflict have arisen we have handled it well Healthy Group Checklist BUILDING HEALTHY GROUPS / 33

Inner Transition When we consider the scale of the challenges we currently face, the importance of including inner emotional and psychological dimensions in the work we are doing is becoming clearer and clearer. This both supports the effectiveness of our work and it resources us to meet the feelings and sense of helplessness that can go hand in hand with the reality of what is unfolding in our world today. If we accept that the outer world is influenced by our diverse and respective world-views, then it follows that we cannot create a truly different external world without getting to know and making changes within our inner landscape. If we understand that our inner and outer worlds impact each other, making an outer systemic change must also involve some kind of inner shift. We often find that the most thriving Transition groups are paying as much attention to their culture, processes and relationships as they are to their practical projects, activities and outputs. And we know that individuals and groups risk burn-out or collapse if they don’t balance action, decision-making and activity with rest, reflection, connection and celebration. Inner Transition is about connection – with ourselves, each other and the natural world. It’s about creating healthy cultures at all levels: personally, as a group, within our communities, movements, world and ecosystems. There is a rich and developing body of knowledge about what we call Inner Transition which can help individuals and groups to look after themselves well and to be much more effective catalysts for change. In this booklet we share a couple of exercises to support you to explore Inner Transition personally and within your group. Should you wish to explore further you can find a whole library of resources on the Transition Network website here. INNER TRANSITION / 34

Resilience is the ability to cope with difficult situations or adversity, and to regain balance afterward. Navigating and experiencing challenges is part of life. However, how you respond to and deal with those challenges can be hugely impacted by your personal resilience and the support systems around you. Feeling resilient means that you are able to cope with and even sometimes positively transform the challenges that come your way. Experiencing challenges when we don’t feel resilient can lead to breakdown and a deepening of problems in our lives. One way to think about resilience is to imagine that each person has an inner ‘container’ for personal energy. Like a rechargeable battery or a fuel tank, these containers hold various inner resources – physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual - that supply an individual with energy. Individuals naturally use their personal energy for daily activities, with some activities using more than others. Wellbeing relies on these containers having enough inner resources to continue supplying energy. Resilience and self-care meet when people become aware of re-filling these containers before they become empty, and learn to make choices that support their wellbeing. Containers full of inner resources are an indicator of an individual’s wellbeing. The size of the container may vary; so some individuals may need to re-fill their containers more often than others. Personal Resilience Exercise: Your Inner Tank (15 mins) This exercise will help you understand what your personal resilience needs and capacities might look like. It is an individual exercise • Start by drawing your inner tank on a piece of paper - it can be whatever shape or size you want - feel free to get creative • Identify how you know when your tank is becoming empty. What are the warning and alert signs? Eg- irritability, tiredness, headaches. Draw these around the outside of the tank with warning sign symbols • Identify what fills up your tank and makes you feel nourished and energised. Eg: exercise, a delicious meal, time in nature, time with friends. Write them inside your tank. You can put as many there as you want, and perhaps underline some of the ones you know really work consistently for you • Identify some of the barriers that might stop you from being able to take these acts of selfcare that refill your tank. Eg: childcare responsibilities, money, struggle to say no. List these somewhere else on your sheet of paper. This might be something that can look quite different across members of your group - depending on people’s class, race, gender or economic reality. We will explore how we can support each other to overcome these barriers in a later exercise INNER TRANSITION / 35

One of the key ways to build personal resilience is by making time to connect. Time to connect with ourselves, with each other and with nature. The short exercises below support you to do that. You can use them anytime, alone or in your group if you need a moment of connection or grounding. These are offerings and may not work for everyone, there may be other ways to ground and connect that work better for your body, group or context. Additional Exercises: Time to Connect Connect with Yourself (10 minutes) • Practices such as meditation, a body scan or deep relaxation can be an easy and free way to help you connect to yourself, your body, your emotions and how you are really doing in this day or moment • Put a short period of time aside, anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes • Listen to an audio guided practice. There are many different apps and YouTube videos you can find online. However two we would recommend as they are both free and accessible are Plum Village Meditation App and Sharpham Trust Connect with Each Other (10 mins) Connecting with our purpose and what motivates us to take action and do this work can be helpful at times when things might feel difficult. It can reconnect us to our shared purpose, each other and sometimes enable us to channel and transform different emotions. • Turn off any phones/notifications and minimise distractions to create a container for connection • In pairs take five minutes each to share what motivates you to do this work and be involved in Transition and some of the things you might have been finding challenging recently • If you are in the listening role, your job is to just listen, not to ask questions or give feedback. Switch after the first person has shared • Finish by thanking each other for the sharing and listening INNER TRANSITION / 36 Connect with Nature: Gratitude Walk (20 mins) On a walking trail, park or open space, walk at a pace that feels comfortable to you for about 20 minutes. If your mobility is limited you might practise using your senses to tune into nature while sitting on a park bench or using a mobility aid. No matter how you walk or sit, focus your attention on nature and your breathing, and pause along the way to use your senses to tune into the small wonders of nature. An interesting addition to your walk is to create a feeling of gratitude. By focusing your attention on things that fill you with gratitude, you can shift your mind from any negativity or pessimistic thoughts. Here’s some things you could look for on a ‘Gratitude Scavenger Hunt’: • Find something that makes you happy • Find something to give to someone else to make them smile • Find one thing that you love to smell • Find something that is your favourite colour • Find something you are thankful for in nature

Power & Privilege There are individual actions we can take to improve our happiness and wellbeing, and it is important we are aware of them and feel a sense of personal agency. There is also a dominant and problematic narrative in the wellness and self care industry that puts all the responsibility for feeling happy and healthy primarily on the individual. This ignores the bigger reality that there are many things in the world and our economy that are leading us to be unhealthy and unhappy (e.g. - insecure work or housing) and that people might experience different challenges depending on their race, class, gender or sexuality. Transition is about creating collective and community led solutions to the problems that we face, embodying a spirit of solidarity through our actions and knowing that together we are stronger, if we support each other to thrive. As a network we are also committed to prioritising social justice and strive to support Transition groups to create projects and spaces that acknowledge inequality and systems of oppression, proactively seek to rebalance problematic power dynamics and become spaces that are welcoming and inclusive for people with different life experiences. Below we share some key concepts to support you to begin to explore how different systems of oppression and privilege work and the impact they can have on our ability to mobilise and create people-led change. Engaging with this work is a lifelong journey and something that needs much more time and space to explore further, both personally and within your groups. We hope to offer more in depth training in the future, but for now we hope this gives you a good place to start. POWER AND PRIVILEGE / 37

Some people won’t have thought much about how the systems in which we live can be oppressive. For others it is an everyday reality. As part of the transition to a different society we want to build projects, communities and systems that work for everyone, not just some people. To do that it is helpful to gain a better understanding of how the current system in which we live is harming and affecting people in different ways. So what do we mean when we use the term ‘systems of oppression’? This diagram shows the levels at which different forms of oppression based on identities such as race, gender, nationality, sexuality can play out. “Systems of oppression are discriminatory institutions, structures, and cultural norms embedded in the fabric of our society that create identity-based harms, injustices and inequalities. We are all participating in these systems of oppression, whether we are conscious of it or not.” “In its traditional usage, oppression means the exercise of tyranny by a ruling group... In its new usage, oppression designates the disadvantage and injustice some people suffer not because a tyrannical power coerces them, but because of the everyday practices of a well-intentioned liberal society...Oppression in this sense is structural, rather than the result of a few people’s choices or policies. Its causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules.” Iris Marion Young in Justice and the Politics of Difference Systems of Oppression POWER AND PRIVILEGE / 38

Another concept that is useful in helping us understand the different ways people’s lives might be affected by the society and systems in which we live is ‘Intersectionality’. Kimberlé Crenshaw developed the concept of intersectionality to describe how often, oppressions overlap to cause people even more hardship. She was looking at how Black women faced heightened struggles and suffering in American society because they belonged to multiple oppressed social groups. The diagram below shows how different identities and experiences of oppression can overlap. Understanding how systems of oppression and intersectionality work can support us reflect upon the way we might contribute to or be affected by different forms of oppression, and make space for changes to happen both personally or within our groups. It can also support the development of deeper empathy and understanding across diverse and different life experiences. Intersectionality “Intersectionality is a metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and create obstacles that often are not understood among conventional ways of thinking.” -Kimberlé Crenshaw “A person is not, for example, a woman on one hand and disabled on the other; rather she is the combination of these at the same time, that is, a disabled woman. In this example her identity as a woman is shaped by her identity as disabled, and vice versa as the elements of identity are not lived or experienced separately.” -Ashlee Christopherson POWER AND PRIVILEGE / 39

“Privilege is unearned advantages that are accorded to some people and not others. It is the access to benefits and resources that result from membership of certain groups e.g. being white, being born a man, having received a lot of education. These privileges are granted by society. It is often invisible to those who have it, and painfully obvious to those who don’t.” -Navigate Co-operative Finally it can be useful to understand the concept of privilege. Privilege So what is privilege? • Exploring the idea of privilege can sometimes bring up uncomfortable and difficult feelings for those that have privilege, as often it was unseen or unrecognised within them • Robin Di’Angelo coined the phrase ‘white fragility’ to describe the defensive reactions of white people when their ideas about race and racism are challenged. More broadly in relation to all oppressions, we might call it ‘privilege fragility’ • When people recognise that they have privilege, that they are benefiting from the current systems and have responsibility for holding up those systems it can bring a lot of painful responses including; collapse, guilt, shame, silence, anger, defensiveness and denial • Shame and guilt are isolating, individualising emotions that separate us from others and swallow energy needed for the work of transformation. Where shame and guilt arise for those with privilege, these emotions close down the ability to listen to impacts and to take responsibility. People stop learning, and stop working to find out how they can participate in transforming the systems that underpin oppression. It is important to be aware when those emotions arise, to share with others and work to transform them into something positive and motivational. Brené Brown’s talk Listening to shame can help with this Privilege Fragility POWER AND PRIVILEGE / 40

‘To recognize one’s own role in the oppression of others is not about blame but about opening our eyes to see how power works and how we can redirect it so it doesn’t diminish us all.’ Shona Jackson US academic Exercise: Personal Reflection ( 10- 20 mins) • Take a moment to breathe, ground in your body and notice the thoughts, feelings and sensations that come up for you as you read that content • Write/draw your responses to these questions • What does your personal map of oppressions and privileges look like? How do they intersect? (Draw or write it out) • What’s going on in your body as you reflect on this? Is there tightness or contraction, numbness, lethargy, sleepiness, the energy of excitement or something else? • What’s going on in your mind - what thoughts and feelings have arisen in response to what you have heard so far on this theme? What kinds of thoughts are they? Blaming, negative or positive, comparing, self critical, helplessness • What feelings are there? Grief, sadness, anger, anxiety, calm, none • Consider if you want to do any of the practices on page 37 to reconnect and recharge POWER AND PRIVILEGE / 41

Collective Resilience In an earlier exercise you identified what fills up your own battery, this exercise supports you to explore how as a group you can support each other’s batteries to stay full, taking into account all that you have learned about power and privilege. It benefits those who don’t want change to happen if we’re too tired to sustain our action. It is also the biggest barrier to getting things done - people have busy lives, and different challenges or responsibilities that may draw on their time and energy, so we want to create groups and projects that acknowledge people’s various situations and support each other to refill our own batteries. Exercise: The Group Tank (20 minutes) • Go back to look at your personal batteries. In your group, share and write down some of the barriers to personal resilience and self care that people identified. This is an invitation, so only share what you feel comfortable sharing • Take some time to consider if there are any barriers missing? There may be barriers that might not affect the people in the room but could affect other people who might like to get involved such as language or wheelchair access • Once you have a list of the barriers that might stop you or other people being able to look after yourself or participate in the group - discuss what steps you might be able to take in order to collectively help with these needs? (For example the times you meet, the place you meet, the way people can participate and engage) • Obviously you won’t be able to meet all needs or resolve all issues through this group, but it’s good to explore the ways you can support each other to be resourced and to structure your group activity in a way that is supportive of different needs and realities COLLECTIVE RESILIENCE / 42

Taking Action So now your group is ready to get out there and take some action. You have shared your vision for your community, explored your group’s skills and passions, gathered lots of information about your local context and listened to people’s experiences and priorities. You’ve also looked at how it’s important to build resilience and ensure that being involved is rewarding and enjoyable, rather than a burden. As a result of this several possible projects or next steps may have emerged, but taking on too much or spreading a new group too thin is a big risk. So how do you decide what issue or project to work on first? Lots of groups make the mistake of starting off with a project or campaign that is too big, broad or unspecific. While ambitious goals are good, it is not good to get lots of people to put time and energy into something that will not be successful. This often leads to burnout or people dropping out of organising and social justice work all together. So how do we pick projects or campaigns that will be successful? First we need to understand the difference between a problem and an issue: A PROBLEM is a wider overarching thing that we cannot tackle without building LOTS of power or being in government. ISSUES are components of the bigger problem which we can tackle NOW. For example our Transition group might not be able to save the NHS or stop climate change but we can save a local maternity unit or build a local renewable energy company. When we are deciding on a project or campaign it is important to think about these criteria: • Result in a real improvement in people’s lives • Be winnable or achievable • Be widely and deeply felt • Be non-divisive • If a campaign: have a local, nameable individual or institution who has the power to give you what you want • Be consistent with your organisation’s values • Build power and agency for local people Come together and think about what problem your group wants to work on first. From this brainstorm select the issues that you might be able to win or find practical solutions to. Remember more ideas will come along as you do your listening campaign and 121s. As you come up with ideas, run them through the criteria above until your project reveals itself! Exercise: whole group or smaller break outs / 30 mins TAKING ACTION / 43

Next Steps As a group write down what your next 3 steps are: 1. 2. 3. Individual action points: Each make a personal list of the action points you will be taking away with you. 1. 2. 3. NEXT STEPS / 44

Further Support Remember as a Transition group you are part of a network of over 300 groups across the UK and many more worldwide with a huge wealth of knowledge and experience of doing Transition. You also have the Transition Together team to provide support, training and resources at the national level. Here are five other ways to get support & inspiration: 1. Reach out to a local or neighbouring Transition group. You can find them on our interactive map here 2. Join Vive - our online social platform for Transition groups to share advice, knowledge and ideas. Join here 3. Check out our yearly Seed Funding grants here 4. Join another of our events or trainings. Info here 5. Sign up to Transition Togethers newsletter for regular stories of inspirational projects Transition groups are undertaking and to upcoming events, support and funding. Sign up here SUPPORT / 45

LAUNCH Created by Transition Together with the support of Transition Network, The Centre for Progressive Change and Navigate Cooperative. Authors: Rhiannon Colvin & Beth Foster Ogg Design by Capella Andrean at The Creative Bloc First Published in 2023 and released by Transition Together under the Creative Commons https://transitiontogether.org.uk/ Twitter: @TransitionTog Facebook: @TransitionTog This booklet has been made possible thanks to funding we have received from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity, from its Growing Great Ideas programme. We are grateful to National Lottery players for making this possible. The essential guide to get your new Transition group off the ground CREDITS / 46