Despite the miserable weather, our public awareness blitz last weekend was a great success so we decided to do it all again. World Environment Day is this Friday (4th of June) and the Canberra Conservation Council has organised an environment stall and music at Garema Place Civic for the lunchtime crowds. What better place to spread the 40% love? We’ll be handing out fliers and collecting petition signatures between 11am and 1:30pm. If you would like to help out with this please email info@love40percent.org or reply in the comments to this post.
In other news, we’ve been totally blown away by the size of the response to our callout for knitters, so we’ve taken a little longer to get in touch than we anticipated. But fear not, plans are afoot and soon knitting needles across Canberra will be chiming together like a thousand tiny bells each calling our city’s leaders into action.
Finally, our next meeting will be held on Monday the 7th of June from 6.30 pm in room Moran G010 at the ANU.
Calling all knitters, crocheters and other woollen artists. We need your help to make a giant woollen banner for an upcoming event we have planned. If lots of people make a few small squares then we can sew it all together into something huge and wonderful. So if you are at all interested in helping (or know someone who might be interested), email info@love40percent.org and we’ll let you in on our super-secret plans and then we can all get our knitting needles tapping and together we will create something amazing.
Update: We’ve been completely blown away from the response to this. We have contributors not just from right around Canberra, but now from interstate and even internationally. This is amazing. Our plan is to make a huge patchwork quilt/banner so please drop off knitted squares at the Conservation Council at 17 Childers St, Acton and/or mail them to “Love 40% c-/ ACT Conservation Council, GPO Box 544, Canberra ACT 2601″. If you are particularly keen you could try knitting some patterns or messages. Here is a heart shaped pattern to get you started.
Tonight we had another fantastic meeting – things are really starting to rev up in anticipation of our media launch in June.
This weekend we will be hitting the streets, talking to people, handing out fliers and getting petition signatures. We will be doing the rounds of various civic pubs and bars this Friday (28th of May) from 8pm to 10pm. On Saturday (29th of May) we will be at the Farmer’s Markets at Epic from 9am to 11am and the Tuggeranong Hyperdome from Midday to 2pm. Then Sunday (30th of May) we’ll be at the Southside Farmer’s Markets from 9am to 11am. If you’ve been wondering how to get involved in the campaign, helping out with any of these would be a great way to start. Even if you can only come for half an hour, we would love to have you along.
Also coming up soon we will be sending delegations to directly lobby our members of the Legislative Assembly. If you would like to be involved in this, we would love to hear from you, especially if you have any lobbying experience or if you are already dealing with the adverse effects of climate change (ie. if you are a farmer, fire-fighter, etc).
Finally, we would like to congratulate the ACT Conservation Council for joining this campaign to make our city an even better place to live.
If you are able to help spread the word this weekend, would like to be involved in lobbying or would like any other information on the campaign, please email info@love40percent.org or leave a comment to this post.
The next meeting will be held at 6.30pm, on Monday the 24th of May at the ANU in the Haydon Allen building, Room G052. Please come along and share your ideas. Our media launch is fast approaching so we will have plenty to talk about and lots of jobs that will need doing. This will be a great oppurtunity to join in if you are new to the campaign.
View in a larger map.
A Chorus of Women in collaboration with the ANU Climate Change Institute will be holding a forum on ‘sustainability in Canberra’ at the Reception Room in the ACT Legislative Assembly on the 27th of May from 6-9pm.
At this Canberra Conversation we will consider what a ‘sustainable’ future for Canberra would look like and facilitate a community dialogue around the following questions:
- How do sustainability, growth and development interact?
- Can Canberra make an equitable transition to a sustainable future?
- Could government, business and the community work together to create a sustainable future.
Among those present will be Nobel Laureate Will Stefan. A flier from A Chorus of Women with more information can be found here. Note that the Canberra Conversation series is not your average forum:
Canberra Conversations aim to promote dialogue in which participants listen to each other with sufficient interest and empathy to understand the meaning and motivations of other positions properly. This can take participants beyond the fixed positions they might bring to an adversarial discussion and open them to engage constructively on the topic, paving the way for creative thinking and wise actions.
So please come along with an open mind and be prepared to follow Chatham House rules. If you are interested, RSVP by the 24th of May to hoffie@iinet.net.au.
The next meeting of the 40% coalition will be held on Thursday May 13 at 7:30pm at the ANU in room CRISP G017 (behind the Street Theatre). Please come along and contribute your ideas to the campaign.
View CRISP building, ANU in a larger map
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