The Green and Blue Space, Stirling
Structure: Does not have an overarching coordinating group, but smaller committees for each individual project. The project employees are hired through the Student Union and they answer to its chief executive, who initiated the group. The support of such a senior long-term member of staff has proved important in this situation. Other union staff and sabbaticals are not necessarily supportive or even aware of the group, as they are elected on a yearly basis.
Challenges and opportunities: There is a straightforward structure to hire employees and have access to university mechanisms and structures while still being able to act in student interest and not be influenced too much by top-down governance. It is part of student services, which means it only engages with the student body through those channels and not independently.
Another structure to be aware of is that of a 'Transition society', mimicking the structures of other student societies or interest groups, such as a geography society or role-playing group, aligned with the Student Union. St Andrews considered this a number of times as it would give more access within the Union, but decided to stay independent for a number of reasons, including the charges and rules that came with affiliation as well as the desire for it not to be seen as a student-only group.
One thing to be aware of, from the University of St Andrew's’ experience, is the coordinating group getting too big and becoming draining and inefficient. To avoid this they recommend agreeing on a clear structure that has representatives from necessary subgroups, holding short meetings, and having a facilitator who prepares the meetings.
Transition Network Resources
On the Transition Network website in the Support section
there are some great resources, including:
Moving from initiating group to Transition Initiative core group: this guide is useful to look at as it outlines how groups move from Initiating group to a core group, lots of useful stuff for Transition Universities in there.