Notes from Hub Meeting at James Smiths 2008-05-29

25 people from around Wellington (see groups below). Tom from Brooklyn attended and took these notes:

Intros

Talked about hub:

• 20 people
• going 6 months
• meets every 2 months
• for support, not control

On dealing with council(s):

• have persistence with submissions. Can take a while to get message through
• council was impressed with TT meeting and submissions: ‘normal’ people, not hippies
• having number of signatures or other support from people behind your submission really helps
• have reasonable goals

On the energy descent plan:

• encourage community—visioning process—consult not impose

Status of groups around Wellington:

The 12 step plan:

1. Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset
2. Awareness raising
3. Lay the foundations
4. Organise a Great Unleashing
5. Form working groups
6. Use Open Space
7. Develop visible practical manifestations of the project
8. Facilitate the Great Reskilling
9. Build a Bridge to Local Government
10. Honour the elders
11. Let it go where it wants to go
12. Create an Energy Descent Plan

Most groups are on step 2:

• We’re on 2 + 5
• Wellington South’s on 2
• Lower Hutt on 2 + a community garden (7?) + 9
• Upper Hutt on 2 + 5 + a church community garden + probably getting approval to use 2/3rds of council tree nursery
• Aro Valley on 2
• Normandale/Maungaraki on 1 with unofficial 2 (separate from Lower Hutt?)

Other

Transition towns have more success with smaller groups

End of Suburbia is good

Looking for volunteers from other steering groups for hub steering group—I said hub meetings are great but Brooklyn steering group probably wouldn’t have the time to be on another steering group—even though they tried to convince me wouldn't take much time!

New site to replace http://www.transitiontowns.org.nz/ and Ning presence underway. In testing at http://tt.craigambrose.com/

Would be good if each group could have phone number on wiki