Month: November 2019

This week was a working group meeting. This meant that our overall meeting time was shorter and without many announcements so we could spend most of our time in working groups that we were interested in.

There were groups for deep adaption, wellbeing, communications, inclusivity and direct actions.

Deep adaption is a new working group for Stroud XR focusing on how we as a group could step up to help our community with the immediate after effects of a climate emergency (such as the floods in 2007) or other such activity.

The inclusion group is also new, and facilitated by Anna (an independent observer of our meeting). The inclusion group focuses on how we can encourage more people from any sort of background to our meetings and actions (including those from marginalised groups). So that we are aware of people’s various needs and the actions and language we need to use in order to bring more people to XR.

Inclusion will hold another meeting next week where they will outline the issues that exist within our group and the work that will be involved in researching the people who might want to join us.

Meeting format

We also discussed how the meeting format may change in the coming weeks. Future meetings will alternative between socials and training sessions (one week) and working groups and strategy the following week.

Next weeks meeting will also be a working group and strategy session.

There has been some discussion about reducing the number of meetings we have, but almost everyone seemed to prefer having a weekly meeting.

Announcements

5th December – Landwise ‘Food vision for the future’ – come and find out what we’ve been doing, and help build a vision for how the district might feed us all.

Tree Planting (Stroud Valleys Project) – Environmental charity Stroud Valleys Project (SVP) is launching a new tree planting project this winter called ‘Wild About Trees’. SVP wants to raise £10,000 from local people to plant 1,000 trees around the district. There are several ways to get involved. People can donate £10 towards planting a tree, individuals or a group can sign up to take part in planting by contacting SVP and will be kept informed of opportunities by email. If you want to find out more, contact: info@stroudvalleysproject.org

Following on from the packed Stroud Climate Hustings on 19th Cheltenham XR are planning a climate hustings. Details to follow.
If you haven’t already seen it XR have produced an Election Rebellion Kitlist there’s a link to it on the XR UK Newletter here: check it out.

Debriefing continued

Last weeks meeting focused on reviewing and debriefing from the October rebellion and sharing within groups what went well about the rebellion, what didn’t go so well and what actions we needed to take forward into future rebellions.

This week we discussed these solutions and in four groups prioritised the three to four main areas of focus. These will be circulated then they are typed up and prepared.

There was also a discussion about how best to continue our meeting format to give working groups and affinity groups enough time

Coordinators are still needed to help organise our Wednesday meetings if we wish for them to continue in their current format.

Next week

From next week will split out into working groups again. There will be new working groups focusing on inclusivity (called XR Together) and another for deep adaptation. These are being created from clear feedback from crew members post rebellion.

Bev raised a proposal to create a community emergency plan (similar to the ones used in this weeks UK floods) so we can organise to help Stroud in an emergency caused by the climate emergency.

Ames also suggested the idea for providing Christmas XR hampers and community food hubs to help in the lead up to Christmas.

Similarly, there are opportunities to help with XRmas (an alternative Christmas)

Please seek out the working group for these in future if you’d like to help with these areas.

Announcements

There is an XR hunger strike happening, join the South west telegram broadcast for more information.

There is a heading for extinction talk happening in Evesham at the unitarian church there on Thursday 21st at 7pm.

The first XR Stroud Samba band meeting will be at the beacon at 7pm on Tuesday 19th November.

There are still Stroud District climate emergency leaflets at the beacon for pickup if you still wish to help give out leaflets or deliver to your street. Simply sign the book that’s there with where you want to deliver.

XR have provided guidance for the lead up to election time to try and make election time about the state of the climate as the primary issue.

Stroud Labour party have asked if there are any individuals who would like to appear in a video about climate breakdown. Please contact us if interested.

XR hustings for Stroud is happening at the Sub rooms on Tuesday 19th November at 7pm to 9pm . This will feature all candidates as is organised in conjunction with Greenpeace.

More people are needed for arrestee support using PALS (Post Arrest, Liaison Support) where people who have been arrested are paired with a support person over the phone. Training is provided, and it’s a great way to support XR from home. Please contact us if interested.

If you are not on the arrestee list for XR Stroud please get in touch so that XR Stroud legal can help support you.