Thank you for telling Shell to scrap their Arctic drilling plans, and / or signing our Arctic petition. Now I would like to invite you to organise a screening of the BBC documentary Frozen Planet and to invite your friends and family to come round and join the campaign to #SaveTheArctic.
Over 2.1 million people have now signed the petition to declare a global sanctuary in the Arctic. However in September companies like Shell are about to start drilling for oil. To stop them we need our politicians to start work on the legal process to create that global sanctuary and we need lots more people to persuade them to do so.
The UK government is a 'permanent observer state' on the Arctic council, and has a big role at the UN. Our Politicians care about votes and have the power to influence what happens internationally. As more people like you join the campaign, then the Arctic will become a bigger and bigger vote winning issue. I’d like you to encourage your friends and family to get involved and to add their voices to the political pressure by joining the campaign. So that when the time comes for action, we can force our politicians to act.
To inspire your friends and family to get involved I'd like you to invite them to your very own Frozen Planet theme night - or an Arctic event of your own devising.
How to organise your own event
- Decide where to hold your event – probably around your house, ideally by the end of September.
- Plan your event – ideally showing episode #7 of Frozen Planet, with nibbles.
- Buy a copy of Frozen Planet – if you’ve not seen the series I think it’s brilliant.
- Invite everyone you know. Download and print off invitations, ask your friends to bring a friend, and fill your house with merriment.
- Have fun and ask everyone to join the campaign either using their own mobile phones (via txt) or your computer. This is the important bit.
- Tell us how you got on.
1) Decide where to hold your event
The simplest option is to organise an event around your house, using your TV / DVD player or computer / projector. However if you’re part of an existing community or campaigning group, e.g. the local WI or Transition Town group, you might want to think about a bigger venue for a bigger event.
If you’re planning a larger event and need to pay for a venue then please think about a small entrance charge to cover your costs. If you’d like to do more than cover your costs then please read the Greenpeace community fundraising guide and register your event as a fundraiser – we may be able to offer more help.
Again the simplest option is a film night / Frozen Planet theme night with some friends and some nibbles but plan 
something that is fun for you. If you and your friends are into games then get creative and make your own Arctic Jenga (decorate the blocks with Arctic animals) or board game (an Oil and Snow version of the Settlers of Catan). If you like to cook, then a dinner party with Arctic deserts (Baked Alaska?) would be fun. If you’d like to do a short talk or debate the campaign, then develop your own Arctic conversation cards.
Please plan your event to include a feature on the campaign, and make sure you dedicate time to encouraging people to join the campaign either via txt or on your computer. Plan to do this on the night, not at a later date – people rarely remember to follow up on such events. If people have joined the campaign and are really keen to encourage their friends to join too, then you can give them some leaflets to take away.
3) Buy a copy of Frozen Planet
The BBC website has some great resources from the Frozen Planet series and a list of recommended sellers - or you could try HMV, Amazon (£11 ish) or ebay for a 2nd hand copy. The Open University has a set of dedicated Open Learning pages dedicated to the Frozen Planet, including interactive maps, downloads and a free course. Finally the BBC has a set of icy paintings and art to inspire you.
Please plan to show at least Episode #7 - On Thin Ice, and another if you have time (maybe Episode #3). Make as much use of the BBC / OU materials as you can perhaps as decorations, talking points, or simply something for people to play with on your computer. If you plan to project Frozen Planet, you might want to show a couple of Greenpeace accompanying films.
- A Homeless Polar Bear in London - Jude Law and Radiohead
- Vicious Circle - John Hurt
- Greenpeace video channel
If you are organising a public screening then please seek the relevant permissions for the (non Greenpeace) films you show. If you are showing films to your friends, or an organised group / club then you should be fine.
To help publicise your event we’ve created two template posters and an invitation card. Please use whatever tools you’d normally use to invite people round for a party. If you’re on Facebook setup an event and invite everyone. If you’re like me then send a txt round everyone in your phone. Sending postal invites to your address book has certain elegance. Do what works for you.
If you’re organising a larger event then posters in friendly shops, an ad in the local paper, emailing other local groups, inviting a prominent speaker, or a teacher (+ his / her class) will help ensure you have a packed audience. If you know a friendly journalist ask him / her to write about your event.
- Frozen Planet poster {pdf} or Frozen Planet poster {jpg}
- Frozen Planet invite {pdf} or Frozen Planet invite (jpg}
- Frozen Planet card {pdf} or Frozen Planet card {jpg}
The pdfs are easy to use. The jpgs are more adaptable, allowing you to create your own posters, web content, Facebook images and more.
5) Have fun and ask everyone to join the campaign (important)
At a suitable point during your event, ask everyone to join the Greenpeace campaign to #SaveTheArctic. This is the important bit. There are two easy ways you can ask them to do so:
- Ask them to get out their phones and to text the word ‘Arctic’ followed by their name e.g. ‘Arctic John Morgan’ to the free text number 60002
- Ask them to join the campaign by entering their email address and their name on your computer / laptop / tabled / ipad / mobile device, set to this webpage: http://www.savethearctic.org/
If watching Frozen Planet isn’t enough to inspire your friends to join the campaign then here are a few talking points you can use:
- As temperatures rise, the ice at the top of the world is melting. Instead of seeing this as a warning to us all, politicians, oil companies and industrial fishing fleets see it as an opportunity to profit from the crisis.
- Oil giants are moving in to drill for the same fuel that caused the melting in the first place, even though an Arctic oil spill would be almost impossible to clean up. Unsustainable, industrial-scale fishing fleets from around the world are making their way north to plunder the fish.
- It’s madness. That’s why so many famous names are coming together to call for Arctic protection. By adding your name to the Arctic Scroll, you’re joining the hundreds of thousands of people who are drawing a line in the ice and saying to the polluters, ‘You come no further’.”
- We’re declaring a global sanctuary in the unclaimed area around the North Pole and starting a campaign to have the UN designate it a protected area for all life on Earth.
- We’re also demanding a ban on off-shore oil drilling and unsustainable fishing in the Arctic.
- When you join our movement you’ll add your name to an Arctic scroll, and when the first one million people have signed up we’ll place that scroll with your name on it in an indestructible pod and take it to the North Pole.
- There we’ll lower it through the ice and 4km of freezing water and plant your name on the seabed on the bottom of the ocean at the top of the world.
- That means wherever you are you’ll know when you look north that your name is planted permanently at the pole as a statement of your commitment to protect the Arctic.
- We’ll mark the spot with a flag for the future designed by the youth of the world in a global competition.
Finally please take pictures of your event and tell us how you got on using the webform below. This is important as we’d like to be able to use stories and pictures of your event to inspire others, and to also evaluate how successful this form of campaigning is.
