NICA Fall Gathering to Focus on Transitioning: Relationships, Resilience & Sustainability

Join us at the NICA (Northwest Intentional Communities Association) Fall Gathering on October 20, 2012,  at Wooley Mammoth Community to explore the topic, Transitioning: Relationships, Resilience & Sustainability. 

Many intentional communities (ICs) have led the way in being more sustainable, even if that’s not their stated purpose. Some that have sustainability as a primary goal are finding there is more discussion and more awareness of it in the wider culture.

We’ll look at ways in which attendees might become more resilient. Come and share your own experiences and insights on how ICs are already more sustainable than most other North American living situations. We’ll also see how we can become more flexible and sustainable culturally as well as with our resources in a future with less oil and petroleum-based products, when we will not be able to depend on cars and long distance delivery systems for our food and other basic needs. Ongoing climate change could result in decaying infrastructures or even crash the globalized economy.

Within the framework of the Transition Movement, set into motion by the book, The Transition Handbook (first edition 2007) by Rob Hopkins, we’ll engage in a series of conversations to take inventory of our current strengths and challenges, and add ideas into the mix of how we can improve.

We plan to show an introductory video and review what’s been launched right here in our region, with the examples of “Transition Whidbey” and Transition Whatcom.  Then we propose talking about the skill sets and systems which increase the flow of information between communities for mutual benefit. We may also examine how we can exchange ideas and resources with our happenstance neighbors, the people living and working around us –  gearing up for what may be of necessity more decentralized systems, depending less on larger governmental, corporate or public utility systems.

Current Details (more to follow):

• Event: NICA Fall Gathering – Transitioning: Relationships, Resilience & Sustainability
• Date: Saturday, October 20, 2012
• Time: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
• Location: Woolley Mammath Community (29148 Outlook Ln Sedro-Woolley, WA 98284)
• RideShare Coordination: email rideshare@nwcommunities.org
• Capacity: 50; please register here

Tentative Agenda:

• Community reports
• Background on the Transition Movement by David MacLeod,  one of the founders of Transition Whatcom
• Report on what’s happened in the area since then plus the overlap/synergy of Transition initiatives and intentional community: David MacLeod
• Discussion: How are we already working in a Transition mode
• Northwest examples, including intentional communities and other groups
• Video presentation: Transition Whidbey, and Transition Whatcom "Great Unleashing"