Manchester Climate Monthly (MCFly) Strategic Plan 2012-13
for consultation until Feb 2nd 2012. mcmonthly@gmail.com
This document pertains to proposed action by a non-governmental actor for the dissemination of data among stakeholders throughout the Greater Manchester conurbation, the creation of a framework for the positive emotional affect among aforementioned stakeholders and finally the interpersonal and intra and inter-organizational connectiv….
Nah, we’re jus’ playing with ya.
You are reading the strategic plan (2012-3) of “Manchester Climate Monthly.” It is written – we hope – in English, and not that muddy “bureaucratese” and PR-speak that you get in “mission statements” and “outward facing policy documents” and the like.
This is a first draft, and we want your comments. You can put them in the comments boxes, or you can email us at mcmonthly@gmail.com. We doubt that we will take on-board every suggestion, but we WILL respond to you (unless you’re a troll).
We’ve split out the policy/”truths we hold to be self-evident” into a policy document. This strategic document is about what we are going to DO. We’ve also created a series of policy documents (about volunteers, training, funding and so on), which are referred to in the text below. If you’re reading this on scribd, you’re outta hyperlinking luck.
What next?
A final version of this plan will go up on the MCFly website on February 15th 2012. It can then be used as a stick to beat us with when (not if) we fail to achieve what we said we would. It will be renewed/refreshed/insert trendy buzzword here at the end of 2012.
Plans are (fairly) easy – and fun – to write. But turning words into facts – well, in the words of a senior Council official back in early 2010 – it’s “implementation, implementation, implementation.”
Two quotes are always worth remembering – “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”
And in the words of a Republican President of the United States Dwight Towe… Eisenhower, – “Plans are useless; planning is essential.”
1. Introduction
There are 8 parts to this document
1. Introduction (which you’re starting to read)
2. Inform
3. Inspire
4. Connect
5. “Beyond the Ghetto”?
6.Measuring Success
7.Funding
8.Glossary
1.1 History and names
Manchester Climate Fortnightly ran from June 2008 to November 2010. It was mostly the work of Marc Hudson and Arwa Aburawa, with cartoons by Marc Roberts and some proof-reading by Sarah Irving. Intermittently, other people wrote for it. It died when Marc Hudson went (alright, flew) to Australia for a year’s visit with his parents. Nobody in Manchester saw it as a priority to continue, which tells you something either about the value of the project or the priorities of Mancunian activists. Or both.
Manchester Climate Monthly started up in October 2011 as a website and will – by the time this plan is “ratified” – have published two paper issues. The project will run, at a minimum (barring accidents and the collapse of Western Civilisation), until the end of 2013. We hope it is still going (with different staff!) in 2020, when the Manchester Climate Change Action Plan has delivered its goals.
We want you to get involved. Have a look at the “Help MCFly” section of manchesterclimatemonthly.net for the latest jobs that need doing (divided into “simple and quick”, “complex and quick”, “simple and lengthy” and “complex and lengthy”).
“Mickem”is harder to say than “MCFly”, and we are extremely fond of the tartan fly that our cartoonist Marc Roberts drew as an icon, so we are going to keep calling ourselves “MCFly.”
1.2 To inform, inspire and connect.
MCFly’s tag-line is “to inform, inspire and connect.” We use that as the outline for the first half of this plan.
To inform – great, but who are we informing about what? How are we informing them? When are we informing them?
To inspire – again, who are we inspiring? What do we hope they will do with that inspiration?
To connect – who are we connecting? Where? How? Why?
That’s the first half of the plan. Then we want to complicate the whole thing with three more words beyond that tag-line. And those words are … “beyond the ghetto.”
1.3 “Beyond the ghetto”, and measuring failure and success
Anyone who has been to a few meetings about climate change in Manchester (actually, one meeting would be enough), will have spotted that meetings are attended largely by the usual suspects, and that the usual suspects are white and middle-class. This is not the basis for an effective social movement. What is to be done? We lay out a few things that we will do, and that we think other organisations – bigger and better funded than us – could and should do.
How can we know if we are on track? We lay out, in section 5, the “metrics” that we will use. We intend to measure ourselves against these on a monthly basis, using a public “audit”.
How will it be funded? Who are we going to take money from? See our website – specifically https://manchesterclimatemonthly.net/about/funding/ for answers.
What do these words “smugosphere” and “ego-fodder” mean? All good questions, to which answers are provided in the glossary at the end…
manchester climate monthly 