If you think you might be interested in getting involved with Greenpeace here in Edinburgh, the best thing which you can do is to come along and meet us at a meeting. This blog post is a rough guide to give you some idea of what you can expect if you do decide to join a local group meeting with us for the first time.
On the first and third Wednesday of every month, we hold a local group meeting for people in Edinburgh to come along, learn more about our campaigns and get involved with Greenpeace. In every month except for August, we meet in the upstairs meeting room of the Beehive Inn on the Grassmarket, which is a great, centrally-located pub serving a range of real ales. During August, which is when the Edinburgh Festival takes place, we tend to meet at someone’s home or in a public place such as the Meadows as our usual meeting place is used as a Fringe venue. If you’re on our mailing list, we’ll let you know where we’ll be meeting on these dates.
At our meetings we usually sit in a circle, with one person acting as chair for that meeting, ensuring that the meeting covers all the topics we need to discuss and that we keep to time. The chairperson changes each meeting, so no two meetings are entirely alike as each person brings their own personality to the way the meeting is structured.
To start off, we go round in a circle giving our names and often answering an icebreaker question such as, ‘What’s your favourite Arctic animal?’ or ‘Tell us one thing interesting about yourself that no one else in the room already knows.’ Sometimes these can be quite topical and are always good fun. Suggestions for new icebreaker questions are always welcome!
Once that’s done with, we then get on with the bulk of the meeting. Often we’ll start with campaign updates, where people discuss recent or current news to keep us all up to date with what’s going on in the world. If you can bring along a snippet of topical information to the meeting to share then all the better!
We’ll then discuss events which have happened since our last meeting, and ones which we have coming up in the near future, delegating tasks and responsibilities for these amongst the group. If you’re new to the group, please do consider volunteering to help out with running a stall or with any other activities we have planned; even if you can only spare a small amount of time, it’s hugely appreciated and makes a big difference!
In addition to these aspects, we may also discuss other business related to the group, such as fundraising or maintaining our social media presence, or even just events which are taking place in Scotland which are organised by other groups which we may wish to support.
Finally, we then wrap up the meeting and go down to the bar on the ground floor for a well-deserved drink and more relaxed social chat, which is a great opportunity to talk to others about Greenpeace, issues which you’re interested in and a plethora of other things besides!
The Edinburgh Greenpeace group is a very friendly and active local group, so we really hope you’ll come along and meet us, and maybe even get involved with our campaigns. There’s a huge range of roles and activities you can do with us, so please do get in touch or just come along to a meeting to find out more.
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