European Global Ecovillage Network G.A. in Keuruu Ecovillage, Finland.

August 14, 2009

Global Ecovillage Network European General Assembly

Keuruu Ecovillage, Keuruu, Tampere.

Finland

This was my first GEN-Europe GA and a very memorable and transformative experience it turned out to be. With the brilliant innovation of Ulrike Schimmel, secretary to the council, in making Grundtvig grants available to those involved in adult education, it not only paid for me to attend this GA & training, but managed to raise considerable funding for the network, well done Ulrike!

I was attending as the Transition Ireland and Northern-Ireland national education officer, and as Transition Training and Consultancy, from the Transition Network, had nobody present I was asked to represent them too. Phew!! I was definitely to be on my best behaviour.

I went to Finland with a question in my mind, “What have the Global Ecovillage Network and the Emerging Global Transition Network got to offer one another in relation to inspiring worldwide transformation to a sustainable way of life?” and I discussed this at length with many folk attending the GA.

The answers are still unfolding and it is now the title of an article I’m currently writing, with the collaboration of some interested parties both in GEN and TN, which will, hopefully, make it all more productive.

As I arrived with a bad head and throat cold, I was delighted to see John Croft, Dragon Dreaming, had taken the lead on the first evening to deliver a brilliant presentation on the recent Transition Conference and was advocating the Transition Movement as a very relevant vehicle which would enable GEN to get its message to the mainstream of our society.

This is working already with a number of Ecovillages declaring themselves Transition Initiatives and focalising the creation of Transition Initiatives in their local communities. I also see that the intentional communities that are the project groups which are forming in the more advanced Transition Initiatives will create Ecovillages within their communities, maybe not as we know them today, but then all is evolving.