reposted from environmentalscrutiny.info

Several new faces joined the PEST-ilence on Monday night. A mix of old and young, climate campaigners, vegan organics farming advocates, biodiversity boffins and all-purpose citizens spent an hour and a half getting to know each others skills and passions (see the video for more details), brainstorming ideas for the coming months and learning about recent successes of environmental campaigning

• Trafford Council voting against fracking
• Manchester City Council being forced to honour an old promise to produce quarterly climate reports)
• Funding won for Manchester and Liverpool to plant wildflowers

In what is now a tradition, people wrote down things they were good at and things they would like to be good at on white and coloured paper, held them up and walked around the room. Many “matches” were found, and email addresses exchanged. Of such things are skills exchanges and webs of mutual support (and friendship?) born…

What people put down as the things they were good at:
Public speaking, research facilitating, planning and organising, PR, marketing, wacky ideas, party organising, banner making, blogging, lobbying politicians, letters to newspapers, talking,

What people put down as the things they would like to be good at:
Time management, web design, project management (x2), organisational skills, video, public speaking, keeping momentum, engaging with schools/doing assemblies, social media, public speaking, getting more engaged in civic society,

We then used those sheets of paper while three of us facilitated “Novice Lines” (the video only captures me, but the next two facilitators were better. #embarrassing).

The links under some of those words take you through to the “bluffer’s guides” that people helped to improve at the first PEST meeting, back in August.

The meeting finished on time (8.30pm) and people seemed enthused and energised, having met multiple other people.

PEST’s latest report is out now: What have ye done? Manchester City Council’s performance against its own goals in the Annual Carbon Reduction Plan 2013-4 12 pages of depressing detail of how much the council DIDN’T do. We had to use the Freedom of Information Act to get these facts…

PEST’s next report is out on Monday 24th November: “What IS a low carbon culture” Please respond to it, leave comments, retweet it, post it on facebook. Most of all, put your thinking and talking hats on, because this report is only the beginning of a discussion.

Next meeting: Monday 15th December will be at 7pm, at the Friends Meeting House. It is a “how-to” session for people who want to become better public speakers, and people who want to learn how to shoot video. All welcome, no need to book. Please tell your friends

Next report (January 2015) will be on “How can we make our streets more ready for the unpleasant surprises to come?” If you have ideas, or want to get involved in the writing/production of this report, please get in touch via environmentalscrutiny@gmail.com