Story Of Self/Us/Now

Inspired by my Campaigns Contact Weekend follow-up (see last post), here's the first of an occasional series of noticeboard posts with handy links to more activist and organising resources I have used or otherwise come across.

Some of it still lives in one form or another on Campaign Hubs, Friends of the Earth's discussion space, but as that's not being used much of late I thought I might as well consolidate it here. 

Story of Self//Us/Now

What kind of stories do we tell people about ourselves as campaigners? How can we make them compelling to others while authentic and sustaining for ourselves?

The Story of Self/Us/Now structure allows you to present a compelling narrative of your own to other people when talking about your campaign or group. You can also ask questions of others to elicit the same material.

Here are a couple of explanations together with a workshop outline.

http://workshops.350.org/toolkit/story/
http://www.wholecommunities.org/pdf/Public%20Story%20Worksheet07Ganz.pdf

L'esprit de la noticeboard - some links from the Campaigns Contacts' Weekend

Back in July I helped out at the MND Association's Campaigns Contacts' Weekend - a get-together for the Association's marvellous campaigning volunteers.

I facilitated (or assisted with) sessions on mindfulness and involving others in your campaigning. Over the course of those sessions I referred to quite a bit of external material. While I've already shared the following links with the Campaigns Contacts I'm also adding them here as an aide-memoire.

L'esprit de la noticeboard and all that.

Mindfulness

Here is the mindfulness exercise we tried - why not give it a go yourself? http://www.meditationinschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Mindfulness-Relaxation-Exercise-Script.pdf

And here is the summary I shared with participants of what mindfulness is and how it can help with anxiety, stress and self-care: http://www.thesf.org.uk/documents/Emotional-Health/So%20what%20is%20mindfulness.pdf

Involving others in your campaigning

In this session I referred to a number of models and approaches about involving other people in our campaigning.

1. Lone wolves, organisers and mobilisers (Hahrie Han) - https://medium.com/organizer-sandbox/what-is-organizing-55dc0d05b522#.zgxv29b52

2. The three circles model of high-performing teams by John Adair - http://www.chimaeraconsulting.com/adair.htm

3. Circles of commitment for campaigns and groups - http://www.thechangeagency.org/circles-of-commitment/

4. Video (TED Talk) about the community organising approach and how that can involve people - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNdVx_s0SOs

5. Basics of community organising in one page! http://www.citizensnyc.org/sites/default/files/public-attachments/workshop/community_organizing_-_1_page.pdf collapse