OK, January’s whizzing along so I thought I’d post a round-up of the Southampton group’s greatest hits from last year although there were lots of other meetings, stalls and so on. As with all such lists, you might disagree with the content, the order, or the inevitable omissions, but at least it isn’t hosted by Jimmy Carr... so, here we go...
1. Heathrow victory. No new runway! I could go on, but I won’t – other runways in the SE were binned too, more here.
2. Kitkats and orang utans (April): urging Nestle to stop using rainforest-destroying ingredients like palm oil in their products, and to cut their links with the evil Sinar Mas company. With big events happening too, plus some powerful pressure through Facebook, locally this campaign involved taking photos of members of the public in the city centre looking through cut-out eyeholes in orang utan posters – a quick win with Nestle learning to play nicely with others. For now. We’re watching... more by flicking through the campaign updates here.
3. Trident campaigning (from January onwards): Ooooh, chilly – this began with ‘what to cut’ polling cards and guess what – people don’t seem to want money wasted on Trident rather than being spent on something useful like schools, hospitals, or rendering city bankers down for glue and soap (sorry, that’s not very vegan...). Election billboards were mysteriously subvertised (‘teachers not Trident’ anyone?), MPs lobbied and all kinds of other activity. The outcome – well, although the LibDems did weaken their previously strong opposition to Trident once in partial power, the multi-billions now have to be provided by the MoD, which will hopefully knock this daft replacement idea on the head. More by flicking through the campaign updates here.
4. Environmental Rock at the Hobbit (3rd May): always a great event for a campaign stall; this time the focus was BP and Tar Sands, with our big posters heavily decorated by people unimpressed with BP’s actions – especially with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill happening around the same time. Bad Petrol!
5. BP Winchester (10th July): Our BP ‘No Tar Sands’ posters went to the company’s garage in St. Cross, Winchester – local media coverage, support from passers-by, and customers leafleted. Result!
6. Southampton group at BP HQ (20th July - this is the pic above): Our BP ‘No Tar Sands’ posters were handed over to BP’s PR man as part of a three-week long event with one or more different Greenpeace groups taking part each day.
7. ‘Go Beyond Oil’: this formed at least partly out of the BP/Tar Sands campaign and started with posters, leaflets and public sign-up cards for MPs. It does what it says on the tin – let’s move beyond our current addiction to oil.
8. MP lobbying: on the face of it, not the most thrilling of activities, but an important and powerful way of getting our campaigns directly to those who have the power to make changes. The cards from #7 are a good starting place as they are signed by concerned constituents, and it also means we have a network of trained volunteer lobbyists helping with this work. It also means Chris Huhne is probably getting fed up with seeing me in his constituency office and elsewhere – 6 times last year I think...
9. ‘Ask the Climate Question’ (throughout the run-up to the General Election): a project involving various organisations, urging voters to raise the issue of climate change with candidates and their canvassers. Did it work? Well, yes – the message certainly got back to party HQ in places, and in Chris Huhne we do seem to have a Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change who takes his job seriously.
10. Networking with other local groups: this is something I do enjoy and it led to more meetings with Chris Huhne e.g. at the Artopia event with the new local Oxfam campaign group and a public meeting on Climate Change organised in Eastleigh by Southampton FoE.
11. What, turning it up to 11? Well, I thought I'd add this in as it's not a Southampton thing, but it was great to see the Portsmouth group relaunched and going strong from December.
Feeling inspired? Well I am - and new members, or returning ones, are always welcome - meetings and events are posted on our group page and you can use the 'contact Dave' link to drop me an email if you need more info. Here's to a mighty 2011!
Comments