Jun 8th, 2011
Update: What should we do next?
By Cian O'Donovan
Photograph by 38 Degrees
When we work together, we can win. We’ve proved that with our campaigns to stop the forest sell-off and opposing factory cow farms in the UK. Each of those 38 Degrees campaigns, as well as plenty of others, were chosen by all of us discussing our ideas and voting on them together.
Now, it’s time to decide what we do next. Over the past week thousands of 38 Degrees members have been thinking about what we all should campaign on next. Here are a few members’ suggestions:
Judy wants us all to spend time campaigning on protecting the disability allowance:
“This is an allowance given to people living with a disability to help with the extra costs of being disabled – eg. a wheelchair, a carer, an adapted car, special equipment for visually impaired people etc. It is given to people who are IN WORK as well as those who are unable to work. Without it millions of people in this country will not be able to survive.”
Chris opposes fracking:
“[fracking] is scraping the bottom of the barrel on fossil fuels and will extend reliance on fossil fuels in the uk when investment should be going into renewables such as anaerobic digestion of waste, solar, wave and wind.”
Hamish wants to end the export credit guarantee on arms sales:
“When our arms manufacturers sign a contract with a foreign power (Saudi or Jordan for example) they have a commitment from the government that the British taxpayer will pay the bill if the foreign power reneges on the contract. So when Jordan received its Chieftain tanks and it decided it could only pay for half of them the British taxpayer was forced to pay for the rest.”
Volunteers in the 38 Degrees office are reading through all the comments on the website and blog, via emails and on Facebook. Thousands of suggestions have come in and the now a team of volunteers is busy sorting through them all.
Using a mix of spreadsheets, word analysis tools and some crafty visual techniques, a picture of what 38 Degrees members want to do is starting to emerge. Later this week, there’ll be a chance for for us to vote on the ones we think are most important. Then we can start to work together on building and winning the campaigns we choose!
