Hi All,
I am new to the forum although I have been following the prepper movement for some time and have a small group of people working on basic prepping locally. What I want to get some response on is whether there is any interest in joining forces with the various Transition Town organizations across the country if that hasn't already been done. Perhaps some of you are actually involved in this separately from your prepping activity.
What the Transition Town movement hopes to do is to prepare communities to deal with the sorts of emergencies that are expected by taking advance action at the community level so as to make it possible for whole communities to deal with the problems and survive without having to resort to individual or small groups working alone trying to defend themselves. Here in the Comox Valley where I live, we have a poster child community for this effort. We have agriculture, the ocean, the mountains and our own hydroelectric station. What we want to avoid is neighbours killing neighbours for their last can of beans if you know what I mean.
Anyway, thought I would ask.
Welcome Arkbane and greetings from Northern Ontario. I was not aware of the Transition Town movement. It looks very interestesting. Hope yours post gets a lot of attention and gets a conversation going. I will look forward to your input.
One of the most successful Transition Town efforts is Totnes in England. It is also one of the first. But there are something like 300+ organizations in various stages of progress around North America and quite a few more around the world. The key to success is getting the community as a whole to understand what the concerns are and identifying specific, attainable projects or goals to help the community be prepared come what may. Lone wolf survivalists are unlikely to succeed unless you have huge dollars to spend and even then it is doubtful. The thing to avoid is allowing such efforts to be dismissed as being the concern of a "lunatic fringe" or in any way radical. There are, for example, very real economic benefits to communities that become successful Transition Towns. That makes it of interest to business people and politicians, without who's cooperation success is very difficult. Starting can be as simple as organizing your neighbourhood for the next winter's severe storms. Can resources (such as generators, RVs with their independent refrigeration and cooking capability, etc.) be pooled so that they can be used during extended power outages? Can someone on the block be nominated to check on everyone and make themselves known to local emergency responders as the local clearing house for information. You see what I mean. A very do-able goal. A community that is prepared, mentally and physically, in advance is much less likely to dissolve into chaos, looting and violence. Such efforts can be expanded to whole communities. Local authorities will welcome the help. It can be done but it takes leadership and dedication.
Welcome - I was just in your neck of the woods!
Our neighbourhood had a similar 'list' of everyone's work numbers, pets at home in case of fire , etc
It was easy getting everyone on board then this first step led to further co-operation