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Montreal neighborhood festivities for transition

Picture: Foire des possibles in la petite patrie, organized by Solon in September 2020. Credit Ville de Montréal

Interested in joining forces for greater mobilization for transition in Montreal neighborhoods? Are you organizing or interested in organizing a party in your neighborhood between late August and early October 2023, or in 2024? Contact us (info@transitionencommun.org) and we’ll explore the possibilities together.

Neighborhoods are at the heart of the Transition en Commun (TeC) approach, and every year they mobilize to offer their citizens a wide variety of neighborhood parties, taking on the color and flavor of each neighborhood. These events are moments of celebration, mobilization, awareness-raising, learning and much more.

We are currently reflecting with our members on TeC’s contribution as an alliance to these events in the form of event pooling, to the benefit of both the neighborhoods and their events, and the transition movement as a whole in Montreal.

This pooling can take many forms. Here are a few ideas and proposals, based on discussions with a number of neighborhoods already mobilized. These are exploratory, non-exhaustive, non-binding ideas …. to be tested in 2023, with the hope of growing collective mobilization in Montreal in 2024.

  • The calendar and developing a sense of belonging
    • Establish a joint calendar and converge neighborhood events as much as possible over the same period, from the end of August to the beginning of October, to reinforce the message and the weight.
    • Establish a joint calendar as a communication tool, on the TeC site and elsewhere, and to avoid duplication and reinforce each other.
    • Integrate into this joint calendar complementary events that reinforce the logic, such as a pan-Montreal closing event at the end of September 2023.
  • Communications
    • Develop a form of common, light branding to develop a sense of belonging to a common project and support communications.
    • Support communications for all the events on the calendar, via the various TeC networks and its members, to encourage participation and diversity, but also to inspire other neighborhoods and support solidarity between neighborhoods.
    • Work on media relations for the entire calendar and, more broadly, take advantage of this coordination to broaden and deepen media and artistic coverage, and the influence of the transition. This coverage could also be applied, beyond the events themselves, to the types of projects taking place in the neighborhoods, so as to better contribute to their outreach.
  • Content
    • Stimulate the exchange of best practices and ideas between events, and see to the creation of common objectives and common lines (e.g.: the fight against poverty and the risk of gentrification, JEDI, etc.).
    • Develop links with the cultural community, both as a partner in the production of events, but also and above all upstream, to contribute to their design.
    • Solicit contributions from members of the alliance and its bodies and working groups (e.g., demotorization, housing in transition, food, etc.).
    • Upon invitation, make ourselves available as an alliance to ensure a presence at neighborhood fetes and publicize TeC as a Montreal project.
    • Build Montreal projects that can travel to different neighborhoods and reinforce events (theater, special booths, etc.).
  • Resources
    • Strengthen the relationship and cooperative relationship with certain institutions, and the ability to seek complementary financial and material resources.
    • Mutualize logistics and requests for materials when and if relevant.

 

In 2023, the neighborhoods to be included in a pilot version are, for now :