October Newsletter

Hoping your September went well! This newsletter is a round-up of Young Friends of the Earth’s activities and campaigns this October, along with any upcoming events and news for November. Due to changing circumstances, there is some overlap between months with this newsletter so we hope you understand!

At our meeting on Tuesday 3rd October, three of our members, Clémence, Ciara & David, taught us about ‘Patterns for Decentralised Organising’. These are ways of organising a consensus-based group to ensure that things get done but that everyone is taken care of and listened to in the process. Some of the patterns focused on understanding hierarchy, and identifying positive and negative instances of power. Other patterns were more practical like how to use technology in the most efficient way and how to distribute jobs so as to avoid information overload. The final patterns dealt with group cohesion, such as setting norms and equally distributing care-labour (making sure everyone feels welcome and supported). It was a cerebral workshop with some dense material thrown around but people were highly engaged and it was very fruitful. It is important to reaffirm your values every so often, and, in so doing, to make them grow! It also led to us deciding, as a group, to implement a stewardship programme, where everyone gets a buddy to check in on how they’re doing :)

As part of the Friends of the Earth International Days of Global Action campaign to mobilise against dirty energy and for climate justice, YFoE held a screening of the multi-award winning film Gasland in Sin É on October 13^th. We also held an informal panel discussion afterwards featuring guest speakers from Not Here, Not Anywhere, an action group against fossil fuel exploration and infrastructure in Ireland (read more here), and from YFoE Northern Ireland. David and Jessie from Not Here Anywhere spoke about how there is still a huge amount of investment in Ireland in fossil fuel infrastructure and importation, despite our need to move away from dirty sources of energy. The film was universally enjoyed and the discussion afterwards generated some strong insights, a great success of an evening!

On October 20^th, YFoE were delighted to receive a visit from three American activists, Dineen, Ben & Karina from the SustainUS environmental justice youth delegation. Here you can see Dineen talk about climate justice at COP23. Many of our members met with them in The Stag's Head pub on Dame Court in the city centre for what was a very relaxed and chilled out evening. This was in advance of COP23 (Conference of Parties) in Bonn, a huge summit on how to tackle climate change attended by representatives from almost every country in the world and to which we and SustainUS would send delegates to engage in creative protest. The momentous events in Bonn will be covered in a future newsletter. However, this evening in the pub was more of an opportunity to connect with people from the same cause, just in a different country. As well as having the craic, we engaged in knowledge-sharing and exchanged ideas and stories about activism. This was made all the more interesting by the fact that they were conducting activism in the USA in the current climate (one of them had been involved in protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline; read more here)!

On October 21st several YFoE members attended Activist Legal Observer training for those taking part in non-violent direct action (NVDA). One of our attendees, Aideen, sums it up here:

'In October a number of YFOE members attended Legal Observer training with Activist Legal Support Ireland (ALSI). The role of a legal observer is to support activists by attending direct actions e.g. protests, and monitoring any interaction with the police. We learned how to reassure and brief activists, collect evidence, take witness statements, how to act as a police liaison and what to do if an activist is arrested. We also took part in a number of role plays where we took turns to act as police, protestors and legal observers. Detailed notes on the training, along with contact details for ALSI, are available from YFoE.'

This month, there has been a lot of discusson around the Bridgefoot St Community Garden in Dublin 8. The gardeners and community members, who have turned this area from a vacant lot into a thriving ecosystem, productive garden and healing community space in just 3 years, have recently been served with a Dublin City Council eviction notice to vacate their garden by the end of the year. This is so that it can be developed for DCC's Greening the Liberties strategy. However, there is a noticeable lack of contingency plan and of consultation with the current users of the space which includes a community centre, a men's shed and several rich and fertile allotments. Although the new plan does feature allotments and a garden space, it will be in a different location meaning that the current garden would have to be started from scratch. As a few of us at YFoE do volunteering at Bridgefoot St, we are hoping that the DCC will be responsive to requests for more structured dialogue where the needs of the present stakeholders are given as much consideration as those of the future. You can see at the end of this newsletter what one of our members, Claudia, has to say in response.

To polish off the month, on October 31st, we held a Halloween potluck social in Cómhlámh where 8 of our members donned Halloween costumes, cooked up a few of their signature dishes and brought them along to share. This date had been earmarked for a new member's meeting but it was unanimously decided that Halloween would not be an ideal date for it and that was pushed to November 7th! Amongst the colourful cast of Halloween characters, we had Mary Poppins, Clarke Gable, two trees and a bizarre, nefarious character who turned out to be a diaboloist! There were murder mystery games, there was chocolate lasagne, boirin brack, and banter in abundance!

Upcoming Events:

On Tuesday November 28^th, YFoE will be decorating a big Christmas tree (conveying a to-be-decided environmental theme!) in Christchurch Bray as part of the Christmas Tree Festival Extravaganza! Come along for loads of festive fun and a chance to get to know some of us through in a very enjoyable, rewarding way! Please arrive between 6 and 7pm, and let Meaghan know if you’ll be attending by emailing meaghan@foe.ie.

The next New Member’s Meeting is likely not to happen until January; as soon as we have a date, you’ll know!

One final, and important, note: as a group we have decided that all our meetings from now will be held on Tuesdays only at 6pm in Comhlámh!

Hoping to see you at a meeting or event soon, and wishing you all the best for the rest of November,

Young Friends of the Earth (newsletter compiled by Aidan)

But wait, there's more!

Quote of the month!

Claudia re Bridgefoot St Community Garden – 'Imagine how difficult it would be to remove an entire garden and bring it to nowhere!'