Last week, we celebrated the first year of the Dengie Climate Action Partnership (DCAP) with a social at the Victoria Inn.
More folk turned up for the social in the pub than regularly do for the monthly meet-ups in Burnham Council Chamber. An unsurprising but salutary reminder that an open formal meeting is not for everyone.
The trouble with saving the planet is it takes up too many evenings.
In the invitation to the Social and in recent communications to DCAP members, I encouraged folk who hadn’t attended for a while to come again to this informal gathering and to bring their eco-curious friends. I also nodded towards the Action part of our name and noted that while this past year had been a foundation, the next should be focused on actions.
It’s easy for a group like this to become just a discussion forum, only a talking shop. Sitting around a table with an agenda, minutes, apologies, AOBs and the rest suggests a group is for people who like that sort of thing and/or have the background and experiences that make such discourse a natural language. Holding meetings in a council chamber also has heavy bureaucratic vibes.
Practical activities, getting things done, appeal to a wider set of people and I hope we will engage more widely when our efforts privilege being in the world over being in the room.
In our foundation year:
- we have got to know each other better
- We have formed 4 sub-groups: Biodiverse Dengie, Litter-free B-on-C, rECOnnect Dengie, and River Action
- We’ve spoken at a meeting of the Dengie Hundred Group of Parishes in Mayland, the Essex Green Weekend in Bradwell, the Seascapes Festival in St Lawrence
- We’ve participated in the Maldon District Community Nature Forum
- We’ve responded to the Essex Local Nature Recovery Strategy consultation
- We’ve elected a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer
- We’ve applied for charitable status
- We’ve had a regular monthly meeting
- We’ve maintained regular communication through email, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Threads
- We’ve maintained communication and collaborated with our peer groupings, the Heybridge and Maldon Climate Action Partnership and Tollesbury Climate Action
- We’ve raised a small amount of funds
While we’re now looking to more on-the-ground activity and getting our hands dirty, we have a duty of care for anyone attending an event we arrange. Such a duty includes obtaining and paying for insurance, tasks which are assisted by formalising the group and opening a bank account. A suitable bank account will have a monthly fee. Registering as a charity opens access to some funds that could help support our activity, it would also provide greater confidence in us amongst the public, land owners, local authorities and other stakeholders. It’s been suggested that having a website with our own Domain name and email address would be better reputationally than a Facebook page and a free Yahoo mail account.
The anarchist in me bridles at all this. But if I thought unincorporated mutual-aid networks doing guerrilla actions underwritten by the freeconomy and a magic hat were viable here, and sufficient to address the global problematique and its local manifestations then I wouldn’t have stood to chair the organisation. In fact, I don’t consider either strategy to be ‘sufficient’ and that both may be necessary. My working vernacular theory of change is that ‘working in and against the system’ is likely to offer higher leverage within our local demographic.
In a climate and ecological crisis that has moved into a phase of radical adaptation, of softening blows rather than stopping them – even marginal advantages in strategies must be taken.
It’s got to be about more than talking though. Next year, I want what happens between the meetings to be more important than the meetings. I want to see the sub-groups using their autonomy and getting on with stuff. Next October I don’t want to be embroiled in memoranda and articles of association, I want us to be celebrating what we did and how it moved us towards our shared goals.
Dengie Bioregion 