Deliberation 5: Shall we tweak the format of our 6am, 1pm, and 10pm CLUB meet ups?
A core reason why The Miracle Inn exists is to provide an open-to-all ‘third place’ for people who are grappling with how to do environmentalism a bit differently in these hyper-individualist times - a non-formal place to explore what we are doing, and why.
As we grow, we’ll do events, open mics, workshops to do this - both in person and online - to facilitate these conversation. But we also want to just be there on a regular basis - people don’t only go to their local inn when there is something on; we ‘pop in’ just to be social too.
In that spirit, we’ve started opening our (virtual) doors three times a week for 6am CLUB, 1pm CLUB, and 10pm CLUB. We’ve advertised these as ‘no agenda’ meet ups so that people can socialise with others working the environmental sector every now and again. CLUB has been reasonably well attended so far, but we might need to tweak the format a bit.
So, here’s the deliberation I want to have:
Are ‘no agenda’ meetings a bit too intimidating? I’m sensing they might be. Do people appreciate a bit of structure?
6am CLUB hasn’t worked (yet), 1pm CLUB and 10pm CLUB have been better, but certainly aren’t ‘standing room only’. People are busy (and hot), but that can’t be the only reason.
I’m wondering if the thing to do is to put something on the agenda, so that that we have a topic to hang our conversation off?
Here’s what I’m thinking as a revised format, please come along on Tuesday (6am CLUB), Wednesday (1pm CLUB), or Thursday (10pm CLUB) to test it with me:
Top of the hour: Doors open, general hellos and introductions
10 past the hour: I’ll read out, or summarise a classic article or essay, something that covers the sort of thinking/idea we all think we should be well-versed on, but probably aren’t.
20 past the hour: We’ll discuss the questions the article raises for how we do environmentalism… and then see where else the conversation takes us.
50 past the hour: Begin wrapping up the chat.
I’m not going to be able to do a new essay/article every time - and you’re not going to want to come to every meet-up(!) - so I’m proposing I do each piece six times over the course of a fortnight. That way you won’t miss out and I won’t drown in prep.
How does that sound? - Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.
We’ll start this week with a Julia Steinberger* piece on Overconsumption, the climate emergency and the scientific community. It poses some really important questions for how we do environmentalism in these times.
*To be clear Julia isn’t scheduled to attend but if word of this reaches you Julia, you are very welcome to join us anytime!
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