We Are One

Sitting here at some indeterminate point up a fairly long and steep learning curve, I thought it would be a good point from which to look back – as well as to try and answer one of the most frequent questions we get asked by potential visitors to the group: What do you actually do?

We held our first group meeting in East Dulwich just one year ago – not knowing who or what might show up. Since then, we’ve continued to meet every month (bar August) and here is a summary of what we’ve ‘done’ over the year:

•    We held 10 street ‘events’ – stands, mostly on North Cross Rd and also in Dulwich Park, engaging with the public, asking them to sign cards, draw pictures, make hand-prints in coal dust, connecting shopping on a Saturday morning to national and international events and the planes flying overhead;

•    We got to meet, lobby and hand over some hundred-plus cards, signed by members of the public to Tessa Jowell, asking her and the Government to reconsider their position on the Third Runway;

•    We planted two trees in a school allotment in Sydenham, along with the Mayor of Lewisham, and two prospective parliamentary candidates for the constituency;

•    We went along as part of a Greenpeace presence to the Mili-band protest at Kingsnorth, the action to protest against the trials of the ‘Tokyo Two’ at the Japanese Embassy, to visit and man the Rainbow Warrior during her visit in November and on the Wave climate march in December;

•    We showed up as a presence at the Lambeth Show, the New Economics Forum, an event for schools at the Barbican and Peckham Transition Town;

•    Kate recycled her house and invited the world and Upper Sydneham to come and see it;

•    But yes, most impressively, our fabulous group pulled out all the stops and organised a public meeting and screening of The Age of Stupid in East Dulwich in September, complete with stunning Indian food conjoured up by Kate and Mahesh. Oh yes, we also showed the Greenpeace activist film, A time Comes, invited local environmental speaker Donnachadh McCarthy - and raised over £400, which was an unintentional bonus.

To be really personal, in a way I think out of all of that amazing year, my favourite was going to see Kate’s recycled house and being inspired by people putting their values simply and beautifully into practice. Over the year, I’ve found I sometimes got lost in the practicalities of just sustaining ourselves as a group losing sight of what we’re actually here for… which in my view is to engage with each other and the wider public to share our practical vision of a world in balance, to speak and act out against environmental – and that encompasses all beings – injustice and crime. How we live from day to day is our immediate response to that question, so thanks, Kate, for sharing your way of doing it!

Then a huge welcome to those of you’ve who’ve joined since or because of that event in September, with the pool of talent and enthusiasm you’ve brought to the group, and WELCOME always to those of you who might still be thinking about coming along. There’s no shortage of issues to take on or campaigns to get involved with and for starters, that means the on-going Airplot campaign to halt the growth of aviation in the U.K. and stop the Third Runway, the potential extinction of blue-fin tuna through over-fishing, deforestation and the destruction of pristine landscape for the extraction of oil from the tar sands in Alberta.

As those campaigns kick off, we’ve also invited Donnachadh McCarthy to come and speak at February’s meeting to give more of the perspective from and within Southwark and South London.

And so, Welcome too, to 2010! What happens next is up to all of you, all of us and all of you yet to join……!