Agenda Lancaster Autumn 2016

Please note that this is a PROVISIONAL agenda, which may change….

Aims:rtp workshop

Debriefs of “Keep it in the Ground” & “Stay Grounded”

Confirm Principles & Values of RTP

Discuss basic proposals for 2017

Discuss how we relate to other organisations, such as Rising Up and Fuel Poverty Action

Saturday

1pm: Welcome!

A quick introduction to Reclaim the Power for those who are new: where we have come from, what we have done, and how we work. Including an explanation of our decision making processes, our structures, and our working groups. A good recap even if you’ve been organising with RTP for years!!

1.30 – 2.30pm Policy updates

A really great chance to get a potted update on the political context that we are currently navigating. This will help us to make decisions later on in the gathering as to what we do in the new year, but it’s also just really useful to know! As well as updates on latest from the forces of darkness it will also include the exciting things our allies in the struggle are working on, so you’ll get a picture of what the resistance looks like too.

Updates on the following (and possibly more!) critical issues:

Coal, Gas. Fracking. Aviation, Nuclear

2.30 -4.30pm Principles & Values

This is going to be a meaty discussion!

We’ll be trying to define who we are and who we want to be a little more clearly in order to help us develop more clearly defined and longer term strategies. We hope that having a clearer ‘DNA’ will make it easier for new people to get involved because they know what they are getting involved with. As well as making it easier for us to work out how we should spend our time (strategising).

Getting closer to defining our values and principles is only the beginning of a much bigger process, but it is a very important first step.

Over the past few months we have been working on this, firstly by a workshop at the EarthFirst! Gathering in August 2016 and then an online form and conversation which everyone is invited to respond to. We will use the feedback from these two processes to start this session.

4.30 Break

4.45-5.15pm Fuel Poverty Action Demo

Talk about a proposed demonstration run by Fuel Poverty action, and how we can get involved

5.15-6.30 pm: Working group time – Seeding ideas

If you have ideas about things that you think RTP should be doing or should do in the next year (or longer), but would like to chat to others about these idea-nuggets –  this is your opportunity to begin to fashion them into full blown proposals. Or if you are in, or want to be in, a working group and would like some time to talk to others in that working group, then this is the time.

6.30pm: Dinner, provided by the new Lancaster Food not Bombs group.

After dinner: There will be an opportunity to socialise, either at a gig if you fancy a dance, or just in the pub if you would prefer to chat. Sleeping spaces will be divided amongst a few lovely hosts…..

Sunday

9 am Welcome & Introduction (for people who weren’t there on Saturday)

9.30am Generating Proposal Ideas for 2017

Hopefully after the previous evening’s plotting, there will be a few ideas brewing which now need to be turned into proposals.

When we make decisions about ideas, it is really helpful if the idea is in a quite advanced form, where the location has been visited, groups who might want to collaborate have been talked to, and background info has been done. This helps everyone to make an informed decision about whether it is something we really want to do. It is also, however, a little bit of an alarming prospect if you have never done it before.

This session, therefore, is about working on proposals, and learning about how to create them, so that at our next gathering we can make really good decisions really quickly,!!! And more importantly, those decisions will have hopefully come from a broader spectrum of people, regardless of how long you have been involved in RTP.

If there are already developed proposals this will be the space to discuss them too, but we will not force any decisions if they don’t come easily.

11am-1pm Debriefs from recent past activity

Stay Grounded – At the start of October hundreds of us came together and took action at Heathrow airport- there was a mass die-in, a few very suspicious ‘frequent flyers’ being nasty, and a huge red critical mass bike ride which visited the local detention centres.

Come and reflect on what went well; what we can learn from this action for the the future, and what might be coming next such as Rising Up!.

Keep it in the Ground Tour- RTP’s first direct action mobiliser tour is now over. We have visited many towns in Northern England who are facing being the new (or current) front lines in the fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground in this country. It will be useful  to hear about how this tour has gone and all the news from the amazing resistance which is brewing all over the country.

1-1.30pm -lunch

1.30pm – 3.30 Working group time

Some more time to to work on key projects or the areas of the organisation that you most want to get involved with, continue work, with the different working groups. We will also be ensuring we all have the contacts we need to continue the work we have started and get cracking with the next stage.

3.30-4 pm – Closing and goodbyes.