👫 Paint the Streets Planning and Meetings

[RosariaRebel (Rosaria Burchielli)]

Happy Earth Day rebels.

[ManicMax (Max)]

The Google Drive link above was going to the wrong place.
I’ve fixed it, it’s now here.

[kate_s]

SUNDAY STENCIL SESSION
Grab your stencil cutting gear and zoom in this Sunday to cut stencils together in preparation to PAINT THE STREETS. No stencilling experience necessary - bring your questions, or if you’re a pro come join us and show us what you’re working on.

Paint the Streets Phase One: Pre-production starts NOW.

Sunday 26 April 3pm AEST on Zoom https://zoom.us/j/5256267273

[ManicMax (Max)]

Hi there Streets-Painters!

It’s been one week since the kick-off meeting and I’m really impressed with how the project is making ripples throughout the movement and how things are coming together.

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Australian rebels!

We’re in lockdown and the world is changing. With the current public health risks and increased police powers, it’s risky to be out in the streets but when the time is right, we’ll burst forth and Paint the Streets. Until then, cut yourself a gorgeous set of stencils and roll out some posters for post-lockdown, or bring some colour to your local streets in a small but meaningful (and safe) way.

April 2020 is PHASE ONE: PRE-PRODUCTION.

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Paint the Streets Group Vision Reminder

• We’ll inspire rebels across the country to put out powerful and loving messages throughout the community, providing resources to make it as easy as possible for anyone to join in on Paint the Streets.

• The message is big, bold and colourful .

• The message conveys urgency and encourages people to join the rebellion. We want to continue building the rebellion through the pandemic.

• We build on XR messages that are already strong, like ‘We are all in this together’, ‘Tell the truth and act as though that truth I real’.

• We disrupt the business-as-usual mindset, ‘Another world is possible’.

• We build the ‘story of we’ – that we can work together and provide mutual aid – and undermine the ‘story of I’ – that we are selfish, greedy, competitive and prone to climb over others to get ahead, make more money, buy more stuff.

• We find ways to convey that this is what emergency mode looks like – that we can work together to make big changes fast when we are facing a life and death threat.

• We help promote messages from the broader climate movement, like ‘Build back better’, ‘We need a People’s Recovery Plan’, ‘We don’t want to go back to normal, normal is the problem’.

• Our message is loving and empathic, but edgy. We dare to say what others dare not.

• Our visibility helps creates and maintain a strong sense of XR community , providing love and support for rebels

• Our visibility also maximises our power to influence , helping increase the chance of good outcomes from the pandemic emergency and reducing the chance of bad outcomes (disaster capitalism etc).

• XR is everywhere – chalking, posters, house signs, subvertising and online.

• Our visibility reassures others who are worried about the climate and ecological emergency that XR is not slacking off.

• Our messages are family friendly and some may use humour . We don’t want to offend families with children who are using a bike path or visiting a supermarket.

• OUR MESSAGE GOES VIRAL!

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Group Updates:

Online Libraries / How-to Guides

Kate has been compiling resources in the google drive, containing:

• Paint the Streets Arts Guide - A really awesome document started by Jane, brought almost to completion by Kate.

• Stencils

• How to Guides on:

  • Stencil-making

  • Paste-ups

  • Stencils for “Rewilding” walls and footpaths during lockdown bit by bit.

• Photos of Examples of Paint the Streets

This drive is a location where we can accumulate our resources.

Messaging Resources

Tee has started a document containing basic messaging guidelines and some example messages accentuating the question of what kind of world we want to live in.

Outreach to Media and Messaging Groups

Jane has reached out to XR Vic M&M group, and now there’s a messaging group working on some evidence-based messaging, liaising with messaging folks from Breakthrough, VCAN and environmental NGOs.

Stickers

Mai from South Australia has shared her experience of DIY stickers that are easy to make and infinitely customizable with some card, texta and stuck up with some wheat paste.

Brad has been looking at the option of commercially-produced stickers that we can quickly acquire in large quantities and distribute for maximum accessibility. All we need is to pick a design!

Strategic Rollout Plan / Decentralization Framework

Progress has been made on how we might escalate and decentralize Paint the Streets. The Australian Mass Mobilization group has taken an interest in what we are doing and is interested in boosting it across the country. XR Sydney have shared Paint the Streets pre-production material in their newsletter. We now have interested people from Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, NSW and ACT.

The group working on the strategic roll-out plan have been brainstorming what working groups we might decentralize the Paint the Streets project into.

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Next Meeting: Thursday 30th of April

• 5pm - 6pm Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane

• 4:30 - 5:30pm Adelaide

• 3pm - 4pm Perth

Please invite anyone who you feel is appropriate. Send them this RSVP link: https://actionnetwork.org/events/paint-the-streets-australia-planning-meeting/

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/5256267273

This meeting will include a status update followed by planning in breakout groups.

I am starting to assemble the meeting agenda here.

If anyone would like to help with the coordination please get in touch: manicmax@protonmail.com.

[ManicMax (Max)]

Post Meeting Update

We just had our second Paint the Streets planning meeting - 50 people from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, ACT and Western Australia attended.
We ran through the current situation and had some breakout groups to discuss where to go from here.
Over-all I think there was a lot of enthusiasm for the project.
Over the next few days I’ll be processing my post-meeting “to-do’s”. Let me know if you want to help out with any of them:

• Design sticker bulk-bid system
• Create “Keep me in the loops about Paint the Streets” form on action network
• Write follow-up email for Paint the Streets meeting - include details on sunday stencil session
• Design best slogans poll system
• Create Paint the Streets Base category
• Make post about strategic paint the streets action ideas - e.g. Marsh
• Reach out to digital rebellion people - PTS will be great provider of content
• Edit Paint the Streets recording - share somehow

[ManicMax (Max)]

I have created a dedicated “Paint the Streets!” category here on the Base so we can split off the discussion into multiple topics, e.g.

Messaging Guidelines for Paint the Streets

This topic is for discussing and refining the messaging guidelines for Paint the Streets. The current messaging guidelines are contained in the “Messaging” section of the Paint the Streets Australia Guide. These messaging guidelines have been put together by @JaneM, with input from @Tee, @Dr.DML and other rebels. There has been previous discussion on the Base on XR Messaging and Political Action during the Coronavirus Pandemic. This includes a compilation by @janem of several messag…

I was going to start the various topics we will want to discuss, but I’m needing a break today. If anyone wants to, I suggest starting in the Paint the Streets! category for:

• Stickers
• Strategic escalation of Paint the Streets
• Post your brag photos here!
• Sunday stencil sessions

[ManicMax (Max)]

Hey everyone, I was thinking the meeting yesterday went very well in that there were a lot of people who came along from most of the country and HEAPS of enthusiasm for Paint the Streets.

I feel coming out of the meeting there is a lot of progress and work being done on Paint the Streets, but I feel coming out of it that there is a need for a bit more clarity around who is doing what and a bit more planning and organizing of the project resources and campaign.

During the meeting when allocating the last few people to breakout rooms there were a few people who said they were happy to learn and make stencils and get to painting the streets, but didn’t feel like being involved in the planning.
I’m thinking that there are probably a lot of people like that. I also think that the best thing most people can be doing is making stencils and posters and getting ready to paint the streets, and we just need a relatively small group to work on planning and organizing.

Forming Paint the Streets Working Group(s)

With that in mind I was thinking that the next meeting could be for self-selecting people who want to be part of the “Paint the Streets Australia” working group to plan and organize, while people who want to make stencils and posters can be inducted through the stencil making sessions and the guide and through their local and regional arts groups, etc.

Suggested Meeting Plan

So at the Paint the Streets working group meeting we could have a quick 1-2-4 exercise over the questions:

• What are you doing currently for Paint the Streets?
• What do you want to be doing?
• What other work do you think should be done?

This would make current roles explicit, as well as outline desired roles and roles we might look for people to fill. We would then be able to make a clear structure for the group and set some priorities.
What do others think about this?

[jessmd_brisbane (Jessica McKenzie-Dunn)]

I definitely like the idea of smaller working groups and would be happy to be a part of the planning and organising wherever I can

[Jean_Lestrange (Jean)]

Sounds good. I just made a post on the Mattermost channel about the ideas which were discussed in our breakout group. Should I repost it here? It is quite a long post.

Something I would like to add is that I would like to see a few core projects created before the “Rebellion” in a few days time.

[ManicMax (Max)]

The meeting recording is edited (cut out some of the fumbling with breakout rooms) and now up:

[ManicMax (Max)]

Yeah it would be good to repost here.

[RosariaRebel (Rosaria Burchielli)]

Count me in for the PTSA working group

[ManicMax (Max)]

Next meeting: Thursday 14th of May

(going on a fortnightly schedule so that group members have time in between to work on things and fit in a bit of regeneration - hope that is ok).

I would like the next meeting to focus on forming some functional working groups / roles to work on the moving parts of the project.

Reasonable groupings would be (I think):

• Arts: Working on all artistic creation, helping arts groups around the country mobilize for paint the streets.
• Infrastructure: Establishing the infrastructure that will safely and effectively hold and communicate the paint the streets project and supporting materials.
• Rollout and Mobilization: Engaging with regional, local, and affinity groups across Australia, designing and facilitating an escalating Paint the Streets campaign.
• Media & Messaging: Working on messaging frames and guidelines, engaging with M&M groups and the media across the country to maximize the impact of our Paint the Streets message.
• Social Media: Organizing the social media presence of Paint the Streets.

Ewan suggested that we could have some of these roles done by existing working groups - e.g. the national Media and Messaging working group could do the Media and Messaging work. I think this would be good, as long as we have someone in a link role who would be part of and accountable to the Paint the Streets project group (so we can trust the communication with the group will be good and the work will be done).

With this in mind, I want to invite rebels to self-nominate to attend the next meeting with the intention of being part of a paint the streets working group.

I think the agenda should be:

• Acknowledgements (3 mins)
• Check-ins (3 mins)
• 2 minute updates on project areas (maximum 10 minutes)
• Split to breakouts (25-40 minutes)
  • What work are we already doing?
  • What work should this group do?
  • Who should do what?
• Report-backs.

[caroline (caroline walker)]

Hi
Caroline from Bris West . XR - I’m currently co-ordinating interested members in my group
and one of the main questions is, “What is the time frame, is there a ‘go’ date?”
Please can anyone shed any light on this topic regarding deadline for action
cheers
Caroline

[JaneM (Jane Morton)]

I’m pretty sure no date has been chosen, but it would indeed be good to have one.

[caroline (caroline walker)]

thanks for your response Jane, we are a little behind on preps here at Bris West 'cos I didn’t join in the planning until later.

[RosariaRebel (Rosaria Burchielli)]

Hi Caroline, it has been agreed that the launch of PTS would be at the close of the Digital Rebellion on May 20. I can see that it hasn’t yet been widely advertised on our social media. But Max announced it about a week ago here:

Strategic Directions for Paint the Streets

Copying this across from mattermost from @the-river-jordan I told him to give them a go-ahead for launch of Paint the Streets on May 20th, with the following provisos: It would be good if XR NSW / Sydney could provide local advice on the legal risks of paste-ups / stenciling, keeping in mind the changing recommendations around COVID-19. We will try to have some general guidelines ready by then for how groups could best direct their energy in the launch week. We will try to plan a good escala…

[ManicMax (Max)]

Yes, there’s a launch on the 20th - but that’s just to direct rebels to start putting lots of energy into this.
We need to work on frameworks for rebels to work with for escalation of Paint the Streets.

Here’s the message I sent to Caroline as she also emailed me:

Don’t worry - there’s no strict timeframes yet. We were waiting for more info on how the state governments would be relaxing measures for coronavirus before formulating a plan of escalation.

For the moment, getting your arts kits together, making stencils, posters and other arts - as much as possible - is the goal.

Your groups could also be mapping out areas and scoping out areas that you would like to do paste-ups and stenciling for getting the XR image and name out as much as possible. If it works with your context you can start doing paste-up and stencil runs, or chalking, or other street art. And you could be organizing and forming the affinity groups that will do the paint the streets actions (small units of 2 to 6 people per group which will then work in tandem to cover lots of ground or blitz certain locations).

When the time comes we will burst out and paint the streets.

At the next meeting on thursday we will be putting together a few working groups - one of which will be working on mobilization and escalation.

[jess]

A proposal for regenerative action cycle scheduling: Paint the Streets - The 1st Wave
Launch being about 8 o’clock.

[ManicMax (Max)]

Love this.