Transition Catskills, a newly formed initiative in the worldwide Transition movement, will be presenting two screenings of the documentary “Transition 1.0.” The screenings will take place at The Open Eye Theatre in Margaretville on Wednesday, July 23rd at 7 pm and at The Roxbury Arts Center on Saturday, July 26th at 4 pm. After the 45-minute screening of Transition 1.0, refreshments will be served and the floor will be open for conversation.
This grassroots community effort aims to strengthen the local economy and increase our region’s self-reliance. Transition Catskills is focused on economic and community development, building livelihoods and skills aimed at greater environmental sustainability and local resilience.
The worldwide Transition movement is a flexible, community-led process where people work together to move toward a lower-energy future while maintaining a high quality of life. Transition began in 2006 in Totnes, England, as a grassroots response to the big challenges of our time: energy resource depletion, environmental degradation, and economic uncertainty. The goal is to build community self-reliance and resilience, which is the ability to respond and adapt to unexpected economic and environmental changes. There are currently over 1,100 official Transition initiatives in 43 countries, and a thousand more “mulling” groups are just getting started.
Transition is not an ideology. It is a replicable, flexible methodology that empowers communities to work toward the future they want. Each Transition group is different from every other because each community focuses on its unique needs. Transition builds on the wisdom of the past and harnesses the creativity of the local citizenry to envision the future. It thrives because it enables and supports people to do what they are passionate about, what they feel called to do.
‘In Transition’, directed by Emma Goude, is the first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. The Transition movement is about communities around the world responding to peak oil and climate change with creativity, imagination and humor, and setting about rebuilding their local economies and communities. It is positive, solutions focused, viral and fun.
In the film you'll see stories of communities creating their own local currencies, setting up their own pubs, planting trees, growing food, celebrating localness, caring, sharing. You’ll see neighbors sharing their land with neighbors that have none, local authorities getting behind their local Transition initiatives, schoolchildren making news in 2030, and you'll get a sense of the scale of this emerging movement. It is a story of hope, and it is a call to action, and we think you will like it very much. It is also quite funny in places.
Whatever one’s political beliefs, building a closer and more self-reliant community is a cause everyone can rally around.
Transition Catskills is just beginning to brainstorm some ideas about how to become more self-reliant in our local food, energy and transportation systems and is seeking the involvement of and input from members of our community who believe that responsible use of resources and stewardship of the environment will lead to positive, permanent economic development.
The Open Eye Theatre is located at 960 Main Street in Margaretville and The Roxbury Arts Center is at 5025 Vega Mountain Road. For further information seewww.transitioncatskills.org. or contact Peg Ellsworth at the MARK Project at 845-586-3500 or peg@markproject.org.
