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Happy New Year and welcome to the 26th update from ECA, primarily this is feedback from the ECA meeting on the 9th January, as ever there is publicity for events coming up at the Hub and held by associated groups around Exeter and the announcement of our first Film Night.
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The Exeter Community Alliance is growing. We are actively looking for more like minded groups to join our alliance. We can offer groups joining us use of the Climate Action Hub to promote their projects and events, to interact with the general public and for meetings and workshops.
We are also engaging with local groups to raise awareness of the massive protest planned for the 21st April in London. There is some initial information on our website and this will be updated shortly.
We believe that most people reading this will be members of, or have contacts in, other organisations, if you do and they are not listed on our homepage would you please take a moment to fill in this form so that we can contact them.
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The Media
'Why and what to do about them'
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19:00 16th February 2023 at the Climate Action Hub
Caspar Hughes is co-director of the Climate Media Coalition and will be talking on the Media. “Without confronting and tackling the media pillar we won’t be able to meet our climate targets of a safe and peaceful future for our children”. Followed by a Q&A and discussion of what we can do locally, and encourage nationally, on this critical subject.
The Hub is at 40 Bedford St, EX1 1GJ
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18:30 17th February 2023 at the Climate Action Hub
Our first film night is already sold out. Please watch this space for more environmental films which will be followed by discussions. This discussion features James Dyke, Sarah Finch and Caspar Hughes
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Climate Fresk Workshop
Understand climate change in 3 hours!
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11:00 4th March 2023 at the Climate Action Hub
In order to take action and build solutions, we first need to understand the problem. Climate Fresk is a powerful tool for providing a quality climate education. It is a fun, thoughtful way of understanding the science, systems and consequences of climate change. For more information please check out the Climate Fresk website.
Tickets must be pre booked here as seats are limited. Tickets are free so that anyone is able to attend, we do ask for a donation on the day if you have the capacity to make one.
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The Devon and Exeter Lobbying & Advocacy group, as the title suggests, undertake lobbying of organisations whose actions run counter to efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change even where their public statements suggest otherwise. This includes Government, MPs, councillors and local authorities as well as commenting on consultations/policies/strategies.
We are looking to strengthen our impact by including representatives of other groups/organisations. This would make our lobbying efforts more powerful, enable us to coordinate actions across groups and give a voice to those groups in any action as a representative of that group.
Please do consider joining us at our monthly zoom meetings. The next meeting is at 9am on Monday 13th Feb. If you would like to join us or learn more please email me at adrian@sargood.org.uk so we can include you in our circulation list
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One of the ways we have attempted to raise money is by setting up an Amazon Smile account, whereby purchases from Amazon generate a small amount for a chosen charity - in this case the Climate Action Hub. Amazon are not famed for being an ethical company - issues with not paying tax, exploiting workers, taking business from local shops and generally being the epitome of much that causes the issues the ECA is working to resolve. While there is a train of thought that any money we receive is better than none, our engagement with them only facilitates their greenwashing publicity with very little benefit to us. Over roughly 6 months it has 'generated' £20.57 from 5 customers - not enough to actually elicit a payment. At the ECA meeting in January it was decided to terminate this arrangement. The upside of this is that it gave me the opportunity to express to Amazon the reasons for leaving.
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 The design for The Growroom, an urban farming pavilion that explores how cities can feed themselves through food-producing architecture, is publicly available for anyone to use.
We are putting together a team to build and maintain a series around Exeter. If you are interested in helping please contact Chris.
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Climate Action Hub Interns
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Transition Exeter have been granted funding for two interns to help with running the Hub and publicising events. We have appointed two from the over 50 that applied and they have started work on organising the volunteers and reworking the website.
Funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, distributed by Transition Together. Thanks to National Lottery players for making this possible. Look for more information about Transition Together at https://transitiontogether.org.uk/
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Repair Cafe
Third Saturday of the month 10:00-13:00
Next one on 18th February
ERC 'menders' will repair electronic, electrical & mechanical items also bikes, toys & garments.
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Drama Workshop
Wednesday 1st March 3:30/4pm start
Led by Lavinia at the Climate Action Hub for ALL AGES and CHILDREN and YOUNG PEOPLE
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Climate Cafe - Hub
Friday 3rd March 10:15-12:00
How is the loss of nature and climate change affecting you? Are you feeling worried, enraged, confused, despairing or motivated to act?
Share how you are feeling with like minded people in a friendly space. No booking required, just turn up. The session starts at 10:30 come along at 10:15 to get drinks sorted.
The Climate Cafes will be running regularly, initially on the first Friday of the month in the morning. |
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What will be happening at the Hub?
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The primary activity at the hub is informing the public about the climate and ecological crises, advising them on action they can take, talking over their concerns, sharing resources and signposting to other organisations. How we do this is evolving - if you have ideas for specific websites or information please let me know.
On a day to day basis this will consist of having a couple of volunteers sharing a cup of coffee or tea with members of the public and chatting with them.
We have information on posters, leaflets and websites via QR codes. We have public access computers (which we have funding for thanks to Alcoa Howmet via Exeter City Council), which we will set up with a series of bookmarks to relevant info.
We have monthly Climate Cafes which have a slightly more formal structure and are run by trained facilitators.
We have monthly Repair Cafes where you can get tools, gadgets, toys and clothes repaired.
We will be running Cl!mate Fresk workshops, if you would like to attend one or learn to facilitate them then let us know.
We will have regular 'Art Blocking' sessions. This is where people can bring along T shirts and have designs printed on to them.
We will be having a monthly film night. More info on this in the next newsletter.
We will be giving specific advice on energy, recycling, rewilding etc.
We will be running workshops, presentations and training sessions on a wide range of subjects.
The Hub is also a space that can be used by local groups for their meetings. We already have Amnesty International's Exeter group holding monthly meetings, Exeter Trades Council, the GSI at the University of Exeter and Extinction Rebellion using the space.
We are of course looking for other ideas - especially if you have the capacity to put them into practise! |
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There are also a number of groups in the Exeter Community Alliance whose main focus is not the climate crisis.
A founding principle of the ECA is the understanding that the climate crisis cannot be tackled as a stand alone issue. There are a whole host of other social issues that are caused by the same fundamental problems. At the same time those who are victims of social injustice are also likely to be the first to be harmed by climate change and environmental disaster. Climate change is therefore intricately wound in with a wide range of other issues.
We welcome these organisations to the hub to promote their projects - once we have confirmed which organisations would like to use the space we will publicise them.
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What else can you do to help ?
Let other people, groups, organisations know about the ECA and the Climate Action Hub, let us know about others that could be interested..
Let us have some information about yourself and/or your organisation to put on our website.
If you can help in any way or have suggestions please fill in this form.
Promote us on social media, links are at the bottom of the newsletter.
Donate! We are reliant on donations to keep running. We are Gift Aid registered so your donations are boosted by HMRC. You can donate using JustGiving or contact us to set up a regular payment.
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What is the ECA?
We are an umbrella organisation linking up a range of Exeter based volunteers, groups and organisations. The intention is to provide a high street presence in Exeter where our members can engage with the public and provide other community based functions (such as repair workshop, art workshops, energy advice, presentations, meetings, people’s assemblies - we have a long list).
We would hope to be open throughout the day, staffed by volunteers with knowledge of all our member organisations.
Additionally there is the Climate Action Hub Exeter which is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (registered with the Charities Commission, reg #1198667) which has 4 trustees. We are looking to recruit more trustees (especially those that represent communities, gender identity, class or race that are usually poorly represented on charities' boards of trustees).
We are adopting the model used by Climate Emergency Centres (the UK-wide movement championing this concept of which we are a member) whereby landlords allow us to use premises that would be otherwise untenanted and costing the landlord business rates. In return for saving the landlord the business rates and keeping the building occupied we would ask for a peppercorn or zero rent.
The emphasis of the ECA is not solely environmental but for a wide range of community led initiatives.
We have 270 people receiving this newsletter with representatives from over 40 different local groups.
You can find more information about us at exetercommunityalliance.net |
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Membership
ECA has two levels of membership. If you are receiving this email and have not yet requested voting membership you are listed as a 'subscriber' There are no duties, obligations or rights expected of, or assigned to, subscribers. They simply get this newsletter.
'Voting members' are eligible to vote at ECA meetings. Voting memberships can be held by either individuals or organisations (applicable when different people will be representing that organisation at ECA meetings).
Voting membership is currently open, please let me know if you would like to become a voting member.
We currently have 20 voting members.
The ECA is a separate entity from Climate Action Hub Exeter which is a registered charity with four trustees. Climate Action Hub Exeter is a member of the ECA.
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