Sven Eberlein of shareable.net visited our Holiday Sharing Expo in December and spoke to some TPA Transitioners. His article just came out. Enjoy!

http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-to-bring-transition-town-style-sharing-into-your-community

UPDATE: “Bart here. I think Sven really captured the flavor of Transition. He interwove stories from other Transition groups with his reporting on our sharing event. Here’s an excerpt. Be sure to see the original article for photos and a video.

Transition Palo Alto has been doing a clothing exchange twice a year for the last four years, but it’s their Craft Swaps and Sharing Expos that take the swapping to another level. At their recent Holiday Sharing Expo I got to see first hand what’s possible when people come together to exchange gifts, crafts, stories and ideas. From clothes laid out on a tarp to a table full of toys, from Tom Kabat’s wooden bike creation to Connie Beal’s cookie decorating demonstration, from Willi Paul’s Transition Tales to Herb Moore’s Scrapophony of instruments made from glass jars, PVC pipes, tuna cans, and a set of old keys, the event was like a demonstration project for life after cheap oil and quarterly profits.

Rani Jayakumar, one of the driving forces behind the TPA swaps, explains their organic evolution. “Two years ago we did a Christmas event because there wasn’t enough produce to share,” Jayakumar says matter-of-factly. “So we thought why not enlarge the scope and include crafts and Christmas decorations, in case people were tired of certain things and wanted to swap them out? Six months later we did another one in the summer, then other people got ideas and carried it on, and it just kept on going from there.”