Transition Storrington

Jemma Dooreleyers | Jan 17, 2024

Will and Sharon Freeman, Kari Galasso and Rebecca Ward, the co-founders of Transition Storrington, were pleasantly surprised by the turn out for their inaugural meeting.

The event was held at Storrington Centre and began with a few words from the co-founders, explaining their backgrounds with food sovereignty, ecology and their passion for community driven initiatives. They introduced the concept of a “transition town” and explained the goal of the meeting - to introduce these concepts and discover what each community member can bring to the table in terms of skills, knowledge and resources.

According to their introduction, Transition Storrington is an initiative started by four friends who wanted to take action to quell their anxiety around climate change and to empower the Battersea, Sunbury and Inverary community to work together to live sustainably using the resources, skills and gifts each member of the community can bring to the table.

For Rebecca Ward, a founding team member of Transition Storrington and child psychologist, it all started with the Curve 2 Quest course on sustainability that she took with the other members of the group last winter. The course, which is designed and taught by Steve Taylor from his apartment in Denver Colorado, opened her eyes to the urgency of living in sustainable communities and to become aware of the needs of the community in terms of self-sufficiency and reducing dependence on fossil-fuels. This created the desire to bring people together to address the needs of community.

“What I’ve learned over time is the idea of ‘think globally but act locally’,” she said. “We cannot solve the world’s problems but we can address what’s right in our own backyard.”

“It gives me some peace of mind to think that if we can get our community in action to create resiliency here, that’s probably the best we can do.”

The next part of the event was a screening of the film “Together We Grow”, a film set in a Transition Town in New Zealand that focuses on what can happen for a community when people work towards the common goal of food sovereignty, sustainability and the sharing of resources.

The founding members of Transition Storrington were inspired by a movement known as “Transition Towns” which refers to the creation of localization of resources like food, fuel and community nurturing.

After the film, the floor was opened to the audience of about 40 people to discuss the sections of the “Permaculture Flower”, a flow chart with eight categories: food sovereignty, shelter/energy/transportation, land/nature stewardship, health/well-being, education/culture, finance/economics, personal/domestic care and community governance. These categories are sub-sections of what a community needs to consider when creating a Transition Town.

Once the flower was explained, participants were encouraged to write down their strengths in relation to each category, ideas they wanted to include and an expression of interest they may have in each category. This activity was designed to show the co-founders where they can put their efforts and who they can delegate tasks to.

Will Freeman, another co-founder of Transition Storrington, grew up in Battersea, as a farmer and as an organic vegetable seller for most of his life. Apart from the anxiety that he feels due to climate change, another reason he felt called to create this group is the epidemic of loneliness he has been witnessing over the past few years.

“We are operating in silos and I think there is a real longing for a sense of community,” said Freeman.

“Our community has changed,” he said. “When I was a kid, I used to be able to wave at every car driving on the way into town because we knew everyone who lived out here, (but) that is not the case anymore. Instead of feeling fear and weariness about our changing community, I think we need to lean into our neighbours even more and instill a sense of community and sharing that we have lost in modern society.”

The energy after the meeting was an energy of hope for a sustainable future rather than an energy of despair, which is exactly what Kari Galasso, another co-founding member of the team wanted to see from the meeting.

Galasso, a long-time resident of the Battersea area and life-long lover of nature, has always felt a call to be environmentally conscious, but her climate anxiety continues to get worse as the years go on, an anxiety that has instilled a sense of urgency to create a group like this one.

“I look at the day-to-day,” she said. “I look at this weather, I look at the fact that I’ve lived here 20 years and this is the first January that I haven’t been able to physically be on the lake.”

Despite this anxiety, she feels that a group like this is necessary to fight the feeling of hopelessness.

“Rather than panic and feel hopeless, I am fortunate enough to have met these other people,” said Galasso. “We’re trying to be active and hopeful as opposed to panicked and helpless.”

Throughout the meeting, door prizes that showcased the local farms, makers and businesses were drawn (I won a locally sourced willow branch star made by Barb Campbell) and refreshments like locally sourced carrot cake, vegan brownies and popcorn were served.

Bruce Downey, a meeting participant, retired architect and a person who helped design the addition in Storrington Centre where the meeting took place, said that he felt uplifted and proud to see the space being used for a meeting like this.

“It really is heart-warming and inspiring to see,” he said.

Transition Storrington will be having more meetings and workshops throughout the winter and spring. For more information, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

photo. The caption of the photo is: "Founding members of Transition Storrington stand with the Permaculture Flower. From left to right: Rebecca Ward, Kari Galasso, Sharon Freeman, Will Freeman."