Special note: Heartbeat meetings at the WEA on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month now start at 7pm to allow an earlier finish.
XRŌ NEWS – PLANNING THE BIG MAY ACTION and more
With the Australian fires sharp in the public’s mind and NZ drought setting in, many people appear to be thinking about the climate crisis in more serious terms.
We want to push this shift in public awareness to the tipping point – where declaring a climate and ecological emergency makes sense to most people – and that pushes the government to act.
XR Aotearoa Week of Action
2nd-9th May – SAVE THIS WEEK!
XR is holding a major national week of action in early May, starting in the South Island and ending the week in Auckland. In Christchurch we envisage a concentrated stream of ongoing centrally based actions that will peacefully disrupt business as usual for long enough to send the clear message to politicians and business leaders that government must declare a climate emergency NOW!
The success of this depends on everyone getting involved – so come along to XRŌ’s organised mass actions. We also invite you to get together with your friends to organise supporting actions – we are there to help and support you! (Here’s some inspiration).
What are we aiming for? XRŌ’s goals for 2020
- To make the crisis the No.1 election issue;
- To make XR a mass movement;
- To achieve a national declaration of climate and ecological emergency;
- To get central and local government to adopt deliberative democracy (citizens assemblies).
We’ll prioritise creative peacefully disruptive actions that lead directly to these goals – like die-ins in local climate-denying MPs’ offices, a herd of cows entering ECan to demand clean water NOW, mass slow bike rides in the CBD, guerilla gardening to plant edibles round the CBD, mass attendance of parents and toddlers at CCC council meeting to tell the new council to ratify last year’s declaration…
Our actions will clearly target organizations (political party, local body, major business) with power to make change (ie. we aim not to antagonise the general public!). The actions will repeatedly disrupt business as usual, be media-worthy, pay particular attention to the impact on Maori and low income people, and be non-violent and non-hostile. We are all in this together.
ACTION!
Feel excited to take part? The Action circle meets every Monday fortnight. Next meeting is Wednesday 26 February, 6.15 – 8.30pm, WEA (59 Gloucester St). All welcome! Come and pitch your ideas and/or help plan/organise the big XRŌ action for May. Contact Sara for more info: [email protected] and/or check XRŌ Action channel on Mattermost.
There’s a task for everyone – food prep, live-streaming, understudy to the media spokesperson, police liaison, ringing round, making banners, ordering more badges, getting arrested, organising gazebos/trailers/sound systems, taking minutes at the meeting and much more…
Time to step up and make a commitment. We promise you – you will not have more fun anywhere else at this point in the planet’s story!
ORGANISING TO WIN A CLIMATE CAMPAIGN
An interactive activism skills workshop with Christine Dann
FRIDAY 21 February, 7.30-9.30pm at WEA 59 Gloucester St
Stay for cuppa & discussion
For their regular film/discussion evening this month, our friends at 350Chch present a workshop with Christine Dann. Christine is famous locally for her gardening and forest restoration, her books, blogs and research, and her long-standing activism for women, green issues and peace. She holds a special place in XRŌ hearts as the person who, early last year, offered our fledgling XRŌ group the use of her and Martin’s lovely place at Port Levy (and their wisdom) as we thrashed out the basics of XRŌ’s circles and working methods. We warmly recommend this session!
XRŌ AUTUMN HUI – STAVELEY CAMP 6-9 MARCH
Save the date for the next XRŌ Weekend Hui which will be happening very early in Autumn (6th-9th March).
This will be an opportunity for us to come together as a whole and build connections and capacity through activities, workshops and undistracted time together. There will be a very strong regenerative focus throughout this camp and Michael A is facilitating a Work That Reconnects workshop, probably on the Saturday.
Everyone is welcome, bring your friends and family and spread the word. We’re organising some activities for children.
We have booked the camp from Friday night to Monday lunchtime to give us 2 full days together. If registrations show very few staying over to Monday, we may end on Sunday evening.
Cost – we want the camp to be as accessible as possible. It’s likely to cost us about $30-35 a person per day for camp hire + food, but we’ll put out a sliding scale as we don’t want cost to be a barrier. We’ll be organizing car-pooling.
We need people to help with:
- Food – recipes, shopping, rosters – a bunch of folk and someone to pull it all together
- Transport coordinator – match the people needing and offering rides
- Registration coordinator – receive the registrations and respond to queries
Contact Tor [email protected] or come along to our next planning meeting Mon 17 Feb 7pm at WEA
More details to come very shortly, WATCH THIS SPACE, and/or the facebook event.
REGULAR NOTICES
How to join the Addington Timebank Contact Chrys [email protected] or Jacqui [email protected] or if you’ve met them, go straight to the Addington Timebank website and hit Join.
“This is not a drill” – a great XR handbook, available from Scorpio Books, USB etc, $27. (Also available as audiobook via Amazon)
Seedling & produce koha swop – you are warmly encouraged to bring your excess garden produce, jams, baking etc to Heartbeat and any other XRŌ gathering, AND/OR to fill your pockets with loose change to drop in the Koha bucket in exchange for these! Yum
Joining Mattermost – we use XRŌ’s Facebook page and group to share events, ideas, articles etc with the public. We use Mattermost closed chat room for organising & action planning. MM is open-source, secure and has no paywall. It’s easy to get into – contact Dave E, he’ll talk you through it [email protected]
WHEN WE MEET FACE TO FACE – THE CIRCLES & THE HEARTBEAT
The Talk – first Friday of the month, next one is scheduled for Friday 5 March 7.30pm at WEA. This may be postponed as many XRŌers will be travelling to Staveley camp for the Autumn Hui.
Let us know if you’d like an XR presentation to your organisation/workplace etc. Contact Tor [email protected]
350Chch’s monthly discussion/film night is on 3rd Friday of the month at WEA. Next is Friday 21 February 7.30pm – see above for notice of an activist workshop with Christine Dann
Heartbeat – XRŌ’s fortnightly session for updates, mini-workshops, singing, debate, samba band and more… Heartbeat is held on the 2nd & 4th Fridays of the month. Next one is Friday 28 February 7pm at WEA, 59 Gloucester St. NOTE EARLIER START!
THE CIRCLES
Outreach & Lobbying circle – has started a Tell the Truth campaign targeting the media – meeting fortnightly on Thursdays, next meeting Thurs 27 Feb at 7pm at WEA. Contact Julie D [email protected]
The Talk and Trainings – a subcircle is developing shorter talks and trainings – contact Racquel [email protected] or Torfrida [email protected]
Focus & Direction circle – has been looking at overall XRŌ strategy for 2020. Next meeting Tuesday 18 Feb 6.30pm at WEA. All welcome. Check out the XRŌ Focus & Direction channel on Mattermost. Contact Julie D [email protected]
Action circle – now meets Wednesday fortnights 6.15 – 9.30pm at WEA, next meeting 26 February. Contact Sara C [email protected]
Creative circle – Banners need to be created and painted…. for more details check out the Mattermost channel. For street theatre and red rebels contact Juliet [email protected] or Torfrida [email protected]
Regenerative circle – contact Sarah ([email protected]) if you’d like to be part of this circle which takes care of XRŌers in all sorts of ways from food to conflict resolution and more.
Infrastructure & finance circle – does admin & good potlucks, meets mostly before Heartbeat on 2nd and 4th Fridays, but next meeting is on Friday 21 Feb 6.00pm at WEA. Contact Dave E [email protected]
In love and rage
Torfrida, Dave and Ali
Anyone who’d like to donate to our XR Ōtautahi Christchurch group can do so at Kiwibank: XROtautahiChristchurch, ac. number 38-9002-0331592-07
