XR Vic Debrief
(Wednesday 31st May - here is a fun recording you could watch of the de-brief sharing as well. … . De-brief LIVE Youtube
How did you feel during the week of rebellion?
- The culture was good.
- Supported
- Excited, excited excited
- Motivated
- Relieved that we weren’t ignored
- Emotional and cohesive
- Moved and inspired to do more
- Rollercoaster of emotions, annoyed and angry
- Grateful (esp to campers)
- Very nervous
- Disappointed about numbers
- Felt had common purpose
- Busy
- Empowered
- Exhausted
- Powerful
- Alive
How did you feel after the week?
- Tired +++
- Exhausted ++
- Proud +
- Excited about XR Youth +++++++++
- Impressed at achievement
- Satisfied
- Exhilirated, impressed, drained, relieved
- The feeling you get after everyone leaves
- Hopeful to mobilize and bring people back +++
- Doubtful of impact
- Quantity
- Type
Highlights of the week
- Being arrested +++
- Taking Cole St
- Seeing youth on friday ++++++++++++
- Jumping into the fountain ++++++
- Execution of solidarity swarm++
- Especially the swarmers arriving - was amazing
- Generally all actions well-organised and well-executed
- Having Uncle Bill on board
- Getting things right from a First Nations Perspective - big improvement from Spring Rebellion
- Signups
- Outreach and cheering from the public
- New XR Youth ???
- Karen on the friday morning ++++++++++++++++++
- When rebel riders came and joined us ++++
- Jane’s speech at Bourke St for Murdoch thing - very rousing, rebel-rousing
- Meeting other rebels
- Dancing to Extinction with the symbols
- Youth march, women’s march
- Photo of Murdoch in the Guardian
- The trust action
- Really instrumental
- Discobedience
- Signups on paper
- Spontaneity of rebels
- Boat in fountain
- Practicing disco-moves at cop shop
- Little council action
What to give a better experience next time?
- More people to share night-watch shifts.
- Small number of campers meant everyone had to do a shift each week
- Free bagels
- Fundraising
- Designated social space at the campsite
- Less rain
- Being clearer about whether we were having an effect
- Being clear about what we wanted to achieve - so that then we could measure whether we achieved it
- Forecast, metrics, measurement and evaluation to define success
- Regular feedback / updates during the week
- Do some stuff on private land to have a bit of a festival
- People’s assemblies
- Accessibility
- Really hard to get people into actions that were planned in secret
- Hard to up-scale
- By end of week were receiving calls non-stop asking when people could get arrested
- Very small group of organisers
- Mobilisation strategy at camp
- Standing ground with the council
- Keeping camp there for longer
- More than 2 people doing sound tech +++
- Having a regen team (thanks to arrestee support team)
- Having more organisers before-hand
- Having more teams to cover outreach table and other things
- Being more disruptive
- Low coverage by media was pretty disappointing - could we make that better?
What worked for us as a movement?
- Colour
- Having young people for messaging
- We punched above our weight considering the numbers
- Did a good job of working out what we could do with the numbers we had
- Community was strong
- Joyous rebellion, felt good
- Some mainstream TV coverage
- Messaging was much improved
- Leadership stayed calm and thought on their feet
- All the art, beautiful banners, barbecues, masks, sybil disobedients
- Credentials as non-violent movment
- Non-violent discipline
- Good how local groups and AG’s organised each action
- Central area in Carlton Gardens, good signage
- Had some people at Murdoch action get re-arrested
- Having an office was awesome
- (how about having a workshop?)
- Morning bike-rides worked well, self-sustaining, people could easily join in and they ran well
- Singing was powerful
- XR Families
- Dale for showing up
What can we do better?
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How do we deal with people who have problematic behaviours?
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How do we better manage aggressive people, e.g. with tripod action.
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Having such a big police presence can endanger certain communities
- There was an aboriginal woman who was arrested who might not have been if we weren’t there
- And a drunk who was arrested
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If you are arrested have good signage to show what you’re getting arrested for, for the photos
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Safety first
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Stand our grounds more
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Hear about the strategy, what did we want to achieve? So that we can tell if it was successful or not.
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Some kind of space for non-hardcore members (NB: WE LEARNED THIS AT THE PRINCES BRIDGE)
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More outreach
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Marshalls were barricaded away from people by police.
- How can people join us?
- Block signs from public and cameras
- Maybe some high up flags that say CLIMATE CRISIS
-
More people on the street
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More arrestees
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More on CA’s
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More rebel ringers to increase signups
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Is disruption such as occupying intersections still effective?
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Practice training
- E.g. in 2019 there was training from Steve Tabernacle / Spooky Men’s Choir
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More emphasis on creative actions
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More flyers
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Bring drums to everything
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Thinking about how to create dialogue with power
- Only politicians who responded to were Sally Capp and Adam Band and Angus Taylor
- How do we have a dialogue with them when they refer to us?
- How do we get our spokes onto Q&A, 7:30 report, etc
- How do we get our response to Angus Taylor into the media
- Idea: Doing our own press-conferences
- E.g. a press-conference of our own at the action, invite channel 9 and 7 over to listen in - situation theater.
- Idea: Doing our own press-conferences
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Inflatables
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More workshops
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More disruptive locations e.g. Punt Rd
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Or move to leverage disruption against particular culprits e.g. Rio Tinto, etc.
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Tripods
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Sustained disruptions that can be sustained without too many arrests.
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Decentralized actions e.g. 4 tripods in different places.
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Strategic locations, choke-points for the city
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Film screenings
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Strategy for when police are violent
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Incorporate more art into actions, making actions look beautiful
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More regen after actions
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More regenerative or outreach actions e.g. street party
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Targeted actions until we get our numbers up.
- For some people all we’re doing is disrupting the traffic and the messaging isn’t clear
- Murdoch actions got good feedback from punters.
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Lack of training opportunities
- And lack of knowing how to get training
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Find a way to get the message across to the general population
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Targeting population complacency - something that emotionally connects people
- Targeting primary schools - outreach actions at school fêtes
- Pram parades
- Parents with kids on their shoulders
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XR Music over speakers rather than ra-ra stuff (controversial)
- Ra-ra stuff can get people in
