What's on top?
We’re half way through this year’s Fellowship and powering along! The year kicked in Sydney with a 10 day residential workshop. What a re-boot! Our 25 community organisers came together from around Australia to reflect, dissect and connect. We learnt and applied new strategising tools, explored the power of relational meetings, set up a phone room, made punchy campaign videos and so much more.
Our second residential was in Victoria, at the legendary CommonGround community. Several guest facilitators - recognised leaders in their fields - challenged our thinking and practices around group facilitation, welcoming diversity in our groups and working well across difference in our communities, introduced frameworks for electoral and corporate campaigning, and took us on a deep dive on topics of cultural engagement, Aboriginal activism and sustainable activism.
Workshops 1 and 2 were practical and applied. The 25 members of this year’s cohort developed community maps and power maps, ‘cut’ issues and fleshed out critical paths, drawing on the Change Agency’s People Power Manual training resources. They've completed hands-on tasks to extend their knowledge and skills managing ‘big data’, holding accountability sessions with decision makers and received ‘critical friend’ feedback on their campaign strategies. And they’ve designed and led more than 40 workshops with about 600 members of their communities and organisations.
During our third workshop this year, our cohort will lead a skillshare for community campaigners in Brisbane. If you're in South East Queensland on Thursday 7 July, join us for this free workshop. Full details are below in the 'Upcoming learning opportunities' section of this enews (below).
Applications for the 2017 Fellowship open in July. If you are looking to expand your organising and strategising toolkit and become part of a growing national network of skilled and connected community organisers, please consider applying. We are committed to ensuring cost is not a barrier. Scholarships are available for Aboriginal campaigners and we negotiate the right financial contribution with each member of the cohort.
