#Climate Emergency #Manchester Fortnightly Bulletin #001 15 April 2019

Welcome to the first “progress report” on the Climate Emergency Manchester campaign.

First of all, it is a campaign to connect people who are already concerned about climate change, so that they get to know other people who live near them, and can swap knowledge and skills. Secondly it’s a campaign that lets those people talk to friends, neighbours and colleagues about the climate emergency.  Finally, it’s   a way of putting pressure on  Manchester City Council to take climate change seriously, instead of the fine but vague promises they’ve been making for the last ten years.

At the moment there are two key personnel – Marc Hudson and Calum.  We’d love to have more people helping co-ordinate things, so if you’re interested in a few months of unpaid, unglamorous but vital work, then do get in touch via climateemergencymanchester@gmail.com

If you don’t want to be a core member of the team but you DO want to collect signatures/share info on facebook etc, or throw ideas and suggestions our way, that is also great – there’s a sign up form to fill in.  And you can download petition forms here. When they are full (or when you’ve done as much as you can!) please email us or take them to the Sandbar, 120 Grosvenor St, in an envelope marked “Climate Emergency Petition” and give to the staff.  We will collect!

So far, in the first two weeks we have

  • Set up the very basic website climateemergencymanchester.net
  • Designed a relatively clear petition sign-up form which you can download here.
  • Set up a sign up form for people to volunteer their time/skills (seven ppl used so far)
  • Had email clarification with Manchester City Council about the collection of signatures, and have amended the form accordingly, providing basic advice.
  • Collected 102 signatures online so far (thanks to everyone who has wrestled with the website registration and over 70 paper ones, at various events.

Crucial things you can do this week

On Thurs 18th April at 9pm  David Attenborough’s documentary about climate change will be broadcast. If you watch it, please tweet about it with the hashtag #climateemergencymcr and a link to the petition, and – if you can, to the climateemergencymanchester.net site too. So, sample tweet could be along lines of

David Attenborough tells us about #climate threat. If you live, work or study in #Manchester, please sign this petition and share it too. https://democracy.manchester.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=20

#climateemergencymcr

Similarly, Radio 5 Live is “doing” climate change all day on Thursday. Similar tweets would be good!

  • Friday 19 April 12-2 Fridays for the Future, St Peters’ Square.

Ways to get involved

(we’ve divided these into simple/complex, quick/long – it’s a bit subjective though!

Simple and quick –

  • fill in the sign up form…. (we’ll get right back to you),
  • add some text to your email signature, – e.g. I’ve signed the petition calling for Manchester City Council to declare a climate emergency. If you live, work or study in Manchester, you can (should!) too.  https://bit.ly/2uBnnFS
  • share the petition link on Twitter or Facebook and tag some friends/acquaintances.

Simple and long –

  • Write a letter to your local paper about the petition and why it matters
  • Collect signatures at your place of work

Complex and quick –

  • change your facebook/twitter photo to something that specifically supports the petition even if only briefly,
  • lobbying your councillors by email
  • upload a short video telling people about the petition and why it matters (send us a link please!)

Complex and long

  • Get involved in devising a proper bells-and-whistles social media/online set of tools advertising the petition and the connect-stuff

Meetings attended (to gain signatures).

Please, if you know of meetings we should attend, or meetings where they need a climate emergency speaker, contact us on climateemergencymanchester@gmail.com

  • Extinction Rebellion talk in Didsbury Thurs 4th April
  • Extinction Rebellion meeting at the Sandbar, Monday 8th April
  • Climate Strike Friday 12th April
  • “Letters to the Earth” Royal Exchange  Friday 12th April

 

Dates for your diary (at which we need volunteers to help collect signatures…)

  • Next climate strike Friday 24th  May.  Follow @YouthStrikemcr for more info

 

Metrics

The network

Since last bulletin Total now
Number of contact forms submitted 7
Number of personalised replies sent within 48 hours 7
Number of “network building” emails sent (where we try to connect two or more ppl) 1

 

The petition

Since last bulletin Total now
Number of online signatures 102
Number of paper signatures (estimate) 70