Activism
March them up to the top of the hill and then march them down again?
In a few days time there will be a march in London. The TUC have called a March for the Alternative for Saturday 26th. I’m hearing excitement from various quarters and even seen an email speculating it’ll be as big as the million strong 2003 march against the Iraq war. Simultaneously there’s a call to […]
Reclaiming the fields: rivers, cafes and commercial greenhouses
Saturday, I was co-facilitating a day’s meeting with the emerging Reclaim the Fields UK network. RTF exists elsewhere in Europe as a network of mainly young people trying to take back control of food production. Until Saturday there was no equivalent network here in the UK. 45 people came together from a range of projects, […]
Words to inspire
I’m going to send you over to Dwight Towers blog (again!) – not for his usual righteous anger about the lack of participation in activist meetings, events and movements, but for some bona fide participation-building inspiration. In his post Gay marriage rally and movement building he gives us the speech he would have made had […]
Lunching out on accountability
I recently left a comment on Dwight Towers blog. It turned out to be quite a long one and had the makings of a post in its own right. So I’ve taken it and made it even longer. The problem as posed by Dwight: there are also some people [and their track record goes on […]
Cycling to Palestine – P.E.D.A.L
Towards the end of last year I spent a day with a small group of folk planning a bike ride to Palestine. The plans are now complete and the group is now P.E.D.A.L. an acronym that stands for their aims: Popular resistance movements Environmental justice Direct action on BDS Art and culture Linking stories of […]
6 billion ways
Nip over to Political Dynamite for a quick preview of this weekend’s 6 Billion Ways event. Carl’s been busy mentoring a handful of the organisers in facilitating the Open Space session on Sunday. Meanwhile I’ll be in Dorset, working with the Threshold Centre, a co-housing project, on their consensus process. More on that next week.
Clicktivism….a few links
The debate about clicktivism (online activism) is raging on… is it an effective substitute for good old-fashioned face-to-face activism? does it encourage shallow, almost meaningless engagement? is it the way forward? are local groups a thing of the past. All good stuff. Political Dynamite have just uploaded a clicktivism post sparked by 38 Degrees recent, […]
Are we nearly there yet?
From time to time I find myself in discussion (or facilitating discussion) about whether or not campaigns and campaigners should declare their true colours and publish their vision and the route map for getting there. It’s not often that happens. More likely an organisation takes a step by step approach, raising awareness of, and lobbying […]
Studying direct action at the University of Life – in Sheffield
Following the support we gave to Leeds Uni students at the end of last year, we were asked to facilitate a 3 hour nonviolent direct action (NVDA) workshop on Saturday, as part of a weekend of activities at Sheffield Uni. People & Planet staff were on tour supporting their university groups. Our workshop made up […]