Community Organising School 2005
Sunday April 3 to Wednesday April 6, 2005
Currawong, Pittwater, NSW
****Registrations are due by Friday 11 Febuary 2005.****
In light of the re-election of the Federal Liberal Government, reflecting on and increasing our ability to organise and work across movements is vital. We can gain strength if we learn new strategies for working with people from different sectors and experiences.
Aims
The Community Organising School 2005 aims to increase our ability to organise and work across movements in order to build cross movement collaboration, by:
- providing the opportunity for people to share their experiences with other organisers and activists working in different fields
- identifying differences while examining commonalities and opportunities for working together
learning, sharing and developing organising techniques for expanding our capacity and effectiveness for social change - discussing different approaches to strategic campaigning and community organising
drawing on the the experience, knowledge and expertise of those attending.
Are you organising for change?
- Concerned at the growing power of employers, the state and big business?
- Concerned at the state of advocacy and activist groups to influence the agenda?
- Wanting to turn the tide and re-build grassroots capacity in local communities and the workplace?
- Wanting to build cross movement collaboration?
- social movements
- young people
- environmental advocacy
- resident action
- trade unions
- popular arts, cultural development and education
- migrant communities
- community organising and development organisations
- student organising
What's in it for you?
The School will:
- bring together people from different sites of activism focused on developing new ways of working to build strong and effective organisations
- enable participants to meet, learn from and work with people in different fields of practice
- provide an environment where people from a range of backgrounds can develop mutual respect, understanding and knowledge, develop networks as a continuing resource of skills, expertise and influence, and challenge you to think and act differently.
We invite you to support the School, and to encourage individuals in your organisation to register and participate.
The size of the Currawong's training room only allows us to provide 40 places and we are aiming to have a very diverse range of participants in the school. For this reason we are asking people to go through a registration process. If your or your organisation is interested in participating in the school, we request that you distribute the attached registration form to individuals in your organisation, or to other organisations that you work with, and encourage them to register for the School. Registrations are due by Friday 11 Febuary 2005.
The registration fee for the school will be approximately $300 per person (subject to final catering costs) and includes three and a half days of training, accommodation and food. However we do not want costs to prevent people from registering. If your organisation cannot afford this cost, please indicate this on the registration form. We are seeking sponsorship from larger organisations to subsidise the costs of others. Please do not see costs as a barrier to attendance.
The Community Organising School is the culmination of a year long discussion between union organisers, community organisations, adult educators and environmentalists. While the School is the first public project, it will be one of many reflective and training opportunities opportunities provided to reflect and learn about community organising. To find out more about the School or to discuss how you can participate in this exciting and timely project feel free to contact either:
Tony Brown, Centre for Popular Education Tony.Brown at uts.edu.au 9514 3866
Christine Laurence, Western Sydney Community Forum christinel at wscf.org.au 9637 6190
Melanie Gillbank, Search Foundation mgillbank at search.org.au 0403 051 606
Amanda Tattersall, Unions NSW amandat at labor.org.au 0409 321 133
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Registration Form
Community Organising School 2005
Sunday April 3 to Wednesday April 6, 2005.
Currawong, Pittwater, NSW
The Community Organising School is a residential; applicants must be available to attend the entire event.
Limited places are available, applicants will be notified of their acceptance during February/March 2005 by telephone or email.
Print out and post or fax, or cut and paste and email to:
Community Organising School:
C/- Centre for Popular Education
PO Box 123
Broadway 2007
phone: 9514 3866
fax: (02) 9514 3030
Email: Tony.Brown at uts.edu.au
Please answer all four questions:
1. Personal details
2. Community/Trade Union involvement
3. Community organising
4. Your contribution to community organising
1. Personal details
Name:
Age:
Male/Female
Address:
Postcode:
E -mail:
Work Phone:
Home Phone:
Mobile:
Do you speak any language other than English: Yes/No
If yes, which one(s):
Do you identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander: Yes/No
Are you currently a student: Yes/No
If yes, where are you studying:
What are you studying:
Any specific dietary requirements (vegan/vegetarian/allergies):
Any disability or impairment we need to be aware of?
Cost of the School is : $300 (tbc)
Will you require funding to attend: Yes/No
Will you be able to sponsor another place: Yes/No
2. Community/trade union involvement?
Please complete the following to indicate your current/most relevant/last three involvement(s) in community organisations, environment groups, trade unions, cultural groups, student unions, political party, women's groups or other organisations. Example:
Organisation: Migrant Women Workers
Your Role: Community Liaison
Your Responsibilities: Ensure communication between service organisations and migrant community
Date: 1998 - 2000
Organisation:
Your Role:
Your Responsibilities:
Date:
Organisation:
Your Role:
Your Responsibilities:
Date:
Organisation:
Your Role:
Your Responsibilities:
Date:
Please attach additional information if you want.
3. Community organising
Briefly outline your experience in community organising, whether for a trade union, community or other organisation and what experiences and skills you believe you can bring to the Community Organising School. PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY.
4. Your contribution to community organising
Explain why you want to participate in the Community Organising School and how you think you will use the experience once you have finished? PLEASE PRINT CLEARLY.
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More background
Throughout 2004 a group of union, community, social movement and academic workers have met to discuss the concept and practice of community organising and how it might be extended in Australia. The experience of community organising in the US and a lesser extent in the UK has provided some inspiration, as has the interest in establishing broader, more effective coalitions that has been expressed by unions and other social movement groups. In addition, the negative consequences of nine years of the Coalition government and the toll their policies have taken on communities, community organisations, advocacy groups and the right to organise, has led many to re-think the best ways we can learn from our experience in order to build a stronger movement for equality and justice in Australia.
In late 2004 the group decided to plan for a Community Organising School to be held in Sydney in April 2005. The intention is to organise a School that will include organisers and activists in the environment, social justice, community development, unions, indigenous and student movements.
This paper sets out our current thinking about the proposal and is circulated for discussion among prospective supporting organisations.
Rationale
We start from the premise that there is interest in bringing together activists and organisers from different fields of practice.
Community groups, unions and social movements all practice organising, and all organisers face similar challenges. They include - how to recruit new members, to inspire and mobilise people, to build confidence that change is possible, and to articulate a vision of a community or society that works for the majority and not a powerful minority. Central to that vision is re-generating a solidarity that says that what happens to other people concerns me, and building the collective strength that equips people to act together.
This common set of organising skills and vision has the potential to bring us together as we go about rebuilding and strengthening our movements.
Like unions, community groups have experienced their own difficulties in the past twenty years. Many community groups were born out of struggles in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, women organised refuges, self-help organisations, and feminist agencies; indigenous people established their own organisations and councils; public housing residents and tenants formed resident action groups, neighbourhood and community centres were established, community child care groups, advocacy groups were formed, and peak community associations grew.
Nearly all these organisations have come to rely on grant and/or project income from the State. Today many community groups report that the pressures to meet stringent government accountability requirements, the stress associated with dwindling resources and short term employment contracts, the constant demand to compete for government tenders and so on has changed the scope and ability of their organisations to be effective community advocates or activists.
In response to these pressures there is an interest in re-examining their relationships with the State, and examining new ways of organising at the community level.
Unions have looked overseas to learn lessons for organising. But what is interesting about the US unions is that they looked to community organisers to craft their organising techniques. Those methods were honed over decades and draw on different traditions that include the industrial organising drives of the 1930s and neighbourhood organising in the Depression, the post war urban renewal and organising strategies pioneered by Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), and the civil rights movement and new left community organising of the 1960s and 70s. An important catalyst in these movements was the Highlander popular education centre of Myles Horton.
Why a School?
A School provides the opportunity for people to spend time together, and to learn from each other in an organised manner that combines formal and informal sessions. Spending time together is a critical glue in building awareness, trust, ideas and plans for collaboration and cross-movement strengthening.
Currently different movements provide their own organiser and leadership training for their own constituencies. They are thorough courses aimed at inculcating skills and knowledge of their traditions. Yet they are mostly self-contained as they speak to activists from within the particular movement. They often do not benefit from the experience and skills of organisers and activists in other movements. This is an opportunity lost. For instance, could union organisers learn useful knowledge from environmental activists and vice versa? Could campaigns of mutual interest such as against James Hardie be strengthened by joint discussion and planning? Could discussions of values and strategies be enhanced by including social justice campaigners in common discussion? Could skills involved in one-to-one recruiting or waging media campaigns be shared by drawing on the experience of community workers or Greenpeace activists? Could the union campaigns on One Tel or the campaigns against low pay offer lessons for other activists? And so on.
In the current climate a School provides a good starting point for bringing people together, examining practice, campaigns and objectives, and examining the possibilities for, and nature of, future collaborations.
A school is seen as a stepping stone to meeting other pressing needs which include for example providing methodical training for community organisers, and in pursuing specific community organising projects that complement workplace organising.
What is the aim?
It's about movement building, about extending skills, discussing strategies and learning from other activists and organisers. It has a particular orientation to building grassroots strength in geographic communities and communities of interest/practice based on democratic principles.
Who would it be for?
The school would be aimed at bringing experienced activists together to share their experience and expertise. We do not shy away from aiming at experienced organisers. But we do not associate experience with length of service. Instead we see ideal participants as those who will bring what they have learned from their involvement in student, union, environmental, social justice and other campaigns and movements. They may not occupy senior positions but they will have the skills involved in organising and a willingness to organise organisers.
Most obviously potential participants are working in the union movement, social movements, environmental organisations, some church based groups, and community-based organisations.
How many would be involved and how would participation be organised?
Our proposal is to have about 40 participants. It is a sufficiently large number to ensure a cross-section of participation from across different constituencies, not too large to inhibit discussion, and large enough to break-up in smaller groups as needed. The number is also imposed by the size of the facility that we will use for the residential school.
We hope that different organizations or movements will sponsor a number of positions to ensure breadth of participation. It is possible that larger organisations might sponsor participants from smaller organisations.
What about the program and the content?
School participants will come together late on the Sunday afternoon and break up late on the Wednesday afternoon.
There will be three key strands or themes for the school
- Anatomy of campaigns - using the time available at a school to explore in more depth how different campaigns are organised and pursued; how organisers work, different forms of communication, and how media and political strategies are developed and evolve. Identifying the lessons to be learned from both successful and unsuccessful campaigns
- Cross- movement collaboration - deepening understanding of what motivates different activists and movements; what values are shared; what constraints and advantages exist in different fields; how different skills can be shared
- Sustaining community organising initiatives - building on what has been learned to plan future steps and collaborations
There is a separate detailed list of aims for the School, but in simple terms we aim to:
- develop a shared sense of solidarity by listening, sharing and analysing experiences of campaigning, organising, advocacy and activism
- create an environment where participants feel confident to speak openly and freely
- develop skills
- build networks and
- plan future community organising collaborations
An important goal of the school will be to foster critical thinking. In this regard we can take Stephen Brookfield's definition of questioning the assumptions that underlie our customary way of thinking and being prepared to think and act differently on the basis of this questioning.
A feature of the School will be that sessions will be led by participants so that the experiences and expertise of the participants will form the curriculum. A small team of experienced facilitators will assist.
Cost
Our intention is to find ways to make the School as cost effective as possible. We anticipate that facilitators will contribute their time on a pro-bono basis, and this will also include compiling resources. The main cost associated with attending be covering expenses for accommodation and food. At the time of writing potential funding sources are being examined. And we hope that supporting organisations will contribute to the school by way of sponsoring participants.
Who is behind this initiative?
Through 2004 the ideas that are underpinning the School have been discussed at larger forums convened at NCOSS, Centre for Popular Education forums and the Education and Social Action Conference and at smaller planning meetings at Unions NSW.
A group of individuals with the support of their organisatons have been working on coordinating the School. These include:
Greenpeace Australia-Pacific http://www.greenpeace.org.au/
Unions NSW http://council.labor.net.au/
Western Sydney Community Forum
Search Foundation http://www.search.org.au/
Asian Women at Work http://www.awatw.org.au/
Australian Services Union http://www.asu.asn.au/
Centre for Popular Education, UTS http://www.cpe.uts.edu.au/
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