Steven Knopp is a renowned Wilderness survival skills educator , a preparedness , and permaculture consultant and long term self sufficient off-grid homesteader, and a maker of educational videos on these and other related topics, and musician and craftsman, and posses an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and experience, and is tremedous presenter on these topics.

Wilderness Survival Skills Combined with Permaculture for True Sustainability

Matthew Nelson is a movement artist, activist, educator, researcher, therapist, and entrepreneur. Particularly in love with the act of dancing, Matthew experiences movement as a way of aligning energy with form. Eternally curious, Matthew makes opportunities out of questions, and encourages others to do the same. He’s collected qualifications, including an MFA in Modern Dance and certifications in Laban Movement Analysis, Massage, and Pilates. Yet, Matthew likes to play between the lines of techniques and traditions, seeking solutions to the timely question of how humans can learn to live with resilience and in diversity, efficiently and easefully collaborating with each other from a base of compassion. He breathes embodiment as ground zero for the critical realization that we are living systems, made up of living systems, and participating in living systems.

Cultivating Physical Freedom

Don Hall is the founder and Executive Director of Transition Sarasota. Previously, he worked for two years as the Education and Outreach Coordinator for Transition Colorado (now, the Local Food Shift Group), the first official Transition Initiative in North America and a statewide hub. Don holds a Master’s in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University and is a certified Permaculture Designer and US Transition Trainer.

2016 Convergence Workshop: Effective Collaboration

While working in groups can be fun, it’s not always easy. How do we cultivate effective groups without replicating hierarchical structures or spending too much time on group process? Designed for anyone working towards positive social change, this participatory one-hour workshop will provide you with some of the perspective, knowledge, and tools you need to collaborate with others in a more skillful way.

This workshop will be a highly-condensed version of a two-day training in Effective Collaboration that was developed by the permaculture-inspired Transition Network to provide local initiative leaders with the skills needed to build resilient communities. Some of its main themes include incorporating diverse perspectives to generate collective wisdom, understanding power dynamics to deal with conflicts more constructively, and emphasizing practice as a way to integrate theory. Both the Transition movement, in general, and this Effective Collaboration workshop, specifically, are powerful tools for spreading permaculture ideas and practices far beyond the choir.

Presented By: Don Hall

Transition Streets is a neighbor-led project to reduce household energy and water use, build resilient local food systems, and build community resilience and increase social cohesion on your street. It takes the systemic thinking of Transition & Permaculture and breaks it down into a simple curriculum with actionable steps that add up to real change. If you’ve been looking for ways to engage your neighbors and launch resilience-building on your street, you will want to take in this workshop!

Transition Streets is a relatively new and very successful project of Transition US which has been used in dozens of communities across the country. It combines a number of strategies: saving money on household bills; getting to know your neighbors; leadership and facilitation development; community dialogue; as well as reducing energy/water/waste. It is definitely a “building bridges” project, particularly between near neighbors. The workshop will provide participants with a taste of the curriculum as well as tips on how to implement it (for example, outreach to neighbors & local media, running a successful meeting) and other takeaways/lessons learned from the project. Presenters will include TUS staff (Carolyne Stayton and Joshua Shepherd) as well as local Transition leaders who have implemented Transition Streets in their own neighborhoods. This workshop will be primarily informational although there will be a number of participatory exercises to really relay the flavor of the project and its potential for greater systemic change.

Presented By: Tina Clark

Marissa Mommaerts is Director of Programs and REconomy Project lead for Transition US, part of the international Transition Network. Marissa is the co-author of two recent reports on the new economy movement, “Weaving the Community Resilience and New Economy Movement,” based on a series of interviews with new economy leaders across the US and published by Post Carbon Institute; and “25 Enterprises that Build Community Resilience.” Her vision is to empower people and communities with the tools and information we need to take back our economic and political power.