Wave 1: Regional actions Reflecting and Learning

šŸŽÆ Actions
#1

TAREE, NSW 5th September. Hereā€™s the livestream compiled

What went well:

  • The press release worked really well - we got two local news crews filming us , stories in the news the night before, the day of plus in print media the next week! Please feel free to use the release/re-word. Also donā€™t forget to write EMBARGO on it so that the media donā€™t share it.

For next time ( or for other groups to learn from)

  • lots of cars hated us and beeped a lot -but we turned this into a positive by imagining they were cheering us on. Recommendation for others: Bring signs that say ā€œHONK FOR CLIMATE ACTIONā€ or similar so that we can utilise the honks
  • Lack of arrest - the police basically ignored us. We had people keen to make the sacrifice of arrest but the police were not interested in that - we werenā€™t pushing them enough with our road swarms. This shows that the action has to push the ā€˜dilemmaā€™ boundaires. I.e. do enough disruption that cops want to stop it from happening.

Update September 27 (sorry for the delay) Here is the full action debrief:

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#2

Thanks for the update. I really enjoyed watching the livestream, it was great to see people taking action in a regional town like Taree.

Has the group done a debrief? How do people feel about actions going forward, is there a keenness to escalate?

#3

Yes thereā€™s more de-brief to come tonight so Iā€™ll update that post. They were very keen to do more - possibly neighbouring towns etc! to escalate and create the appropriate dilemma action. However straight after the action it was also cool because mobilisation activites emerged as a way to consolidate the media attention (and do something a lot less intense than jamming peoples saturday mornigns!) So i have a feeling some stalls and other mobilisation things will emerge as next steps for the group as well as action planning

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#4

Really cool reflections, @ageorge. Looking forward to the debrief outcomes. Keen to do this!

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#5

The full action de-brief is uploaded above. There are a couple of things that emerged from that (which I didnā€™t mention before) which was that

Cars did try to push through our line - requires assertiveness and great comms and united response
Cars could avoid us by detouring through a carpark - we couldā€™ve caused more disruption by staying at the roundabout

The briefing template used is here: https://cloud.ausrebellion.earth/index.php/s/WBJngkNpoZAHbsA
and it allows the de-brief to be categorised in the 4 following (fun) waysā€¦

Root (what happened)
Rose (what was great)
Thorn (what was not great)
Bud (suggestions & opportunities)

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#6

Thanks for your support (and @Vee ) mobilising us here @ageorge in the Midcoast group, great effort, great action, great debrief!
Legend!

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#7

We are hoping to attend Sydney Rebellion 2020 and assist in roadblocking using these skills to assist an existing action at that timeā€¦ Then we are planning another roadblock shortly after that will be more disruptive and sacrificial. Standout learnings from the debrief were that it is harder to do the roadblock safely and effectively under the covid 20 - person rule especially if trying to make media at the same time (had 4 roles doing livestream/video/photos ) . And another learning was that the police thought it was amusing to leave us on the road and let the public abuse and react to us instead of arresting us which they knew we were prepared for - the public were worse than the police, several cars pushed through our line, nudging knees etc even though there were police present and we were on a pedestrian crossing in some instances where that occurred. Overall we achieved several goals for wave 1 actions including generating the footageā€¦ Great action.

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