Happy new year to all of you. We had a lovely first meeting after the Christmas break, thank you to all of our new and returning rebels. It was lovely to see you.
We started with sharing a word about 2019, and then another word summarising 2020 as a warm up activity, shared throughout our circle.
Here’s how the rest of the meeting went and what we did.
Update from XR national
XR National sent out a series of emails with what we are hoping to achieve in 2020. We had a monumentally successful year, but they also acknowledged that some mistakes were made and they’ve been listening and debriefing throughout December. The national plan will be released at the end of January.
You can find out more about in the full XR national update here.
They’re asking local groups to think about their plan and demand for their local areas. Focusing on training, planning and upskilling our local groups, with the goal of creating our own local plan. This is that we spent the last part of our meeting doing. It looks as though we’ll have a climate breakdown topic nationally and we’ll plan our own local action to do that relates to the national goal.
Help choose the date of the next rebellion
We’ve also been offered the option of choosing the date of the end rebellion. The poll for this closes on the 14th January so please vote for your preferred date as soon as possible so your preference is considered.
Of course there is also the Glasgow meeting of COP26 which we will be actively planning for.
Announcements
If you are interested in any of these announcements please contact us to let us know how you can help.
- There is a meeting on Sunday Jan 19th at 3pm and 7pm at Whittington court in Cheltenham. For anyone that wants to be a Gloucestershire region coordinator for our region, helping to bring all of our smaller groups together. Lift sharing is available if anyone would like to go.
- There’s also a mass mobilisation group that has been started to arrange brand new local XR groups across the UK ahead of our next action in 2020. Please get in contact if you’re able to help with this.
- Members of our group have been approved by the Women’s Institute (WI), to give a heading for extinction speech to their county wide conference on the 28th January.
- The next two youth strikes will be on 14th February and 13th March at 11am at the anti slavery march in Paganhill.
- Earthstrike South West organisers are planning this years Earthstrikes. They are looking for help with organising with earthstrike. So many people helped with stewarding on the day but help is needed beforehand to help with getting more people to come along on the day from local businesses in particular.
- Stroud families group called families for the planet, looking for more help with sorting the groups or people who can help with Facebook admin.
- The development plans for HS2 will lead to a lot of green spaces and land being cleared for construction work. Since the last meeting our rebels there have faced more arrests. Unfortunately the previous protest camp has been closed. Another protest site has opened so anything you can do to support the HS2 protest is sincerely appreciated.
- Earth day is coming up in April. Stroud sub rooms want to have an earth week in conjunction with this and want to get as wide as audience as possible, we’ll post more information on the events for this as we get them.
- We also have our local Landwise group focusing on regenerative culture, sustainability, access to land to grow food, cultivating farmland, trying to teach to farmers to convince them of other ways to do things sustainably.
- Landwise and transition Stroud are having a meeting for a Stroud green organisation audit 11am to 5pm (location TBC). The purpose of the meeting is to map all the green incentives we can think of in the Stroud area, run by land wise and transition Stroud.
- Red rebels are running new training workshops in the new year also need help setting up new crowdfunded to help with organising actions and getting new costumes. Please search for their Facebook group for more information.
- Red rebels are also doing an action Bristol with airport to protest expansion this Saturday leaving Stroud at 7am and finishing at around 3pm. They are low on numbers and need people who have attended rebel training to help.
- XR Stroud samba had their first meeting. The next meeting is Friday 17th January, at open house at star anise 7 to 9pm. There’s also a Facebook group with more info and dates.
- Stroud Wassail Is happening this Saturday all over Stroud, do attend to see our local traditions at play. There will be an event at the Beacon.
Other topics raised
- Should we actively lobby our new MP as a group?
- There is discussion of setting up an XR trade union, please contact for more information if you are interested in helping with this or can offer trade union expertise.
- Should we work with Rachel Brain who is the carbon neutral officer for the Stroud District council?
Chat about meeting format and rooms
There was a question about format on meeting as people want different things from our sessions each week. The idea was to alternate between action orientated meetings and social meetings. The sentiment of the meeting was to trial the alternating meetings.
Working groups
After the break we broke out into small groups to discuss our ideas for 2020 and XR in Stroud and local actions. We will add the notes and pictures from these sessions to the website.