History

In early 2009, Margaret Krome-Lukens heard about the Transition Town movement and read Transition founder Rob Hopkins's Transition Handbook. It convinced her to take action, so she emailed everyone she knew who might be interested in helping to make Carrboro the first Transition Town in North Carolina. Those who responded began to meet and became the original Steering Committee of Transition Carrboro. Since a number of them lived in Chapel Hill, and since the group realized how intimately intertwined the two towns are, they expanded the group's focus and changed the name to Transition Carrboro-Chapel Hill (TCCH).

The Steering Committee began to participate in events aimed at spreading the word about Transition. The visibility of the group was greatly expanded during the holiday parade in 2009 when volunteers marched down Franklin Street pulling a 10-foot tree created by Tim Peck. Growing from the branches of the tree were leaves labeled with the areas of concern in a world faced with climate change: clean energy, recycling, public transportation, health, food/farms, spirituality, and more.

Later events included a potluck and sing-along in February 2010 at the Arcadia cohousing community, a March 2010 showing of The Powerdown Show at Flyleaf Books (read more about that event here), and tabling at Chapel Hill's Earth Action Day in April 2010.

All this activity was leading up to a major launch event: The Great Unleashing.

The Great Unleashing

According to the Transition model, the Great Unleashing is the coming together of the people in a community to envision a positive, resilient future. Over 150 people turned out to the Carrboro-Chapel Hill Unleashing, breaking into smaller groups throughout the day to discuss various topics. Records were made of the small-group discussions and they are available here.

At the end of the Unleashing, 21 action groups were formed. Some of these are no longer active, but many of today's TCCH action groups were born that day.

You can read more details about this event on our Unleashing page.

Energy & Community Resilience Fair

On October 10, 2010, as part of 350.org's 10/10/10 Global Day of Action, TCCH staged an Energy & Community Resilience Fair at Carrboro Town Commons. Over 30 exhibitors came to share ideas on tackling the climate crisis. We helped visitors calculate their carbon footprints and gave away brownies baked in a solar oven. Smoothies were also available, made in a bicycle-powered blender. More information on the fair, including a link to the list of exhibitors, is available here.