What Can I Do?

Transition sounds like a huge undertaking. There's a good reason for that - it is a huge undertaking. It can look awfully daunting when you first start looking into it. There's an old wise saying, though, that might be of help here:
"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

  How to Eat an Elephant

There are a whole lot of different skills, activities, and other things that go into a successful Transition Initiative. Those skills range from gardening & permaculture to community building, and from economics to fixing hand tools. But the great thing is, you don't have to have them all! Everybody has one or two - or, if you're really lucky, three - skills that are vital to the process of Transition. All it takes is for you to decide you can contribute, and voila! you're there.

First off, we'll start with a list of things everyone can do (there'll be another list of things people can do in specific areas down the page a bit):

  1. Get a solid grounding on what we're facing:
    You already know we're going to be facing serious challenges in the next 20-50 years, or you wouldn't be reading this now. You've passed the toughest test - you've decided to look straight at those challenges, and then do something about them. Congratulations, and welcome!

    The next thing to do is learn enough about those challenges that you can talk about them with your family, your friends, and your neighbors. The "References" section in the Site Contents over on the left side of the page has links to all sorts of resources to help you get a solid grounding in the situation, and then talk about it with other people around you.

  2. Look around this web site:
    Read the basic resources you'll find on this web site, such as:
       *  The page telling what Transition is all about.
       *  The Overview of Transition Austin.
    And then if you're interested in digging deeper, look at some of the more detailed resources you'll find here and at other Transition sites, such as:
       *  The PDF description of "Who We Are, What We Do" on the global Transition site out of Totnes, England.
       *  The articles about Sustainability and Resilience, two of the key concepts of Transition.
    But don't stop there - you'll find all sorts of things about Transition if you dig around in here.

  3. Join our e-mailing list:
    Go to our Yahoo group's home page; click on the "Join This Group!" button to get onto the e-list. All our events are announced there, and you'll also get news about other Austin groups' activities that are related to Transition, plus the occasional reference to an important article in the national media. You'll also have access to our calendar, which is maintained in the Yahoo group's web pages.

  4. Read The Transition Handbook
    The Transition Handbook is the central book about the Transition Movement. It describes the origin of Transition, including the first two Transition Towns (in Great Britain), and it goes into detail about the steps in creating a Transition Initiative in a town or city. Reading it is key to understanding the concept of Transition and the creation of a Transition Initiative.

  5. Come to our meetings:
    Look in the "News" column on the right side of our home page for the time and place of the two monthly meetings of the Hub component of Transition Austin. (You did read the Overview of Transition Austin, didn't you?) The Transition Towns are just beginning to start up, so they don't have formal meetings yet. The global Transition structure has a lot of activities that developing Transition Towns can use to solidify their plans and activities - The Transition Handbook describes them in some detail. See #6 just below for more about the Transition Towns.

  6. (Here's the important one.)
    Work with your neighbors to start making Transition happen in your part of town.
    The different parts of Austin have different needs, and different ideas about how they can meet the challenges to come. Some parts of Austin already have people working towards making Transition happen in those areas; some don't have anything yet.

So what kinds of specific skills do we need? Easy answer - just about every kind of skill that's going to help us when energy, "conveniences," and good food & water start getting scarcer and more expensive. Below are some examples of what we're going to need. (This is that second list we mentioned above.) If you have any of these skills, we need you:

  1. Community Organizing:
    As you saw above, Transition Austin is just getting off the ground; we need people who can do, and teach others how to do, grass-roots organizing. This includes everything from finding audiences for our presentations to creating enough momentum in your sector of Austin to get a Transition Town going in it.
    If you can do this, e-mail us and let us know!

  2. Marketing (grass roots networking):
    Sorry to use such a commercial word for it, but this is also a real necessity. Transition is one of those famous concepts that really "sell themselves" - once people know enough about it to see what it means to them. The trick is getting the concept out where people can see it, with our minimal budget. That's marketing, and if you're good at it, we need you.
    If you can do this, e-mail us and let us know!

  3. Public Speaking:
    Once the marketers have gotten potential audiences for the message of Transition, then it's up to the Transition Austin Speakers' Bureau to go out and actually tell people about what's going on, what Transition is, and how we can meet the inevitable future with an attitude of hope, rather than either despair or denial. If you're a good public speaker who's willing to learn about the coming days and how Transition can meet them, then we'd love to have you join us!
    If you can do this, e-mail us and let us know!

  4. Self-sufficiency Skills:
    If you know how to garden, or how to fix tools, or how to use tools for plumbing, carpentry, common repairs, or anything else, then we need you. Most people in modery society have lost these skills, all of which were second nature to our grandparents; and you can help with the "Great Re-Skilling" that Transition sponsors wherever it takes root.
    If you can do this, e-mail us and let us know!

  5. General Organizing:
    There are all kinds of things that need to be organized: the Transition Towns (or did I already say that?); Transition Austin's financial status (see #6 below); and our relationships with the city's government, neighborhood councils, faith communities, small businesses, other activist organizations, & just about any other group you can think of - after all, we're all in this boat together, and all of us can both contribute to and benefit from a planned transition to the post-oil economy.
    If you can do this, e-mail us and let us know!

  6. Financial Wizardry:
    Transition Austin is a non-profit organization, and we need people who understand how to incoporate it as such, how to file for - and get - a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, and how to manage its finances. We also need people who have experience writing grant applications, because we expect grants to be a significant part of our income.
    If you can do this, e-mail us and let us know!

To sum it all up, get involved; join us.

Now you know why we said up at the top of this page that there's a lot to be done to make Transition happen in Austin, but together, we can do it. Even more importantly, we have to do it. It's no exaggeration to say that the fate of Austin, and on a larger scale the world, is in our hands. It's a sure bet that everyone reading this has skills that you can contribute to making a planned Transition happen - we hope you can join us, and use your skill(s) to bring about a sustainable, resilient, and liveable Austin into the coming times.