GoBEYOND June Summit Minutes
From ClimateNetworkWiki
A Project of the B.C. Campus Climate Network. Connect to The Master Minutes Page
Contents |
Our Goals
Go Beyond seeks to educate, inspire, engage and support students in implementing climate action on campuses.
- Educate students about the science and solutions for climate change in B.C.
- Inspire youth to “make carbon smart lifestyle choices” that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- Engage youth in creating larger climate solutions, particularly in participatory planning processes to move our campus communities beyond climate-neutral.
- Support youth groups to implement initiatives that will change behaviour and help create climate solutions.
Our Deepest Objective
Moving beyond climate-neutral step by step together
Our Highest Vision
Sharing
- Information, ideas, resources, mentorship, tools
Supporting
- Youth visions, capacities, new people, engagement
Emissions
- Control carbon emissions and climate change
Change
- Paradigm, behaviours, institutions
Cohesion
- Networks, action plans, unifying goals, flow through networks
Communication
- Communicate research, urgency
Accountability
- Collective Action, committed student bodies
Our Strategies
We will work to achieve our goals by developing resources in and supporting the following strategies.
Capacity Building
Increasing the ability of students and youth organizations to do this work by providing relevant skills training, accessible toolkits, and mentorship
Beyond Climate-neutral Planning
Creating space for youth to lead their institutions in collaboratively planning a low-carbon future.
Transformative Education
Working to establish curriculum that is engaging, community-oriented, and creates regional climate change solutions in all spheres
Go Beyond Challenges
Offering easily adaptable projects for campus organizations that would like to directly reduce carbon emissions while engaging their community
Our Struggles
- Burnout
- Dealing with opposition
- Overcoming colonization and habits
Just Say NO to Burnout
- Set boundaries
- Limits – goals within your limits
- Celebrate!
- Community Building – SEE each other
- Maintain relationships (coffee!)
- Protect your time (ie. No evenings and weekends)
- Schedule events and meeting on or two weeks ahead
- Start and end on time (or end early)
- Don’t expect more volunteer time than you would give
- Acknowledge “Panarchy” – apply cycles to social systems and allow the collapsing phase
- Breakdown is part of learning opportunity
- Delegate work (to your best friend!)
- Be aware of when you’re in trouble
- When you hit barriers look at successes
- Foster support networks with gratitude
- How to say NO – don’t take too much on = create space for others to say YES
- Identity is not tied to this work alone
- LET GO!
Content Development
The following ideas were generated at the B.C. Campus Climate Network’s Summer Summit to develop Go Beyond. From these ideas, the Content Development Working Group will create the full programming to be launched in September 2008.
Capacity Building
Core Ideas:
- Travelling keynotes and workshops (are these separate?)
- Credentialized/strong training
- Big names = publicity
- Follow up?
- Launch?
- What workshops are needed?
- Interacting with government
- Avenues for campuses to ask for help
- Mentorship programs
- Outputs: personal commitments
- Toolkits
Additional thoughts:
- To inspire engagement
- Green dinners
- Candidate debates
- Speakers corner
- Coordinate with earth week
- Registration of student initiatives
Group Work:
- Moving people who are engaged and interested and supporting them
2 aspects: Resources + Knowledge
- Tie in speaker tour → then give people the next steps
- Initial education step
- Getting people educated to want to be involved
- Training programs: so we grow and skill up more people
- Workshops and messaging: best practices into workshop
- More technical training
For campuses that aren’t involved:
- Need to help them develop capacity, they need to know how to start
- Do-it-yourself downloadable kit
- Case studies, guides
- Make training and toolkits more accessible
- Keep in mind the spectrum of engagement
- Supporting groups – NOT forcing them into a certain way
- Other stream is to prep other schools for launch
- Gauge results and record them, show groups what works
WHO
- New schools
- People who don’t care but who we want to get involved
- Spectrum of engagement
- Educate in classes
- What will we have that supports what is happening?
- Will be able to effectively respond to decisions
- Educate people on both sides
- Debates
- Get active on policy – educate people as citizens
- Interface between government and students
- Tour Mark Jaccard?
- Lots of people are working on issues without cross-community
- Important for capacity – need to know what is going on
TOOLS
- Sustainability advisory committees → Asset mapping (SHS)
- Facilitation
- Know your history
- Vision
- Panels to present issues, follow up
COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
- What are these acronyms?
- DSF
- CAC
- Kinex
- First Nations
- Friendship
- Youth Council
- POH
- UTAL
- Regional Organizations
- Healthy communities
- Fraser Basin ($)
- Imagine BC
- McCurry
- Vancouver Foundation, Ballet Foundation (funding)
- Funders like partnerships
- Maybe not needed to lay the foundation
- Get people in areas where we can partner up
- Training people how to build relationships/network
- Business language, play the role
- What do partnerships look like: who negotiates
- Regional coordinators using template
- Commons
- How do we recognise the work of people?
Beyond Climate-neutral Planning
- Baseline initiatives and tracking emissions
- Develop collaborative beyond climate-neutral plans
- Demo projects
- Inclusive decision-making process (all schools commit to this)
Additional thoughts:
- Candidate debates
- Climate-neutral spaces
- Student fee referendums
- Climate change simulations
Group Work: Resources/Capacity
- Collaborative planning
- Media training
- Report writing
- Facilitation
- Graphic design (In Design open source)
- Template (Emily Carr)
- Sustainable High Schools
- Measuring/knowledge/tools
- Time to measure thing the government isn’t (ex. food miles)
- Editing/secretarial/logistics
- Regionalized solutions
- Regional coordinators/organizers
- Risk minimizations
- Network for ideas sharing (don’t reinvent the wheel)
Budget
- time
- Work-study?
- Honoraria
Who?
- students
- staff
- regional partners/community
- NGO’s
- Private sector
All levels:
- Provincial level
- Civic level (regionalization)
- Campus level
Primary → people who already want to take action
Secondary → people who are receptive but need engagement
How?
Educate
- tie in with classroom programming
- concrete applications
- research projects
- organize dialogues between faculty @ different institutions (what works, what doesn’t)
Inspire
- students – get their voices heard
- inter-university competitions, Macleans etc rating, recruitment
- tap into guidelines? Stars?
- Focus: University/post-sec institutions
- Collaborative change!
- Planning
Engage
- Collaboration/multi-stakeholders; those who want to change (the choir + congregation)
Support
- Provide resources
- Province-wide group all working on this process
- Micro-granting
- Providing credibility for campus initiatives/planning
- Influencing institutional policy
- Leadership training
- Skilling-up student groups
- Facilitating
- Accreditation program with leadership
- SFU’s centre for dialogue
- Hollyhock
- Web of change
- Sharing best practices
- What works and what doesn’t
- Want to make it exciting
- Media awareness
- Communication strategies
- Funding
- How to write a proposal
- Templates
- Help to proofread, give feedback on proposals
- Each campus group picks a partner
- Getting funding from institutions
- Show things that are going to lower emissions (keep this the focus)
- Teach people the key messages
- Volunteer programs that will ______
- We need carbon management!
- Use budget language
- Partner with management
Education/Curriculum Change
- Focus on year 1 and 2
- A set week for provincial teach-in
- Ministry of education vs. individual campuses
- Integrate with existing curriculum
- Not flashy enough for a pilot?
- But a good investment as a pilot!
- Tenured profs may be resentful
- Do research with tenured professors
- Service learning component demo project
- Lobbying
Group Work
WHAT
- Mandatory classes
- Institutional goals → mandate
- Cross-disciplinary approach
- Service learning
- Integrate sustainability into all disciplines
WHO
- Administration
- Faculties
- Individual teachers/profs
- Student Union
- Student Associations
HOW
- Engage committees
- Letter writing
- to institutions
- to BC government
- Evaluation
- Requests from potential employers → coop, work-study
- Letters of appreciation/awards for faculty who embrace sustainability
- BC Government:
- Service plan commitments
- Accept/recommend sustainability
- Targeted funding to sustainability programs and education
- Subsidize/grant program for sustainability students
- Therefore, incentive for employers
- Pressure institutions
- Support and incentives for faculty
- Push admin to reward risk-taking faculty through letter writing, programming
- Multi-target approach/strategy
Resources/cost/budget
- Time
- People/dedication
- 3-5
- Research → who has done work with integration
- Online database
- “Curriculum in a box”
- Book: “Power Down” by Jared Diamond
- Program design includes sustainability approach
- Note: time when curriculum is being re-evaluated is a strategic position
Go Beyond Challenges Residence Challenges:
- Not all schools have residences
- But UBC, TRU and UVic do
- Can the scope change?
- Connect with Student unions
- Who are the point people?
- Institutional commitment required
- Demo project
Personal Commitment Programs
- people are scared of commitment
- micro-granting
- orientation package
- footprint challenges/calculation
Competitions catered to interests
- Integrate with what people are already doing
- Film festivals
- BC Hydro – Invent the Future
- Ecolympics
- Demo Project
Waste Weigh-In/Recyclemania
- There exists awareness already
- But it isn’t working yet – need for more support
- Tie it in more to emissions/link to climate change
- Can we include as part of a whole host of challenges?
- Look at the range of accessibility – keep it broad
- Very tangible for launching
- Demo projects
Additional thoughts
- Pick one universal challenge
- Have local diversity of challenges
- Toolkits (online, wiki) for each challenge
- Grassroots approach → sharing successes + formal case studies
- Create a ‘challenge toolkit’ Template – and have campuses develop them
- Pick your own adventure (menu of challenges/programming)
- Inter-school carpooling
- Anti-idling campaign
- Student fee referendum
- Climate change simulation games
- Murals
GROUP WORK Hypothetical Province-wide Personal Commitment Program
RESOURCES
- website, footprint calculator
- track number of people from each school
- list of actions/commitments
- tips sent out to people (related to their commitments, every 2 weeks)
- print-ables, collateral, materials
- kick-off event, keynote
- info in orientation package
- footprint-reducing toolkit
- work with sponsors
- emphasize before and after
- encourage follow up
- email listserve, help people get engaged with network
- green mentors (help people develop their person ‘green plan’
- link individual commitment with broader campaigns
- direct them to other campaigns, actions etc
- use community based social marketing
- get them to make a public commitment, they will be more likely to follow through
WHO
- campus groups
- get materials from website
- get support from regional organizers who will ideally build capacity
- target audience
- students, staff, faculty, neighbouring communities on campus
- having beyond-climate neutral component on website
- get people to sign up others
- involve funders
Bike Rack:
- Tabling for outreach
- Partnering with other groups
- First nations awareness month
- Varsity
- Earth Week
- Personal Sustainability – modelling, fun, relax
- Community engagement
- What we need others to work on (ie. Ministry of Ed)
- Navigating bureaucracy
