Transition Montpelier

Transition Montpelier is a group of residents in and around Montpelier, Bristol, who want to work (and play) together to make Montpelier a more sturdy/resilient community in the face of the two massive challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change.

Transition Montpelier is not a traditional membership body with AGMs, voting and committees and long-winded meetings; we found that these generally end up being strangely political, and start out with the best intentions but all too easily find themselves enmeshed in politics and everyone loses to the will to live apart from those who love a bit of local politics!

So it is a group of locals who are organising themselves into the activities that suit them personally and make their lives more fulfilled. There are all sorts of activities to keep this rolling, from planting bushes to energy auditing local houses to administering the mailing list to book-keeping for events and more. It’s pretty activity-based; of course there are meetings, but we keep them to time and focus on outcomes rather than rambling waffle.

The key ‘organisational principle’ is to keep a very light infrastructure to support activity groups and related activities and distribute the right decision-making authority to the groups themselves (ie not having a big committee in a centre).

Everyone is welcome to meetings and to get involved. Please do – we need the help!

Diagram outlining the structure:

The grey bit in the middle
(which is not a ‘core’ or ‘top’ or other traditional hierachical words) – think of it as a basket:

• in which groups can come together and share learnings and networks with eachother
• in which conflicts (yes they happen) can be resolved to produce productive outcomes and not left un-handled to generate more trouble (this is important)
• in which everyone is welcomed to bring their ideas, energy and time – and to help them find the activities they are looking for (all of the different bits below are run by locals voluntarily who are always looking for other people to get involved)

The working groups:

This is where the ‘on the ground’ action happens – groups form around people’s specific interests and passions and work together on activities to make the change they are after. These activities could be planting bushes, or conducting free home energy audits. They are where the ‘decision-making’ activities take place.

The events:

Transition Montpelier come together around a range of open public events:

• Awareness raising: Films, workshops, discussions: generally about climate change and peak oil, but also local currencies, energy, transport and more
• Open Space: large totally open meetings where the attendees set the agenda and choose what they want to do – this is where new ideas bubble up and groups form
• Project Support: well facilitated knowledge-sharing and lessons learned and action planning events for the working groups
• Big public events: significant events like the Montpelier Bean Feast, or Winter Fayre – with bands, stalls, bunting, parades, competitions and so forth – these are big and take big money to run (the other events are free although the films might cost a couple of pounds to pay for the projector)

Communications:

Pretty much what it says on the tin really

• Website
• Mailing list
• Posters for events

Administration:

Again, pretty much what it says on the tin. In order to have a bank account (which helps channel money for the groups and big events and other needs), Transition Montpelier is officially a ‘Community Interest Company‘. This has an open structure, can pay people as contractors (e.g. hiring a bar for an event), cannot benefit individual administrators and other sensible practices. Anything the ‘company’ owns has to be passed on to another charity or community organisation if the ‘company’ folds, so no individual can benefit.

There are currently 5 ‘directors’ of the Community Interest Company. They meet regularly to keep an eye on the accounts, and if you are in a group or running an event, you are bound to come across them. They are also in the activity groups themselves, appear at our events and plant bushes – ie they are not an abstract distant group of fat cats running a shady corporation.