I came across some notes I wrote five years ago about the Obama '08 election campaign and its fantastic grassroots campaign, having read Zack Exley's seminal article on the subject. Worth repeating them here to include in my auxiliary memory since they're still as valid today.
1. Start volunteers with small tasks and build it up - pass the baton when you get them running at the right speed.
2. Tailor roles to skills and personalities, have as many leadership roles as you have people willing to fill them.
3. Encourage active members to pass on their skills and experience to others.
4. Focus - build up your team in one area before tackling the next.
5. Measure success by the number of volunteers you recruit as well as the campaigns you win.
RESPECT, EMPOWER, INCLUDE
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Monday, March 10, 2014
Marxist sky-daddy propaganda
As seen in Digbeth: a weirdly beautiful but almost comically religious poster for the CPGB-ML.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
The Leonard Cohen theory of organising
You can't do everything at once.
Not just a master of affairs of the heart, Mr Cohen also knows the power of prioritisation. First you take Manhattan, then (and only then) do you take Berlin.
Joking aside, there's a lot to be said for this typically zen piece of advice from the Greatest Living Canadian After Joni Mitchell.
Ambitious end goals, say, taking Berlin, or making your town the greenest in the country are good, but they can be scary. It's easy to be disheartened if you don't know where to start.
The solution: focus on the immediate step of taking Manhattan. Or, if you like, persuading your local school to put solar panels on its roof. It's a thing worth doing in its own right but – if understood and communicated clearly - also a step towards your own personal Berlin.
To give another example, getting 3 people in a room to agree to start a Friends of the Earth group or try a new local campaign might not feel like a big deal. You could say that you can't start a string quartet with three people, never mind change the world.
And yet it's a necessary step in the process of building change. It's not as superficially thrilling perhaps as the triumphal endgame you hope for. But it's the process of taking Manhattan that gives the promise of taking Berlin its meaning.
Hat tip, Mr Cohen.
Not just a master of affairs of the heart, Mr Cohen also knows the power of prioritisation. First you take Manhattan, then (and only then) do you take Berlin.
Joking aside, there's a lot to be said for this typically zen piece of advice from the Greatest Living Canadian After Joni Mitchell.
Ambitious end goals, say, taking Berlin, or making your town the greenest in the country are good, but they can be scary. It's easy to be disheartened if you don't know where to start.
The solution: focus on the immediate step of taking Manhattan. Or, if you like, persuading your local school to put solar panels on its roof. It's a thing worth doing in its own right but – if understood and communicated clearly - also a step towards your own personal Berlin.
To give another example, getting 3 people in a room to agree to start a Friends of the Earth group or try a new local campaign might not feel like a big deal. You could say that you can't start a string quartet with three people, never mind change the world.
And yet it's a necessary step in the process of building change. It's not as superficially thrilling perhaps as the triumphal endgame you hope for. But it's the process of taking Manhattan that gives the promise of taking Berlin its meaning.
Unofficial motto for @wwwfoecouk SW Regional Gathering, taken from the Leonard Cohen school of campaigning. http://t.co/mXNy412XJG
— Tim Atkinson (@Magpiemoth) March 3, 2014
Hat tip, Mr Cohen.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Thergothon's Stream From The Heavens: as ambient as metal gets?
This record sounds cheap. Its lyrical subject matter is adolescent. I'm still not sure if all of its musical effect is intentional. But to me it's unquestionably a great record, partly because it sounds like nothing else I've heard, partly because I can hear its influence echoing in other things I've listened to and loved.
Contradiction? Not quite – allow me to explain.
Echo is indeed the operative word here, since Thergothon's only album proper (from 1992) is very nearly as ambient as metal gets. Dominated by long, slow guitar lines, heavy on the reverb, like Sabbath in treacle, notes are left hanging in the air before the music drags itself forward one more step. On some songs, the guitarist seems to be tuning up for several minutes before a riff emerges from the gloom.
Underneath this, growling vocals are interspersed with chanting and whispering, all indecipherable, Lovecraft-inspired. Occasional 'atmospheric' interventions from what sounds like a child's Casio keyboard induce a feeling of mild narm. Somewhere in the background, the drums plod on with barely a hint of swing. The tinny production actively hinders any usual feeling of metal awe.
And yet taken as a whole, Stream... makes for an accessible avant-garde smash. It's doom metal in love with the hum of the amplifier, crude fragments of electric blues and folk rising out of the murk. It's drone metal with songs. The lo-fi production's tendency to undercut the ambition of the record strips it of pomposity, rendering it oddly endearing.
The album spawned a new micro-genre in its wake: funereal doom metal, although what I've heard of its offspring so far suggests that there was something magical in the original production and throwing money at the sound quality just takes it away and gives you something far more orthodox (and therefore considerably less interesting).
However, it's also not too big a jump further out and forward in time from Thergothon to beatless, decidely less song-oriented acts like Sunn O))) . Keep the pace down but tighten up the playing, add in a smattering of jazz and blues, and then you've got late-period Earth, circa The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull.
It might be a misreading of metal history, but I hope it's a strong one. For me Stream... sits much more readily in that progressive tradition than Sabbath played at half speed with an extra dollop of misery. But its both a ground-breaking and love(craft)able piece of work in its own right.
Contradiction? Not quite – allow me to explain.
Echo is indeed the operative word here, since Thergothon's only album proper (from 1992) is very nearly as ambient as metal gets. Dominated by long, slow guitar lines, heavy on the reverb, like Sabbath in treacle, notes are left hanging in the air before the music drags itself forward one more step. On some songs, the guitarist seems to be tuning up for several minutes before a riff emerges from the gloom.
Underneath this, growling vocals are interspersed with chanting and whispering, all indecipherable, Lovecraft-inspired. Occasional 'atmospheric' interventions from what sounds like a child's Casio keyboard induce a feeling of mild narm. Somewhere in the background, the drums plod on with barely a hint of swing. The tinny production actively hinders any usual feeling of metal awe.
And yet taken as a whole, Stream... makes for an accessible avant-garde smash. It's doom metal in love with the hum of the amplifier, crude fragments of electric blues and folk rising out of the murk. It's drone metal with songs. The lo-fi production's tendency to undercut the ambition of the record strips it of pomposity, rendering it oddly endearing.
The album spawned a new micro-genre in its wake: funereal doom metal, although what I've heard of its offspring so far suggests that there was something magical in the original production and throwing money at the sound quality just takes it away and gives you something far more orthodox (and therefore considerably less interesting).
However, it's also not too big a jump further out and forward in time from Thergothon to beatless, decidely less song-oriented acts like Sunn O))) . Keep the pace down but tighten up the playing, add in a smattering of jazz and blues, and then you've got late-period Earth, circa The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull.
It might be a misreading of metal history, but I hope it's a strong one. For me Stream... sits much more readily in that progressive tradition than Sabbath played at half speed with an extra dollop of misery. But its both a ground-breaking and love(craft)able piece of work in its own right.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Happy World Wildlife Day everyone!
Information about World Wildlife Day here. And to celebrate, here's a seal from the Donna Nook sanctuary on the Lincolnshire coast.
Also, one of our office volunteers Emily did a rather marvelous blog post about World Wildlife Day on Campaign Hubs asking if our Government is doing enough to protect nature - go check it out!
Also, one of our office volunteers Emily did a rather marvelous blog post about World Wildlife Day on Campaign Hubs asking if our Government is doing enough to protect nature - go check it out!
During the recent UK floods, some politicians claimed more attention was being given to birds than humans. Such comments show there’s a long way to go to understand that looking after nature isn’t taking anything away from us humans.
The reverse is true. The more we treat nature as a luxury not an essential we imperil ourselves. Will people face more or fewer floods if we have fewer birds using wildlife reserves, cleverly also serving as flood barriers?
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