Here is a summary of TTT's strategic priorities for Sep 08 – Sep 09, along with the status of each item. This list has been agreed by the core group.

Background

There are many important projects and activities underway, each of which contribute to the ongoing progress and success of TTT  in different ways. However, it was felt to be important that a number of key projects are identified as particularly helping to meet TTT's aims, and that these are given extra support by the core group and the resources to which it has access (e.g. help with funding). Each project is evaluated against a list of criteria to help objectively assess which are most strategic. The criteria include a rating for how well the project could:

• Increase community involvement
• Reduce CO2 emissions
• Increase community self reliance
• Increase community resilience
• Provide cost savings
• Improve personal wellbeing
• Be replicable through the Transition Network
• Create or strengthen local partnerships
• Raise visibility / awareness of TTT
• Inform the Energy Descent Pathways project
• Others? E.g. minimise resource usage/waste
  

Overall focus of 2008/9

In brief, the first year of TTT (2006/7) was all about awareness raising, with lots of public talks, events and film showings. The first Skilling up for Powerdown courses led to formation of some theme groups, and some projects got underway.

The second year (2007/8) saw the birth of a more structured organisation, along with some office space and core support features such as administration, a bank account, some central fundraising etc. More projects were initiated and more theme groups were formed.

The third year (2008/9) will be about (1) engaging the wider, more mainstream community with TTT through a number of key projects and (2) providing visible, tangible evidence about the beneficial outcomes of TTT's work. With these 2 aims in mind, and using the criteria listed above, we have agreed a number of strategic projects and core activities (more info available on items with clickable links)...

Strategic projects

• Energy Descent Pathways (EDP) Project - this is funded and underway
• Transition Teams – this is funded and at the planning stage - public launch in Feb 09?
• The Great Home Retrofit Phase 1 Housing Map – funding bids submitted
• The Great Home Retrofit Phase 2 Plan & Action - funding bids submitted
• The Great Re-skilling – starting informally but needs co-ordination and possibly funding support 
• Measuring Transition - how will we know we are making progress towards our goals? A small set of important measures will be jointly developed by the EDP project, Transition Teams & coordinated by TTT Project Support
• Localising Commercial Food – exploring potential to meet local demand from local supply - will be submitting funding bids asap  
• Community Supported Agriculture Project – very early discussions are underway with a potential local supplier, and with local CSF group.
• Community Food & Wellbeing Garden – funding bids in progress 
• Totnes £ Phase 3 - funding bids submitted

Strategic core activities

• Fundraising/income generation – TTT still needs to fully secure our core costs. There is some work beginning to look at income generation for projects, but we will need people to make this happen
• Project Support – strategic co-ordination across all projects, particulalry those arising from EDP - this is  funded and in progress 
• Outreach - a new theme group which is using volunteers to actively reach out to the people of Totnes. A key aim is to help improve TTT's visibility in the town e.g. a large notice board in the market square, banners, leaflets about TTT etc and also improve the website homepage. EDP and Transition Teams are closely linked to outreach, and are joined up though the Get Involved Team. 
• Clearer participation paths - make it easier to get involved with TTT - we now have a volunteer co-ordinator to help match volunteers with 'jobs'. Also part of Get Involved Team.
• A better defined organisation/participation structure – this is ongoing work involving the core group, looking at questions like who runs TTT, what authority do they have, who gave this authority, do we have members, what does this mean and so on
• Taking care of the centre, avoiding  burnout – training, support, celebration, networking – who is doing this critical work? To be discussed at next core group meeting (Nov 08)! 

If you have any questions or comments, please let us know.