[SAMPLE ARTICLE — verify facts and edit before publishing]
In 2007, a handful of people from London's early Transition groups started meeting informally. There was no budget, no paid staff, and no formal agenda. There was simply a recognition that groups scattered across one of the world's biggest cities could benefit from knowing each other existed.
Eighteen years later, that monthly meeting still happens. It has outlasted recessions, a pandemic, a dozen different communication platforms, and the cycles of enthusiasm and exhaustion that all volunteer networks experience. What has kept it alive is also what started it: it works.
The early years
The first London groups — Transition Tooting, Transition Kingston, Transition Brixton — formed in 2007 and 2008, inspired directly by the Totnes model. The Hub formed around the same time, initially meeting in people's living rooms and church halls.
By 2010 there were groups in Ealing, Leytonstone, Hackney, Islington, Stroud Green and elsewhere. The Hub meetings grew from intimate gatherings into lively events with 20 or 30 attendees. A community was forming.
Projects and roots
From about 2011 onwards, groups began to move from founding energy into deeper, more sustained work. Kingston launched its Repair Café. Leytonstone planted its community garden. Ealing began the Solar Schools programme. Tooting launched 'Tooting Can!' and built a reputation for joyful, inclusive community events.
Pandemic and renewal
COVID-19 transformed the Hub overnight. Forced online, the meetings became more accessible — groups that had rarely attended began joining from home. The pandemic made Transition's themes of local resilience and community support suddenly, urgently relevant. New energy flowed in.
Today
The London Hub now connects eight or more active groups at each monthly meeting. Several groups that had paused are re-emerging. New groups are forming. The city's Climate Emergency declarations have validated a decade of grassroots effort.
Eighteen years on, the Hub remains what it always was: a space where London's Transition communities meet, support each other, and make things happen that wouldn't happen otherwise.