So how do you go about engaging your potential community? Again it is useful to consider the four areas that your Big List exercise looked at...
Students
Students have a lot of power to change institutions and if you are a student, Transition can help to find your voice and sing out about your visions!
Here are some examples of how different Transition Universities have gone about engaging students in Transition:
• Piggy-back on other events and have a presence at e.g. information fairs during the first week of term, post-graduate information events, any environmental festivals/events.
• Approach university structures and investigate which ones can support you. Can you be in the welcoming information sent out to all new students, the library newsletter, or maybe have information boards in the university cafés?
• Have an accessible project, such as a swap shop or veg bag distribution, which can attract people.
• Invite new students into your physical space (if you have one) and make them feel like they are welcome and can return there.
• Make sure that people with new ideas can be heard. In St Andrews, this has been done through regularly hosting Open Forums, which are a creative conversation space where everyone is welcome and can learn more about the Transition group or give their input on what it should be doing.
• Some Transition Universities have had a good experience with using incentives, such as prizes for the hall of residence that uses the least energy, or restaurant vouchers for the most environmentally friendly costume during traditional university dressing-up events.
• Host easily accessible and open to all social events, such as going to the pub together, or having a shared meal. Friendship bonds seem to make for the best engagement.
• Provide formal opportunities for students, such as internships during academic year or the summer, which means they can engage and also “have something to write on their CV,” which is a great concern for many.
• Contact student groups with similar aims. If there are other groups in your university community that share your aims, such as student societies or student union organisation, you will probably find it fruitful to link up with them. See the Networking and partnerships section for more information on how to do this successfully.
• Have an email address that people can contact for immediate engagement at an individual level - but make sure someone is tasked with responding to that email address promptly and enthusiastically in an appropriate tone!
• Note where people talk about activities on campus - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Blackboard, mailing lists or somewhere else entirely - and establish a profile that explains what you do and why, and post relevant information, including directly linking with identified partners, to build up a following. Once you have a network to communicate with online, use this to keep those interested in what you do in the loop and get them more involved. Remember that communication is two-way, and take time to respond to any contact others make with you.
43