Transition’s activities are managed by a small team of staff, but coordinated by a Steering Group of University staff, students and members of the local community, who generally meet monthly.
We are holding our Celebration and AGM at 5.30pm on the 8th April at the Glass Class in the Botanic Gardens to celebrate all the amazing things we have achieved over the past year. Come along to find out what we do and meet others involved in Transition. There will be delicious food and some of our home-made cider to try!
We’ll also be electing our new Steering Group who will be taking our work forward for the coming year. If you are interested in shaping the Transition movement in St Andrews we would very much encourage you to join us. Find the Facebook event here.
You can find out more about the Steering Group and what being a member would involve from Lukas below, and contact our outgoing Steering Group Coordinator Joshua on jm2342@st-andrews.ac.uk to find out more.
Between working away on my dissertation and drawing up plans for my time after St Andrews I find myself reflecting on the two years that I have been a member of the Transition University of St Andrews’ steering group. This commitment, which has eaten a considerable chunk of my study-free time – was it really worth it? I come to the conclusion that it was, even if I might not have always felt that way.
For me Transition was a truly inspirational experience. The times of dreaming and envisioning a better future and the enthusiastic making of plans for realising it in St Andrews have left me with a wealth of ideas and experiences that I will take away with me when I leave. Often these times ended in the face of time constraints, drained energy reserves and a feeling of being overwhelmed by action points and events to be organised. This has taught me (and I daresay us as a steering group) an important lesson: Enjoy the dreaming but be realistic about how much you can do! Written down it looks suspiciously obvious but I found it easily forgotten when coming out of the holidays full of enthusiasm at the beginning of a new semester. In the end, however, any times of worry were more than made up for by the moments of joy when harvesting the first strawberries from the community garden, marvelling at the incredible amount of stuff to be given away by St AndRe-Use, counting the number of Saints that were traded last year in the Saint Exchange or drinking the first sip of freshly pressed apple juice. Looking back on how Transition has grown, the projects that have been started or expanded and the growing number of people involved in them is incredibly rewarding and I am proud that I had a part in shaping the evolving “animal” that is Transition University of St Andrews.
I have learned a lot in this time and I am now leaving the steering group with many new skills and valuable experience. Whether it was minute-taking, organising events or interviewing applicants for Transition jobs (my first ever job interview…) the steering group has provided me with plenty of experience of what it means to manage a real world organisation, occasionally more than I cared for. More importantly, however, being in the steering group has enabled me to grow as a person and to watch other people grow beside me. It made me learn to say “no” and build my self-confidence and it encouraged me to reflect on what I really want for my future. Above all it gave me the opportunity to work towards goals that I deeply care about together with fantastic people and make new friends in the process.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all the people involved in Transition for providing the supportive, inspirational and fun environment that has made working in Transition an invaluable and transformative experience for me. I am looking forward to see the direction in which the new steering group will take Transition, whether it is the continuation of successful projects, development of new projects, setting up a social enterprise or something completely different. There are lots of opportunities – take them or leave them, but enjoy doing it.
– Lukas Bunse, Transition Steering Group Member 2012-2014
