Power Shift UK is just over a week away.  While the Saturday will have a load of fantastic workshops and talks on the subject of diversity and the climate change movement in the UK, the Sunday will be for all attendees to work together on how we will convert all of that into action.  While this will be largely an open discussion (Open Space for those who know their facilitation methods), the visionary Claire Morris has written up her thoughts on the topics that might be developed.  If this looks exciting and you want to be part of it, please register now as time is running out.  To whet your appetite, take it away Claire:

1.  Raising and Sustaining Consciousness: How to persist with bearing witness to the severity of the crisis, while sharing real vision, to reach a tipping point in public opinion/social action?

2.  Balancing the narrative and messaging: How to caringly communicate the terrifying destruction but also the possibility for the future if we choose now to work for a thriving world?

3.  The Energy Crisis: Rolling Power Cuts by 2020?  How can we ensure a swift but just transition to 100% renewable energy that is fair, accessible and affordable for everyone?

4.  Reclaiming the Food System from global to local control: How to popularise community farms and agriculture to the point where they are accepted and mainstreamed in the UK?

5.  Building the integrated Global Movement: How to grow a publicly visible, fully participative social movement to apply a critical mass of pressure, to radically shift social/political will?

6.  Divestment from Fossil Fuels & Reinvestment in Renewables: How to stigmatise and dismantle the Fossil Fuel industry & raise up every opportunity to invest in Renewables?

7.  Pushing out every story into the Mainstream Media: How to make a concerted effort to broadcast on TV, radio, newspapers and blogs every community success story and act of resistance?

8.  Uniting on clear, proven, bottom-up solutions everywhere! How to bring people together to implement new systems in our communities from food to energy to tree planting to insulation!

9.  Empowering the masses: How to engage disenfranchised, marginalised or voiceless people, make actions relevant and engaging, and trace the benefits back to the kitchen table?

10.  People Power and Staying Connected and Supported: How to set our individual concerns in the perspective of local needs and wider groups to address problems powerfully collectively?

11.  Overhauling our values: Community, Solidarity, Justice: How to replace greed, fear & insecurity with strong values that build us up: love, peace, compassion, empathy over apathy?

12.  Badgering MPs, local politicians and Government Depts: How to pressure and converse with all levels of government to demand the restructuring of most national systems & policies.

13.  Creating the safe spaces for Real Democracy, collaboration and creativity: How to make platforms/assemblies where people can innovate, debate, plan & work together for change?

14.  Re-Skilling for resilient, adaptive, creative communities: How to nurture “worthwhile work” that rewards and enriches life, and relearn traditional skills and new knowledge to thrive?

15.  Education in and out of Schools: How can we ensure that the truths, and uncorrupted information about global, national and local trends, are taught honestly and openly to people all ages?

16.  Growing personal resilience, determination & inspiration through reflective and mindful practice: How to sustain ourselves through quietness & inquiry into our own responses?

17.  Strengthening and resourcing Grassroots Resistance: How can we as a broad movement support and participate with activists around the country committed to resisting fossil fuels?

18.  Challenging Consumerism, Capitalism and the Status Quo: How do we stand up to the powerful structures and lobbies that block progress, & assist those that are calling for change?

19.  Strategies around COP20, Paris, 2015 & “The Global Deal”: How can we make the best out of the United Nations critical climate negotiations, as well as in the lead up and aftermath?

20.  Engaging with current regulatory and planning systems: How should we interact with current processes in the UK for environmental regulation and the threats to this (e.g. TTIP)?

I’m looking forward to it – hopefully see a lot of you there on 3/4 May – please register now!

John Bell

Ordinary Bloke