Dear {usertag:name}

Please welcome new member Lesley Given. Lesley has joined the Food & Gardening Environment Education and Local History Subgroups. 

Lesley has been a teacher for many years and has just retired so is interested in doing something locally.

Food & Gardening Environment and Education are large subgroups. Local History already has a good number of locals who have indicated an interest. We encourage you to go to the Groups Tab and have a look at who is in these groups. Use this facility to start making contact.

We can provide some of the initiative and energy to get things started but it will really take off when people in the groups take some initiative themselves and decide to organise gettogethers and start discussions and project ideas. Everything is there for you to ‘just do it’! The Groups are a fantastic way of immediately being put in touch with a large group of local people who have indicated they share an interest in the topic. Take it from there! Get creative and make things happen! Three don’ts: Don’t sell. Don’t push a political party line. Don’t evangalize. 

We are very keen to see natural leaders emerge around any of the subgroups and when this happens they can be facilitated to coordinate the subgroup.

We do encourage all members to tell their friends about Transition The Grove and encourage them to join if they live locally (in 4054 or 4055) or are making a significant contribution to life in this valley.

We get a steady stream of membership applications that cannot be approved. These include applications that do not include a surname. Membership is not anonymous – we are all people with strong local links and we are about building a local community of people who recognise and know each other. While very careful controls are put on privacy we do not accept people whose bona fides cannot be verified. We also get quite a lot of applications from people who live elsewhere who have come across the website and are interested in the ideas. It is unusual to have a group so carefully restricted to people who live or have a strong local involvement. We often direct them to the Transition Town for their area or even suggest they start one if we know there is enough interest in the area they live in. Transition Towns are involved in helping each other get established in their own local areas.

We work closely with Transition The Gap (in The Gap) and Transition Enoggera (4053 4052 – Mitchelton Gaythorne Enoggera). We’re also keen to support a new Transition Initiative in the Downfall Creek area from Everton Hills down the catchment.

Best wishes

Anne Tennock

Subgroup Coordinator