This an intensely risky moment, emotionally and strategically. The phase change could knock you off your feet, especially if this is your first time participating in a major mobilisation. I’ve been in this position before, back in 2011 when we decided to close the camp at Occupy Wellington. So I wanted to write you this letter. Granddad Rich has a story for you. Please imagine a rocking chair, a pipe, a pot of tea.

Back in my day…

Joining Occupy absolutely blew my mind, and blew my heart right open. It was the first time I felt the courage that comes before hope, the first time that “solidarity” moved from my head down into my heart, my blood, my hands. I reckon I did 30 years of growing up in 3 weeks. It felt like we were on the front edge of history, wide awake and fully alive at last.

So leaving the camp feels super risky. At this moment, despair is the biggest threat. Is this the end? Do I go back to my normal life now? Was I deluded when I felt like we were changing the world?

First off, I know you know this, but humour me while I remind you anyway: the camp is closing but there’ll be more actions. These weeks in London were just one line of an epic beautiful song. Extinction Rebellion will carry the tune for maybe a verse or two, and then some other movement will pick it up and carry on. When I joined Occupy in 2011, I had no idea that I was entering into a lineage, generations of resistance made invisible by the histories I learned in school, a thousand grandmothers I never knew the names of. Occupy dispersed, but the lineage continues. I watched it surging through Hungary, Taiwan, Brazil, Korea… the movement of movements is everywhere. Your job is not to bring an end to injustice, to stop climate change, or to replace capitalism. You just have to keep going.

“It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” — Rabbi Tarfon

The surest way to guarantee your endurance is with company.

If you’re not sure what to do next, I can tell you what worked for me. After we left Occupy, a small crew of my closest allies made a commitment to each other. We made a pledge to keep going: to let go of individualism and hold tight to the mutual aid, the care, the passion and the purpose that we found in camp.

Eventually we started a tech co-op to spread the meme of participatory democracy. Now I have a consulting company helping groups to get beyond hierarchy. For the past 7 years I’ve been paid to work on the problems that feel most urgent to me. I’m free from the discouraging, dehumanising, exhausting grind of my old bullshit jobs. I’m not rich, but I’m satisfied, deep down in my guts. It’s not all plain sailing, but I have an anchor, a rudder, and crewmates I trust with my life. I can’t tell you how much my life has improved since I found my meaningful work, and found the people to share it with. Sure, that’s partly down to privilege and good luck, but don’t underestimate the value of a clear intention. It’s in my head every day like a mantra: mutual aid, meaningful work, mutual aid, meaningful work.

Probably you’re not going to start a tech co-op. If you’re committed to Extinction Rebellion, you can join one of the many local XR groups. But XR doesn’t have a monopoly on solidarity: you can form a savings pool, a reading club, a shared house, a freelancer collective, a community choir… just don’t go on alone. At the very least, find 3 or 4 people you can meet with every couple of weeks: form your crew now while the enthusiasm is high, so you can hold each other up when the energy gets low. If you need inspiration or resources for how to do this well, check out microsolidarity.cc.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Don’t go back to sleep
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep

— Rumi

p.s. This story is published by Richard D. Bartlett with no rights reserved: you have my consent to use it however you like. You’ll find files for easy reproduction on my website. The artwork is licensed for non-commercial use.

No rights reserved by the author.

The post The Morning After The Rebellion: An Open Letter To The People of #ExtinctionRebellion appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Donate!

On July 7th, an accidental fire in a neighbouring studio wiped out Stir to Action’s office – we lost everything. We estimate we’ve lost around £15,000 in magazine stock and archive, new office furniture, office computer, and paperwork. And, of course, the office!

This loss has disrupted our whole organisation and recovering from the fire will delay selling our latest issue, which fortunately arrived a few days after the office went up in smoke, announcing our planned New Economy Programme to train a 1000 people, and other current projects.

To see us through the next six months we’re asking for support – we’re not expecting to recover everything, but here are the basics that will help us get back on our feet!

What do we need help with?

– Office computer (with creative design suite)

– Office Furniture: desks for our team, and equipment for workshops, evening classes, and other community events we plan to host over the next six months. We’ve already been offered free office space by a local organisation!

– Magazine restock: we are looking to reprint 1,000 copies of the last four issues only, so we can sell them at events, conferences, and through our online shop.

– Printing next issue: The most immediate challenge for our organisation is to fund and produce our next issue. Staying on our print schedule is important for our cash flow, but it’s also a symbol of our recovery and our supportive community. Our October issue be themed on the communities and co-operation that arise during and after disaster and crisis.

– Magazine archive recall: We’re looking to rebuild our print archive from our first issue, Spring 2013, to our 15th issue, Autumn 2016 (the remaining archive would be replenished by our restock print run). We are limiting our collection to 10 copies each for storage reasons. Please send a message on this page if you don’t mind giving up a few of your back issues!

– Time and patience as we rebuild and organise our upcoming New Economy Programme and other projects

Thanks for your support and solidarity!
The Stir to Action team

Donate!

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The book will be reflective of quite a few people’s thinking – a real community effort, coordinated by a strong core team.

It will be mixture of short essays, personal reflections, collective thinking and really practical guides. It’s being written to be relevant for both entrepreneurs, founders and freelancers as well leaders and cultural influencers in larger organisations.

We’re aiming for this project to share our learnings, inspire action and help grow the global movement of people putting purpose at the heart of their work – so we hope has a wide appeal.

We would love your support.

Our crowdfunding campaign is live and you can be part of the special first edition release of the book here.

You can support our campaign here and pre-order your copy of the book here – and we would love all the help we could get to share the word as well!

Thanks so much!

betterworktogether.co

The post Better Work Together – The Book! appeared first on P2P Foundation.

 To help transform our economy over the last few years, Stir to Action has organised national workshop programmes to support communities. Now, we are now planning to launch a year-long programme of practical workshops, 3-day residentials, mentoring, and live crowdfunding to build a new economy that works for everyone.

For this to be successful — and with your support — we are hoping to raise the £12,500 we need to cover programme costs. Pledges on our campaign over the next five weeks will support subsidised workshop places, local workshop venues, programme design, our mentoring network, and provide the resources to engage new communities with these ideas. This is our first programme at this scale, but we aim for it to be an annual programme!

We’re continuing to build our inspiring mentoring network during the campaign — would you like to join?!
Get in touch via [email protected]

Click here to support our crowdfund

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How do people work together to design open-source hardware products? What is the level of openness, trust and collaboration within such projects? Do the communities share common goals and visions and how do they allocate workloads? These are some core questions related to demystifying open-source hardware projects that Robert Mies and Jérémy Bonvoisin try to answer in the research project entitled “OPEN! Methods and tools for community-based product development“.

As for the digital sphere, there is strong evidence that commons-based peer-to-peer dynamics harness social creativity, collaboration and information sharing in a regenerative way. The question is: can we also unleash the creative capabilities of P2P in the physical sphere?

Experimentation is in the vanguard of open-source hardware projects. Equally important is reflection, with the aim to understand the dynamics and patterns that can lead to constant improvement. Therefore, this survey is a useful tool to help us comprehend how the creative capabilities of commons-based peer production could be unleashed: https://opensourcedesign.cc/Limesurvey/index.php/561438

Please share the survey and, if you are part of an open-source hardware project, are invited to join by December 17th, 2017!

The post Open Source Hardware Collaboration Survey – How people work together to design open source products appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Chris Rankin: On Wednesday, Sept. 13, we celebrated the launch of our new book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons” and crowdfunding campaign, at the Embassy Network house in San Francisco, California. We are grateful to everyone who joined us for a fun and inspiring evening. It gave us a rare opportunity to connect with supporters — old and new — in person, and witness just how much support exists for our work. The Embassy Network, which not only offers shared housing, but provides an avenue to share ideas and connect with people around the world, was the perfect venue to introduce the book — a global, crowdsourced effort. We’d like to thank our board member Tony Lai for graciously offering the beautiful venue.

At the event, Shareable’s executive director Neal Gorenflo and board member Laurie Schecter reminded us of the vital role Shareable has played in leading the sharing movement. If you missed the event, you can still watch their talks on Shareable’s Facebook page. We were joined by 50 friends, raised over $11,000, and nearly sold out of the early release version of the book. We are not done though. We have a goal of raising $100,000 in 60 days and are calling on our readers to support Shareable. A donation to Shareable is more than a tax-deductible gift — it’s a way to elevate our platform to allow essential voices to be heard and inspiring stories to be shared. Shareable’s storytelling is essential to individuals, community groups, and policymakers who use our reporting as a manual for creating a more resilient, equitable, and joyful world.

Our goals of our crowdfunding campaign are to:

• Build a new website to grow our readership and engage our core community more effectively.

• Provide additional coverage of solutions coming from the global south and unrepresented communities.

• Host a community-driven book tour. We’ll equip our community to organize book events around the world.

To make a donation to Shareable, learn more about the projects we have planned in 2018, and obtain a print copy or e-version of “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons” please click here.

All photos by Ambika Kandasamy

The post Launch Party for Shareable’s New Book and Crowdfunding Campaign appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Não ao Furo! Sim ao Futuro – No to oil drilling in Portugal!

Nearly 1000 people from 40 countries form a large-scale human message on Odeceixe beach to stop plans for off-shore oil drilling in Portugal. The event was part of “Defend the Sacred: Envision a Global Alternative” hosted by Tamera, joined by Standing Rock leaders and supported by environmental movements in Portugal. The aerial human image was designed by John Quigley of Spectral Q and filmed by Ludwig Schramm and team from Tamera.

As the oil companies push to drill for oil off this coast as early as April 2018, we came together to honor that water is life, water is sacred, life is sacred, and that we must defend the sacred. LaDonna Bravebull Allard, initiator of the Sacred Stone camp at Standing Rock said at the event, “I stood up for the water and the world stood with us, so I came here to stand with you. We have no choice, we must stand up for the water and we must stand up now!”

Combining political action with art and prayer, a ceremony for water and fire, we dedicated this act of sacred activism to a regenerative system change from a culture of exploitation to one of cooperation with all that lives. And that it’s our duty – our mandate – to call people to stand up, because people are ready for an alternative. And will run joyfully towards a more beautiful world, as the beach goers did on Odeceixe-Praia, as they heard and felt the call to complete the final pieces of the powerful message at the last minute.

The message featured the “Linha Vermelha” (“Red Line”) – a campaign in partnership with Climaximo and the Citizenship Academy. The red line represents the voices of those who repeatedly say “no” to the oil drilling here and in the world, and through weaving and knitting, aim to inform and mobilize the population, who otherwise would not be aware and sensitized to this crime.

The aerial art, designed by John Quigley, an American environmental advocate, known around the world for his aerial art activism. See John Quigley’s Biography (PDF) and an article about his work in the London Sunday Times (PDF).

The images are published under a under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial license. Acknowledgement: Ludwig Schramm / Karlito Delacasa / Simon du Vinage / Yuval Kovo / Spectral Q. The video is published under the same license – see credits.

The post Defend the Sacred: No to oil drilling in Portugal! appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Our story begins in a noisy bar. A few years ago, a group of disgruntled Frome residents were sitting around a table at their local pub, complaining about how bad their local town council was. Sound familiar? Well, this story is a bit different. Fast forward a few years, and the coalition that these residents decided to form has completely replaced every last council member. This coalition is known as the Independents of Frome, and their platform is based on a rejection of traditional party politics and on bringing power down to the local level.

This episode explores the Independents of Frome, as well as many of the initiatives that they have promoted and supported: a community fridge, a library of things, a town resilience officer, and more.

But the story of Frome, like most things in life, is not as simple as it may appear. This town has a long and at times dark history, and when parts of that history are uncovered, old wounds are revealed which tell an all too familiar story of division and gentrification. We’ll touch on this history here before we delve much deeper into these divides next week, in part two of this three-part series.

This is the first in a 3-part documentary series by Upstream exploring the intersections of new economics, class division, and wellbeing. Listen to the second part here: A View of Global Economic Inequalities from the English Town of Frome  and the third part here: What Would an Economy Based on Wellbeing Look Like?

Upstream is an interview and documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. Weaving together interviews, field-recordings, rich sound-design, and great music, each episode of Upstream will take you on a journey exploring a theme or story within the broad world of economics. So tune in, because the revolution will be podcasted.

For more from Upstream, subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher Radio. You can also follow Upstream on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to get daily updates.

Header art by Bethan Mure.

This post was originally published by Shareable.

The post Podcast: How Residents of Frome, UK Took Governance and the Local Economy Into Their Own Hands appeared first on P2P Foundation.

WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?

Net neutrality is the basic principle that protects our free speech on the Internet. “Title II” of the Communications Act is what provides the legal foundation for net neutrality and prevents Internet Service Providers like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T from slowing down and blocking websites, or charging apps and sites extra fees to reach an audience (which they then pass along to consumers.)

WHY IS NET NEUTRALITY IMPORTANT?

The Internet has thrived precisely because of net neutrality. It’s what makes it so vibrant and innovative—a place for creativity, free expression, and exchange of ideas. Without net neutrality, the Internet will become more like Cable TV, where the content you see is what your provider puts in front of you.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN ON JULY 12TH?

We’ll provide tools for everyone to make it super easy for your followers / visitors to take action. From the SOPA blackout to the Internet Slowdown, we’ve shown time and time again that when the Internet comes together, we can stop censorship and corruption. Now, we have to do it again!

Extra Reading

Here are some excellent articles for additional depth. They cover the issue, its political history, the struggles we’ve overcome, and the fight ahead in Congress and at the FCC.

• Comcast May Have Found a Major Net Neutrality Loophole Wired
• Verizon’s mobile video won’t count against data caps—but Netflix does Ars Technica
• HOW WE WON! Battle for the net
• The FCC’s Net Neutrality Order Protects Internet Freedom by Restoring the Law Medium

Photo by boyan_d; additional image by Free the Net

The post July 12th: Internet-wide day of action to save net neutrality appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Nature Play is seeking to become Europe’s first Agile Learning Community on Evia Island, Greece, and across Europe. The campaign concerns the hosting of the first ever Agile Learning Facilitators (ALF) training in Europe: ALF Summer Europe.

A project coordinated by Marcus Letts from One Planet Productions, a project development agency working in North Evia (Origin Club, Transform Evia).

Learn more about the project and make a pledge here

What is Nature Play Agile Learning Community?

Nature Play Agile Learning Community (ALC) is an Agile Learning ecosystem in the making located on the Aegean island region of North Evia in Central Greece. Inspired by the growing ALC model in the USA, a distributed network of Agile Learning Communities is nurtured in the region, in wider Greece and across Europe.

Specifically, the programme is focused on a diverse offering of activities and experiences for children and young people in the municipality of Limni-Mandouthi-Agia Anna on Evia island. Initially these will include:

• Pre-school in the mornings.
• Youth clubs in the evenings.
• Forest schools and work experience days.
• Weekend pop-ups and agile expeditions.
• Week-long summer camps.

Nature Play ALC attempts to become accessible to local children by adopting a complementary rather than confrontational approach, and also affordable to everyone – including the island’s refugee community. This entails making the programmes attractive to tourists and then actively cross-subsidising their offerings to local children. Simultaneously, it is embracing opportunities for oversees educators and volunteers to join in a co-learning adventure.

The bigger picture mission is to transform Evia into a leading European destination for regenerative culture design and applied social economics. This vision and strategy begins and ends with self-directed learning and intentional culture creation that needs to be based on a foundation of agile principles and practices.

Photo by Pensive glance

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