Stories to Action! Training Cohort

Cost & Registration: We’re offering this resource on a gift/sliding scale basis; suggested contribution $25-75.  Register here.

Join community leaders from across the US for a 4-session series that will empower and support you to replicate inspiring projects to launch or grow your local regenerative communities movement, with guidance from experienced project organizers and support from Transition US.

These projects were selected from more than 30 inspiring submissions to our Stories to Action project because they are widely accessible: they can be done by anyone, anywhere, with relatively little organization and funding – a great way to catalyze the regenerative communities movement where you live!

The series will take place on 4 Wednesday evenings in February & March 2022: 2/2, 2/16, 3/2 and 3/16, from 4-5:30pmPT/7-8:30pmET.

Featured projects include:

• “Community Bikes,” a community-based bike upcycling program that makes fossil fuel-free transport accessible to all;
• a “Permablitz” program where neighbors work together to transform their yards, neighborhoods, and public lands while growing food, habitat, and community; &
• “Climate Conversations: Bringing Climate Change Home“: an awareness-raising event series you can customize to your own community to help people understand how climate change will affect them and practical actions they can take to prepare.

Format:

• Sessions conducted online via Zoom. Participants will receive Zoom access information after registration.
• Sessions will be a mixture of presentations by project leads and interactive discussion/participant Q&A. Project leads will support participants in brainstorming and troubleshooting how to replicate the project in their communities.
• Session Topics:
  • Session 1: Project Overview + What is the landscape of your community?
  • Session 2: Audience, partners, & marketing
  • Session 3: Partnerships
  • Session 4: Project Follow-up
• All cohort participants will gather as a large group at the beginning of each session, then divide up into project-specific breakout rooms. We encourage participants to focus on developing just one of the three projects, with the goal of implementing that project (or an aspect of the project) following the 4th cohort session; however participants will have access to the recorded sessions for each of the projects.

Project Mentors:

Portia Sinnott is the co-founder of LITE Initiatives, the parent of Community Bikes, and was active in leading Transition Sebastopol from 2009 – 2015. A long-time member of the Sonoma County Local Task Force on Integrated Waste Management, in 2018 Portia was instrumental in initiating the county-wide goal of Zero Waste by 2030. An advocate consultant, she leads and takes part in cutting-edge waste reduction, recycling and Zero Waste related projects across North America. She also serves as Program Director for Zero Waste USA and is Vice President of the Northern California Recycling Association.

Shawn McFarland is a local green architect who grew up in Houston and graduated from the University of Houston. She completed Permaculture Design Certification in April of 2000 and began facilitating a class which includes her specialty in green and low carbon design. She has just completed a course with the Texas Master Naturalist program. Shawn is also a member of the Transition Houston steering committee. Transition Houston has completed more than 15 Permablitzes and 4 Repair Cafes.

Leslie MacKenzie lives in Minnesota where she is a writer and community organizer. She is a co-founder of Transition Longfellow (Minneapolis) and was a co-organizer of a 6-part Climate Conversations speaker series as well as a year-long preparedness email series.