26 Feb Weekly Update

This week:

Anna Kernahan is a climate activist and founder of Belfast Fridays For Future. She has been striking alone every Friday since September 2019. Anna created a short video for us – you can check it out on our web page and we’ll play it this Friday. We’ll also take some time to record a message to send back to her.

Ollie’s been away for a couple of weeks. He’ll be back this Friday and will be our speaker. We will also play the clips sent to us from strikers in Russia and Belfast.

Last week’s speakers:

Sean Weaver

Dr Sean Weaver has been working on environmental issues for more than thirty years. His current project is to bring rural and urban communities together. His talk was compelling and many passers-by stopped to listen.

Hannah and Liam: The Rubbish Trip

Liam Prince and Hannah Blumhardt have imagined a world without waste, and they made it their business to live in it. The world we live in is not sustainable, and their project, The Rubbish Trip, is a way of showing people what a sustainable world might look like.

Events

29th Feb: Climate Hub (Aro Fair)

We’ll be there all day amongst the madness at the Aro Fair ’20, so combine an awesome day out with a wee pop in to see us! Discover whats going on in the local climate / environmental scene, and have a look at how you could get involved- we have something for everyone; whatever time or skills you have to offer!

Rest your weary legs on our comfy couches (first room on the right in Aro Community Centre) and come have a chat with our friendly TUI community!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1532398036910153

8th March Takutai Kāpiti: Climate Change and Our Coast

The Summit launches a significant community engagement project that aims to encourage and empower our communities to become more aware of the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise and to take part in developing solutions and pathways for adapting to coming change

This event will happen at Ngā Purapura in Ōtaki. There’ll be a free shuttle to get you to and from (Raumati, Paraparaumu, Waikanae, Te Horo and Ōtaki. Book on Eventbrite.

And Finally

Missing Banner!

Does anyone know where this banner went? It was last seen in this public meeting with Andy Foster (that’s him behind the icon). Please get in touch if you know where it is.

Signs in Busy Places

More people are holding the signs – Stuart and Jane on Thursdays, Kieran and company on Friday mornings (7-9 am) and Violet for a few hours during the day.

We have a new flier. We can print off copies for anyone wanting to distribute them or you can print them yourself. It also appears on the right sidebar of the website where you can click through to articles backing up the statements.

See you on the lawn!

19 Feb 2020 Weekly update

Website Changes

We’re transitioning from the old website www.climatechange.org.nz to a new one on www.fridaysforfuture.nz. This brings our naming more in-line with Fridays For Future groups around the world. The new site will contain regular updates you can share to let people know why we gather and what to expect when you come along. You can subscribe to be notified of changes or comment on posts, and we will also feed information from the site to social media (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram).

Banners in Busy Places

Join, me, Violet, Stu, Jane, Lucas, and Ella as we move into the city to tell people about Fridays For Future. The communicators tell us (thank you Jane!) that real change is about talking to persuadables. These are the many people who haven’t formed a strong opinion, one way or another, just yet.

It takes some effort because climate reality skeptics and activists alike both want to talk about it all the time. But these people are the least likely to change.

You don’t need to shift someone’s opinion a long way to make a difference. If your presence starts people thinking and gets them considering the evidence you have made a very real difference.

Get in touch via email or talk to us on Friday if you want to try this out. We have signs and fliers you can use to get started. If people want to get together to prepare material we can book the ReGen centre in Aro Community Hall.

This week’s speakers:

Sean Weaver: Healing the Urban/Rural divide.

Sean is working to combine climate care activists from the city with some central North Island farmers to get some mutual understanding on the way forward. He is running a workshop this Thursday at the Sustainability Trust.

Liam Prince: The Rubbish Trip

Liam Prince and his partner Hannah embarked on The Rubbish Trip (check Google) a couple of years ago, to teach people how to minimise waste in their homes, particularly plastic. They’ve won awards and were profiled on Sunday on TVNZ a few months ago. At the start, it was tough going. I remember Liam saying to me once, “we don’t know if we’re wasting our time, the msg isn’t getting thru.” And then 6 months later plastic reduction became the new black. Liam will speak about having determination and belief when it all seems too har

Last week’s speaker: Tom Bennion.

Environmental Lawyer and #NoFly advocate Tom Bennion reprised a recent talk on the changes that are upon us. Links and notes from that talk are here.

Coming up:

Social Media improvements.

We’re looking at ways to improve the ways information gets to you – starting with HootSuite – a tool to push our updates to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all at once – so you can share the information online using the tools you love.

More Speakers.

Lisa McLaren of Gen Zero (the creators of the Zero Carbon Act) has agreed to join us soon. As election year starts to build momentum we’d love to get a political campaigner to give us some pointers about starting conversations about things that matter. We’re also keen to hear from some school strikers. Keep an eye out for future posts and get in touch with suggestions.

Overseas strikers: @solonotalone

Solo But Not Alone is a new twitter account tracking solo strikers around the world. We’ll be working with them to hear from strikers around the world and to show them our solidarity.

Events

There are more than we can keep track of right now! (We’re working on that too). In the meantime here is a short list from Tui Climate Community’s [[Facebook feed][

  • Feb 20 Healing the Rural/Urban Divide (Sean Weaver)
    (Extinction Rebellion) We are excited to have Sean Weaver (Ekodo) with us again to run a planning workshop on assertively compassionate climate action. This will involve recruiting and planning a delegation of climate care activists to a central North Island rural farming community that is open to meeting with urban climate campaigners to heal the urban-rural divide on climate change. This is creating the seed crystal of a nation-wide cross-party agreement on climate change for rural Aotearoa. This work is about using active listening and compassionate communication skills to create transformative ecopolitical outcomes. The climate crisis is upon us and there is no time to lose getting distracted with adversarial approaches that divide us. Why compassion? Because it is the most effective way to bring about enduring beneficial change in an age of division. This workshop will involve forming a core working group keen to sit down and kōrero with our farming whanau to create a foundation for mutual understanding and mutual agreement on a way forward. This is about learning what life is really like for these communities, exploring shared values, and co-designing a middle path solution, so that both urban and rural people can build a resilient, low carbon future together.
  • Feb 29 Climate Hub at Aro Fair
    We’ll be there all day amongst the madness at the Aro Fair ’20, so combine an awesome day out with a wee pop in to see us! Discover what’s going on in the local climate / environmental scene, and have a look at how you could get involved- we have something for everyone; whatever time or skills you have to offer! Rest your weary legs on our comfy couches (first room on the right in Aro Community Centre) and come have a chat with our friendly TUI community!
  • Mar 7 Wellington No Butts cleanup
    Our Seas Our Future is running a nationwide campaign to highlight the negative effects of cigarette butts on our environment. Join us this Seaweek for our first local No Butts cleanup. During this clean up we will separate cigarette butts from general rubbish to begin building a picture on the extent of ‘butt pollution’ in Wellington.
  • Mar 8 Climate Community Get Together
    (open to requests / ideas / input / feedback from last time!) This is an event for all environmental / climate groups in Wellington to get together, share some stories and some kai, strengthen bonds, and make friends! All welcome!! If you’re not active in any current environmental groups, but want to be, this is a great opportunity to come along and mingle! That’s all for this week – see you on the lawn! nga mihi Kieran