On Thursday night I attended the Remakery’s screening of MicMacs, an excellent French film about recycling and grassroots activism, on behalf of Southwark Greenpeace. This was the second Camberwell Free Film Festival event that we have had a presence at, and the experience prompted me to write up some of my thoughts on the value that building connections with your local community has for groups like us.
Perhaps the most obvious benefit of making connections with other local groups is that we can help each other out. Southwark Greenpeace, the Remakery directors and the organisers of the Film Festival are three very different groups, with very different aims and very different skill bases. This is a great asset when we work together, as it means we can each do for the other groups things that they may not otherwise be able to do. Also, more groups means more people, and therefore greater capacity at the events we put on together. It may seem that these differences are also a problem, as there may be little common ground between such groups, making collaboration more difficult. However, on the local level this is not really an issue, as the small-scale nature of local community groups means that connections between them are inevitably built on personal relationships between a few people. This gives potential collaborators access to acres of common ground that we all share as human beings – like our shared enjoyment of meeting new people, making new friends and helping our friends out – on which to build relationships based on doing favours for people you like. It seems to me that working together on this basis feels like much less of a chore than it might otherwise, and provides a foundation for long-lasting relationships between groups and individuals.
There are also a couple of benefits more specifically related to our aims as a local Greenpeace group. In my experience, the quality of public engagement you get at community events of this type is much better than when trying to promote campaigns out on the streets. Everybody is there for the same reason and happy to spend some time socialising and looking around, which allows you to have 5-10 minute conversations with people about our campaigns, how they can get involved, and more general issues Greenpeace are associated with. These kinds of interactions also provide an opportunity to challenge the general public perception of Greenpeace. One of the best things about this organisation, in my opinion, is its multi-layered structure – it works on all levels, from the international to the local, and in many different ways, from direct action to online petitions, in order to achieve its aims. But the images that people tend to associate most strongly with us are of the Rainbow Warrior chasing down whalers, or activists chaining themselves to trees for a stand off with loggers. Far too few know of the excellent local element. Simply by being at these events, we can present ourselves as a local organisation as much as an international one, and promote our local activities as well as Greenpeace’s wider campaigns.
There is one final benefit of making these kind of connections; one which reinforces all those already mentioned and makes experiences like those I’ve had at the Film Festival events feel that much more worthwhile. This is: The Fun Factor. Organising and taking part in these collaborations has been really, really fun for me and, I think, for the other people involved as well. So, if you feel that your local network could be getting more involved with other local groups and community events, I urge you to do so. We of Southwark certainly will be!
P.S. I've just discovered that working together with the community came in at number 2 on our Top Ten Achievements list, so this blog is even more relevant than I thought. Hooray for coincidences!
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