By Sibylle Mansour, Transition Town Brixton
Transition Town Brixton – does that ring a bell? TTB? If you are fairly new to the area you may be excused if you have not heard of us because this spring and summer we proudly contemplated the remarkable success of the projects that grew under our wings over the last 6 years. The Brixton £ launched in 2009, the Future of our Food project ran in the same year, Community Draught Busters incorporated in 2010, the Remakery started in 2011, Brixton Energy have launched three schemes in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and we continue to work with REconomy – Rethinking Lambeth’s Economy into the future; all these projects are TTBs children!
Now if you are thrilled by what these projects have got going and love to think up ways to shape the future of urban living come and join the buzz! We all should know how important bottom-up social movements are, to address the problems of us people in the 21st century. But not everyone can or wants to become an activist. Transition nurtures positive community-led, small-scale solutions that help people develop local alternatives around the challenges we face on a daily basis, now and in the time to come. The Transition idea works towards the future where cheap fossil fuel energy no longer dominates the way we access our daily needs. Transition is about finding alternative ways to grow food, produce energy, move around, produce the things we need and want, educate our children, entertain ourselves and make a living.
It is about bringing people together who are change makers, pioneers and explorers in the process of shifting the values that are really going to matter over the course of the 21st century. And truly we are cutting edge! In 2009 TTB was part of the regeneration project set up by the Spacemakers agency in Brixton Village. We ran a busy Community Shop at 6 Granville Arcade (now the ice cream parlour LabGs). It was during that time that we engaged with Brixton people on a daily basis; and at that time the market was mainly visited by the people who actually live here, clearly before the era of fancy, cheesy wine and dine.
Upstairs where now ‘gelato alchemy’ takes place, was TTB’s think-tank. Our many volunteers ran the shop while the heads and brains of TTBs projects were busy at their computers. Those were the days when the thinking heads around the Brixton £, The Remakery, Community Draught Busters and Brixton Energy got their first start-up funding and drew up project plans. On a regular basis we held visioning meetings were we engaged in heated discussions, using horizontal decision-making. We did our best in listening to everybody’s ideas when it came to understand where the natural progress of the organisation lies. Nothing would have developed the way it did if it was not for that particular space at that particular time.
These glorious days of course came to an end when we had to find the means to cover the rising rent in what is now known as ‘The Village’ to people all across London and beyond. So in January 2011 TTBs headquarters moved out of central Brixton and rented a small building in Slade Gardens, where the permaculture project Brixton Edge found its home. Maintaining, financing and running a building took a lot of energy from some of our core members. In spring 2013 the projects did not need TTB to provide a home for them anymore and we could give up the space without regret. Today we benefit from all the hardship and project fostering we were part of. We don’t need our own space because our space is everywhere.
We feel it is time to revive the think-tank era. If you feel you want to get busy and focus on core environmental, community and economic change and shift values in the way we build our society in the future GET INVOLVED now. Watch this space for a monthly update on where we are. In the meantime feel free to contact us at ttbreskilling@gmail.com.
LOCAL ENTERPRISE UPRISE event
6-9pm Wednesday 10 September.
at the fabulous Brixton Impact Hub in the basement of Lambeth Town Hall.
FREE but please book tickets.Transition Town Brixton hosts an occasion for the amazing projects and enterprises that are pioneering the way towards a resilient new local economy in Brixton and Lambeth, to update, share and plan to be ‘more than the sum of their parts’ and successful and visible pioneers of the change we want to see in the world. Think Brixton Pound, Remakery Brixton, Brixton Energy, Brixton Community Draught Busters, Makerhood… There are great training and business mentoring projects too: Tree Shepherd, Create Lambeth, One Planet Ventures.
This event is the first step towards the LOCAL ENTREPRENEUR FORUM which will be held in May – a focus for the new culture of Community Supported Enterprise – helping yourself by helping your local economy! Everyone is welcome! See you there. It is FREE! But space is limited so book tickets at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/local-enterprise-uprise-tickets-12463910893?aff=es2&rank=1
TTB is also looking for local, independent, sustainable businesses (or would-be businesses) to be part of the LOCAL ENTREPRENEUR FORUM and receive help to thrive. contact dl@duncanlaw.co.uk
http://www.transitiontownbrixton.org/2014/07/diy-local-reconomy/
