Uncategorized

Rob Hopkins

“Rob Hopkins brings humour, imagination and vision to the great challenges of our time, and argues that what is needed, above all else, at this time in history, is “engaged optimism”. The rapidly-spreading Transition movement which he was pivotal in establishing, is an embodiment of that.

Nicholas Crane, presenter of BBC2’s ‘Town’ series, referred to Transition as “the biggest urban brainwave of the century”.

He is the co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and of the Transition Network. This grew out of many years experience in education, teaching permaculture and natural building, and setting up the first 2 year full-time permaculture course in the world, at Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland, as well as co-ordinating the first eco-village development in Ireland to be granted planning permission.

He is author of ‘The Transition Handbook: from oil dependence to local resilience’, which has been published in a number of languages, and which was voted the 5th most popular book taken on holiday by MPs during the summer of 2008, and more recently of ‘The Transition Companion: making your community more resilient in uncertain times’, published in October 2011 and The Power of Just Doing Stuff: how local action can change the world, published in June 2013. He publishes a blog here which was once voted ‘the 4th best green blog in the UK’(!). He tweets as @robintransition, and recently came 11th in the PeerIndex-driven Sustainability Drivers List.

He was the winner of the 2008 Schumacher Award, is an Ashoka Fellow and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, served 3 years as a Trustee of the Soil Association, and was named by the Independent as one of the UK’s top 100 environmentalists. He is the winner of the 2009 Observer Ethical Award for the Grassroots Campaigner category, and in December 2009 was voted the Energy Saving Trust/Guardian’s ‘Green Community Hero’. In February 2012, Rob and the Transition Network were among NESTA and The Observer’s list of ‘Britain’s 50 New Radicals’. He and Transition Network won the 2012 EESC Civil Society Prize, and a 2014 PEA Award for Campaigner Hero.

He lectures and writes widely on peak oil and Transition, holds an MSc in Social Research and completed a PhD at the University of Plymouth entitled ‘Localisation and resilience at the local level: the case of Transition Town Totnes’. He recently became a Visiting Fellow at the University of Plymouth and in 2012 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of the West of England. He is a founder Trustee of Atmos Totnes and a director of New Lion Brewery. He lives in Devon and grows food for his family.

“Rob Hopkins has done more to change the way that we live in the past 10 years than any one else in Britain. Because he has given people the tools to create change for themselves. It is beautifully simple and incredibly powerful.”

Monty Don, gardener, writer and broadcaster

Sarah Pugh

I have been facilitating permaculture courses since 1999 and teaching them since 2003. I was incredibly fortunate to learn to teach with Mike Feingold and Patrick Whitefield, both experienced and innovative teachers. I have worked as a community rabble rouser and environmental instigator for the past 15 years, mostly within the thriving network that is the Bristol green scene.

My focus has always been on inspiring people to use Permaculture design to improve their local space. On creating opportunities for communities to work collaboratively and encouraging reconnection with nature, particularly in urban areas. I’m always looking for new ways to take the joys of Permaculture to a wider audience and in 2007 I founded Transition Bristol. After a couple of years of exhausting organising, followed by the birth of my son I decided to step back from the frontline and focus on addressing the skills gap that lies between people wanting to and being able to create more sustainable systems. In 2010 myself and colleague Laura Corfield founded Shift Bristol to run the one year Practical Sustainability Course – the first of its kind in the UK. It’s an expansion of the Permaculture Curriculum taught in collaboration with 40 experts and tutors. Visit the Shift Bristol website for details of this course.

I am a founder member of Bristol Permaculture Group since January 2000, It’s an active network of nearly 1000 people working to bring sustainability to the city. We use the network for sharing resources, tools and ideas and generally practicing common sense living.

I am now self-employed as a teacher and consultant, full-time single mum and Director of Shift Bristol. Keeps me busy!

Jenny Mackewn

Jenny is an environmentalist, creative, coach, learner, writer, leader, educationalist, connector, change agent, teacher, parent, communicator and artist. Here is how she describes her work.

“I have facilitated and catalysed breakthrough in many different groups and contexts. I love the continuous creative challenge of discovering what is needed in each unique situation.

For a decade I have run a popular, year-long Facilitation Course for the School of Management at Bath University; a specialist Training for facilitators in the Work that Reconnects; Creative Facilitator and Catalyst Training in many organizations; Intensive Trainings in Systemic Constellations – as well as writing on Facilitation as a form of Action Enquiry and Creative Methods of facilitation. I am a creative consultant with the nowhere group, facilitator, organizational consultant, author, friend, grandmother and continuous learner.

Sophy Banks

Originally trained in engineering, Sophy worked in London for over 20 years teaching electronics, computer systems and technical stuff to women returners, and then in housing associations. She later trained in psychotherapy, healing and family constellations – and set up a private practice as a therapist. In 2005 she realised she was too old to carry on slide tackling on the muddy football pitches of Hackney Marshes and moved to Devon, to find the Transition movement coming into being just down the road.

In 2006 Sophy co-founded the “Heart and Soul” group of Transition Town Totnes, addressing the psychological and spiritual dimensions of Transition. She helped to set up and run the Totnes project as it took off. In 2007 she and Naresh set up Transition Training and created the two day “Introduction to Transition”, now known as Transition: Launch. Sophy has trained trainers from around the world to deliver this training. Transition finally brought together her love of football, engineering and inner work in its comprehensive and systemic approach to creating healthy and joyful communities.

Still a part of the Totnes project, Sophy mainly works for Transition Network coordinating, supporting and speaking about Inner Transition in the UK and around the world. Sophy blogs here.

Sarah McAdam

Sarah has had a varied public sector career working in housing, criminal justice and – most recently – rural development (she was leading DEFRA’s Rural Communities Policy Unit when she caught the transition bug).

She has run a housing aid centre, helped set up a new Ombudsman Service, managed criminal courts and cleverly became Chief Executive of a small Quango shortly before the Government decided it should be abolished.

Sarah became a Transition Network trustee in 2011 when we were looking to widen the range of skills and perspectives on our board. Finding Whitehall exhausting and increasingly frustrating, she left the civil service to sit under a tree for a while and then search for a more satisfying way to live and work. She believes she may have found that in TN.

Sarah lives in Woolwich in South East London with her partner Lynne and loves being able to travel into town by boat.