What happened when 120 Transitioners Assembled

A small team of participants stepped forward to become ‘citizen journalists’, gathering the reflections of participants. Two members of Usk Together for the Climate, filmmakers Cam and Mike, helped capture the story of the Assembly in a video below. 

Some early-arrivers had the chance to visit projects run by local hosts Transition Wilmslow. Right from the start, this interplay – sometimes tension – between doing and thinking felt present. Transition co-founder, Rob Hopkins, described Transition as “hope with its sleeves rolled up.”

On the eve of the Transition Assembly, about 80 people sat down for dinner. The room was fizzing! Faces put to names, common passions discovered and shared, new connections made and a sense of anticipation at what the weekend would hold. For Christopher Etchells from Win Green Town, it was “lovely to feel the energy of people from all over the UK trying to do something about the state of our environment.”

Throughout the weekend, many were recharged and uplifted by being together with others who shared similar goals and projects, and by the exchange of knowledge, experience and ideas it sparked.  Transition Chipping Norton said: “It was brilliant to be inspired by so many people from across England and Wales and further afield all channelling energy into grassroots projects to help communities thrive.” Another participant said: “It gave me hope for the future!”

Sharing ideas and challenges

Lucy Campbell is a member of Usk Together for the Climate and participant in the 8-strong ‘Youth Caucus’ set up to support young people to join the Assembly and bring experience of environmental activism in different contexts. She reflected that sharing of knowledge is the key: “Conversations between like-minded people only goes so far though and when these ideas stagnate it’s good to go looking for people who are younger, or older, or who live in the next town over to get more, to find out how else to approach a problem or to combine old solutions into new ones.”

The Youth caucus challenged us that young people aren’t just the future; they are here now and keen to be involved in shaping change. There was a clear call to work across the generations, to listen and learn from the wisdom of our elders as well as the wisdom of youth.

They compiled two thoughtful documents during their time together, sharing their wisdom on engaging young people and the challenges and opportunities of being involved. They concluded: “We want to be part of the transition movement in a way that is sustainable, impactful, and fulfilling. That means ensuring young people’s involvement is genuinely valued, that we have clear roles, and that we can participate without burning out or indefinitely working for free. If these challenges are addressed, young people will be able to play a real role in shaping the future of the movement.” Read more reflections from two members of the Youth Caucus here. 

Can Transition be a place where people come together across not just generations, but different backgrounds and life experiences? That depends on us. Last year, a Just Transition Circle was formed to reflect on barriers and challenges experienced by some in our movement and explore creative responses to them. A focus for this amazing group was making the vision of an inclusive, just and accessible Transition alive at the Assembly. They worked with organisers to ensure Just Transition was front and centre – not a fringe activity. 

Amanda and Liba from the Circle led a welcome ceremony which many found powerful. Together, with arms outstretched to show our intent, we welcomed people from all races, life experiences, identities and all of us into the space. Read the full text here.

Rakesh Rootsman Rak is a Transition trainer and elder, involved in forming several groups in London and elsewhere. He has shared his frustration that while we say everyone is welcome, those at the front and centre do not reflect the full diversity of our communities. Rakesh joined the Just Transition Circle and the Assembly facilitation team. He reflected: “I was deeply moved by the warm reception of the just transition message. Over two days, I heard inclusion echoed in feedback, and many—including those who often feel marginalised—told me how welcomed they felt. It was touching to witness such care over the weekend and to hear a commitment to carrying that sensitivity into their local Transition projects.

“We’re all here for the same reasons. We have different outlooks and different strategies but the end goal is the same. We’re like a family – we’ll have our differences but we’re here for each other.”

Like an extended family brought together for a reunion, we don’t know everything about each other’s contexts and lives. There are differences of approach, priority and ideas about the way forward among us. The Assembly wasn’t just a big group hug; through group discussions, people shared frustrations and struggles, where they felt Transition was falling short and where groups felt they weren’t getting the support needed.

Thorny questions about our future

We wrangled with existential questions: what is Transition? How do we communicate it and why would anyone get involved? How can we cooperate and collaborate to have real impact at a time when change is urgently needed in our communities and world? 

We crafted statements about the impact we wanted Transition to have as a movement and gathered ideas about how we could make that impact. A shared energy network that could generate funds for Transition work; joining TikTok to reach out; a database to share information, templates and guides and a time and skills bank to share the knowledge we have. If we share more knowledge with each other, helped people come together in their neighbourhoods, create a network of community forest gardens and support local food growers, then we will reach out, create healthy, local, thriving communities and resourced groups which have more impact. 

A struggle many shared is how to articulate Transition and raise its profile. The holistic, grassroots nature of Transition is both a blessing and a curse. Because it is locally-rooted and volunteer-led, action takes different forms, and we aren’t focused on just one change, but a broad reimagining of our communities. 

Jake from the Youth Caucus suggested a solution in the Assembly illustration itself – the threads could represent different strands of Transition. Green – our work for nature and to tackle the climate crisis. Yellow – how we address community needs and build connections. Red could be the tackling inequality and injustice which needs to weave through it all.

Deciding a future path

Unearthing these issues and naming our potential built towards the second day of our event and the part that made it an ‘Assembly’. 

The discussion about how to move forward came against a backdrop: Transition Together was planned as a 10-year funded project, yet when the National Lottery changed their funding programmes, that was curtailed to 3.5 years. During that time, a small Transition Together staff team has worked on training, communications, giving out £430,000 in seed funding, setting up Vive, running events online and in-person, seeking future resources and shepherding a democratic structure to emerge, a process begun in 2022 with the formation of a caretaker group. The goal of this work was to develop a democratic structure, bringing the voice of Transitioners in local groups into the centre. 

The whole question of how Transitioners connect and work together was thrown into sharper relief by the ending of funding and scaling down of staffing a Transition Together from March. Although the Transition Network international charity still supports Transition activity globally, groups in England and Wales have no structure to link directly into that. 

A small group of Transitioners, led by Phil Frodsham of Transition New Mills, worked for months on a governance proposal – a structure for groups to connect, work together and collaborate. It was shared ahead of the Assembly and presented on Sunday morning for participants to consider. 

In the proposal, Transition groups would be linked by county and regional circles. A Wales and England circle would bring these regions together, along with others a specific task or area of expertise, like conflict resolution or youth. Circles are the key building block of sociocracy – a way of making decisions and organising based on consent. Some Transition groups are already using to it and it’s designed to give everyone a voice. Circles are empowered to make decisions that affect them and the proposal offered a way to keep connected and information flowing between circles. 

In small regional groups, participants reacted to what had been shared. There was excitement for staying connected, tackling some of the big challenges and unlocking the impact we imagined the day before. It had to be done in simple and effective ways that worked for busy and stretched local groups. Concerns were expressed around creating too many layers of bureaucracy, and that local groups should remain autonomous. 

We stood in a physical circle, and many questions were raised. Some expressed that they didn’t have enough information or detail about what the circles would do, how they’d be resourced, how local groups would plug in and be supported. Others sought an articulation of common values to underpin this structure and hold us all together. Many felt there wasn’t enough time at this closing stage of the Assembly to ask and answer all the doubts and questions in the room. It was a jaggy conversation and the way ahead seemed cloudy. 

Then the fog lifted. Daniel Balla from the Transition Together team suggested a proposal that didn’t rest on having figured everything out yet: that we could consent to keep asking these questions and exploring answers. He asked: “Is it good enough for now and safe enough to try that… We, as a movement, consent to a group of people exploring setting up a National Circle* and developing the structure to be inclusive, accessible and deliverable?”

There was a moment when participants were invited to symbolically step forward if they wanted to step into being part of finding the way forward. Despite the questions, concerns and tensions, 44 people took a step towards each other. This small act didn’t ignore the messiness; it was all the more authentic for all the doubts and questions people stepped forward with. 

For one participant, it was the highlight: “when we agreed to the proposal, all stepping forward – a very powerful and exciting moment. Really felt like we made a decision and action will follow.” 

Where next?

That action is starting to emerge. Those who stepped forward will start meeting, absorbing the feedback and adjusting the proposal into something that will have the support and engagement of Transition groups. There is a commitment to share the process with the wider movement. Transition Together will have a reduced staff team in place from March to September, to support this process. This ‘Bridging team’ will work with the movement to start to build a bridge to what’s next. 

And on 8 March, there is an online event in parallel to the Assembly to share this vital conversation with those who couldn’t be there in person; another opportunity to give feedback and to step into the process. Register here. 

Ultimately, the Assembly has begun a new process and dialogue – not an endpoint. The chance for 120 people to contribute in person in this latest chapter will hopefully make it come alive and give it greater relevance to the wider Transition Movement on the ground, with many participants reporting back to their local groups. Now it’s up to all of us how we want to connect, collaborate, engage and shape what comes next. 

To finish with some words from Lucy Campbell: “It’s only as a collective that we can have any real, systemic change. Something that we dearly need to make not only our communities but the country as a whole a better place—for the environment, for ourselves, for our children and for our grandparents… A better future and one day, a better present… We all need to be involved for this to be possible.” 

Watch the Assembly Video:

For more: 

Join the ongoing conversation on 8 March at Assemble Online and on our Vive online platform.

*Participants at times used a shorthand of ‘national’ to refer to the emerging Wales & England circle, recognising that these are two nations.