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◇■◇Transition Training Camps◇■◇
Learn all the ins and outs of how to start or continue Transition activities.
A workshop-style programme
- We can also provide these in your area / school / community / business –
*Please see this information document*
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On March the 9th-10th we will hold a Transition Camp in Hachioji.
http://transition-japan.net/wp/archives/299
What is a Transition Camp?
They originated in the Transition Town (TT) movement, but what exactly are Transition Camps?
A Program to Thoroughly Study ‘Transition’
Transition Camps, and of course Transition in practice, have a program of workshops which will help you to develop all kinds of civil activities and environmental practices, transform your area, and make businesses and local authorities more sustainable.
When you start Transition Town (TT) activities, you may encounter all sorts of issues and run into various complications. At points like this, it’s tempting to think “These special problems are only happening to me!”, but in fact most of them are universal, and even indispensable, parts of being in a team or community. All over the world there are many similarities, both in the knack of successfully sustaining activities, and in the difficulties we encounter.
The basic schedule of the Transition Camp is two days and one night, with a programme designed to give you the practical know-how about what to do in certain situations, or different methods of attempting projects.
Answering Questions about Transition
Transition camps are suitable for people with these kinds of questions or needs:
“How should we start a Transition Town?”
“What should we do if relations within the team become strained?”
“How can we inspire more local people about Transition? It’s always the same people getting involved.”
“What are fun ways to make our activities more sustainable?”
“What are fun, manageable ways to explore the current global crisis with local people?”
“How can we ensure that the results of our explorations are not overanalyses, condemnation, or feelings of powerlessness, but forward-looking responses we can act on?”
The workshops will allow you to personally work through the answers to these questions, while keeping a good balance between “Head, Heart and Hands”.
Both Work and Games
The workshops create a good balance between using “Head, Heart and Hands”. This is something Transition values very highly, because we see how lack of balance in these areas has led some environmental movements in Europe and America to fail. In order to thoroughly study various skills designed for practical application, we normally run camps that are two days and one night long.
Transition Camps are held all over the world, and are constantly being refined and updated by volunteers involved in TT activities. The following is a suggested programme for themes of study.
•Modern society’s problems in context
•Starting a group, shaping a group, and the progressive stages of groups
•Creating a vision
•How to inspire a community
•Where do the original roots of current unsustainable societies come from?
•Seeing the world with new eyes, and welcoming the age of the Great Turning
•How to hold successful group discussions
(World Café and Open Space Technologies)
Groups are the Inheritance of a Lifetime
Transition Camps are packed with instantly helpful tips about many things – team building, effective publicity techniques, taking care of the heart, how to start working groups, civil and environmental activities, local area creation, companies, future sustainable businesses, and the state of local authorities. We teach a comprehensive range of skills and know-how that will help you avoid in advance the mistakes and problems that civil and environmental activities can fall into.
The things you learn from new friends you meet at the camp are equally valuable. Connections forged at Transition Camps can become assets which future activities spring from.
And it’s proven that if two or more people from one Transition Town join in a Transition Camp, activities afterwards will progress much more rapidly and smoothly.
Spreading from Tiny to Global
Transition is about restoring local connections, and hand-making a future we can look forward to.
The Transition experiment, which started at the end of 2005 in a little town in England called Totnes, has spread all over the world in just five years. Almost thirty Transition Towns have already started in Japan.
The original Transition Camp programme was designed by founding members of Transition Town Totnes (the very first Transition Town), Sophy and Naresh.
After Transition Totnes’ great success received a lot of media spotlight, they began to offer a Transition Camp programme that responded to the desires of people around England who had also started activities, or who wanted to establish a Transition Town.
They made the most of their backgrounds in environmental activism and therapy, and also took time to gather information, wisdom and practical skills useful to Transition Towns, from all kinds of different fields. All this they then incorporated into the programme.
In 2008 and 2009, responding to requests from all over the world, they went ahead with a tour which spanned several months, and numerous countries worldwide – in Europe, America and Asia (including Japan). They held the Transition Camp programme as well as facilitator training sessions.
The Flow of Gifts
You can study all the latest information about Transition in Japan and worldwide, provided by Transition Japan and the Transition Network. People trained by Sophy and Naresh, and later colleagues they invited to join, have started to hold their own Transition Camps, both in Japan and worldwide.
Volunteer members of Transition Japan formed a Transition Camp working group, and by the end of 2010 we have held five Transition Camps. We gather together constantly changing world affairs, the situation of Transition in Japan, know-how particular to Japan, and knowledge freshly gleaned from experience. Then we make it all easier to circulate and better suited to the needs of Transition Towns.
We conduct a participant questionnaire at every camp, and make sure to revise the programme for the next camp, based on the feedback we receive.
* Globally this programme is called ‘Transition Training’, and at first in Japan we used the same name. But many of us felt that the connotations of the word ‘training’ as it has already entered Japanese, i.e. a kind of one-sided coaching aimed at a fixed goal, did not fit the reality of the programme. Therefore from our sixth camp, held in 2011, we have used the name ‘Transition Camp’.
Enjoying the Fruits of the Earth
Transition Camps held around Japan to date:
•First Transition Camp
Creation of Transition Japan non-profit organisation (TJ)
Date: February 28 – March 1, 2009
Location: Hayama Training Centre
Facilitators:
Naresh Giangrande. Established Transition Totnes, with its founder Rob Hopkins. Currently chairing the Totnes Energy working group and promoting Transition Training (Transition Camps).
Sophy Banks. A central figure in Transition Totnes. With her background as a psychotherapist, chairs the Totnes Heart and Soul working group, and mainly focuses on promoting the ‘Inner Transition’.
Interpreters: Enomoto Hide, Yoshida Shunro
Participants: 30 (approx.)
•Second Transition Camp
Held by TJ.
Date: May 23-24, 2009 (Sat/Sun)
Location: National Olympics Memorial Youth Centre, building 409
Facilitators: Enomoto Hide, Yoshida Shunro
Participants: 20 (approx.)
•Third Transition Camp
Held by TJ.
Date: December 19-20, 2009 (Sat/Sun)
Location: Hayama Training Centre
Facilitators: Enomoto Hide, Yoshida Shunro
Participants: 13
•Fourth Transition Camp
Held by TJ.
Date: August 1, 2010 (Sun)
Location: Econowarabo, 308 Hatsudai World Mansion, Shibuya, Tokyo
Facilitators: Yoshida Shunro, Nakazono Junko
Participants: 7
•Fifth Transition Camp
Held by TJ.
Date: October 2-3 2010 (Sat/Sun)
Location: Gyokusenji Youth Hostel, Nose, Toyono, Osaka
Facilitators: Yoshida Shunro, Nakazono Junko
Participants: 11
•Sixth Training Camp
Held by Transition Town Enshu, Hamamatsu
Date: June 30 – July 1, 2010 (Sat/Sun)
Location: Sougeisha, 3408 Mikura, Mori, Shuchi, Shizuoka
Facilitators: Yoshida Shunro, Nakazono Junko
Participants: 20
All of the above, except the sixth training camp, also incorporated elements of EDE (Eco-village Design Education).
A Pep Up from making Connections!
Comments from past participants
“I was surprised by how in-depth it was. It was also great how freely you drew on skills from all kinds of areas, as long as they would be useful for Transition and civil activities. It was so interesting to meet other participants from all over the country!”
“In a good sense, the facilitators are not ‘charismatic’; by which I mean, I loved your relaxed, open attitude!”
“The hands-on approach is wonderful.”
“It was very easy to understand. Almost all the content was interesting and useful.”
“The easy-going atmosphere was really great.”
“The card workshop was fun! Maybe you should try selling it.”
“It was all wonderful. Thank you.”
“A complete Transition, inside and out.”
“I came with the idea of starting a TT in my hometown nagging at my mind. Now I feel really inspired and full of energy, like ‘I can do something!’”
“I was moved by how incredibly well thought-out the ‘learning with Head, Heart and Hands’ training was, and also the attitude which suited me perfectly (not thinking about big, far-off problems, but about coming to grips with them by joining together with local people and having fun).”
“The balance of the programme was very good. It seemed to have the perfect balance of Transition’s ‘Head, Hands and Heart’. It wasn’t just following a theory, or just making us anxious, or just larking about – it sunk in deeply. I used to manage training in a business, so I was able pick up the know-how straight away.”
“First understanding the data and then being encouraged to take action is routine for environmental seminars. But the way the Transition Camp focuses on the environment, many current issues are actually focused on, one by one. You can take things in naturally, and the programme feels very pleasant and not at all pushy.”
Enquiries about Transition Camps
Please feel free to email us with any queries: transitionjapan☆gmail.com (change the ☆ to @)