 Great, so welcome back everybody and I'm very pleased on the final day of our leadership course to have Claire Farrell, who's the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and who is one of the coordinators for the Media and Messaging Group as well as being involved in a number of the other circles and however else Exile organizes itself and we'll probably hear about that Extinction Rebellion is one of the most interesting bits of the contemporary Western environmental movement and it's also gone global It's interesting times for Exile, which hopefully you're going to all be asking about and Claire did the course, this course last year in person So knows what you've been doing more or less, if she can remember It'll be interesting to find out as well. So the way we're going to do this is I'm just literally going to say please ask questions and if you ask questions You know try and connect it back to our themes of the course so critical perspectives on leadership, on change, on sustainability, on collapse, on deep adaptation Ways of organizing, ways of relating Group dynamics and all the kind of themes that Self-censorship in the way we show up in the world all that sort of stuff So Claire do you want to say hello to everyone first? Hello everyone Thanks for having me. I guess I don't need to say very much If you've watched the lecture you've had a bit of an introduction to me So you know a little bit about me So yeah, I'm happy to just take some question Yeah, I suppose I should say that you're also You're a university lecturer at Central St Martin's and you're in the fashion world And you were in XR before it started as it were you know doing all these interesting nonviolent direct actions with Roger Gale and others So who wants to just go for it unmute and ask a question for Claire, please Helen it seems to have unmuted first sure Yeah, hello Claire. I saw you at meaning last year and you were amazing. So great to see you here again today Um, I wonder at some point whether you'd say something about anger and Um as a form of well actually anger is a form of love Because one of the really interesting things about XR is how you combine love and rage So I'd be really interested to hear what you say about those two words together and particularly how Forms of anger can be a really useful fuel for action and then how we might start to talk about anger as a useful fuel for action with Regular folks, I suppose How we might introduce that as a as a form of galvanizing something so yeah anger anger and love its use and how we might use it to Galvanize action something something like that Yeah, cool. Thanks. Um Well, I guess It's quite interesting because I was talking about this just a little while back before the lockdown happened somebody from an art gallery Like a sort of a friend of a friend I guess was putting on a show and they asked if we could talk about from the art department about about anger as an emotion and because at the beginning of XR I wasn't in the Media messaging team I still think that sounds a bit weird that I'm in that space because I really I really like founded the creative kind of team and the art department and we worked on the The identity and all the can feel stuff. So I really sort of um I Really still think of myself as being in that in that space as well as um as well as now sort of like leaning into other parts, but um These people asked us to talk about anger and they had all these different practitioners and artists They're to talk about it and um and myself and my friends Charlie and Clive who made um a lot of the graphic assets They sat with me in their office and we made a little video on How we feel about being angry And it was really it was really really nice thing to explore actually because we talked about exactly what you've sort of alluded to that like when you love someone you can be really really fucking angry with them and And that that and the and the way that those two things are kind of enmeshed Feels to me really important. Um, I Also think there's something personally something interesting for me about the site the requirement of anger to be able to like take peaceful action and because uh, I Think I've got a personally a quite an interesting relationship with with anger that I find it very challenging to deal with it Um, I actually find it really really difficult to be angry at a person um, I'm really rubbish at like starting conflicts when things need to be aired um But I'm apparently quite sort of good at Thinking about doing something like going in, you know, assembling hundreds of people to sit in the road because I'm really angry And that's um Yeah, it's just it's quite interesting because it's a certain type of very laboured manifestation of being furious but um, but it doesn't mean at any point that you have to actually face one person and like Show your anger to them, you know, so um, yeah, there's something kind of like That feels like it's a I mean, obviously it's like a really cathartic piece of work. Um doing doing a rebellion the way that we've done it Um And I guess that's what I'm really worried about actually right now is like the the lack of Understanding on my part and many other people I think in XR about how exactly you express that kind of stuff when you can't leave the house Um, I think do you think there's a shadow side to this? welcoming of anger about both the predicament we're in and the crap leadership and What might the shadow side of of recognizing a welcoming anger in XR be? Well, I don't know. I mean I I guess you can just find you could potentially find that people are acting things out and Perhaps not quite uh Processing things to the next To the next stage on you know, um I guess and I think the I think there should be in We did this really funny experiment with some in a in a group session where somebody said if you were like the dictator of XR, what would you do and um And I sat down with this like small group of people that I don't know well at all And wrote down we all had to write our lists of like what would be our list of rules and what would we implement? and um and we had some really interesting ideas, but like one of the things that I said was uh that there would be like mandatory therapy Individual therapy Not like and then someone said that's really bad clay You can't force everyone to do the same kind of therapy because everyone wouldn't want to do it But I was like I just really want to know that everybody's Taking care of something for themselves like that. Do you know what I mean? Because A lot of people in extinction rebellion do and I have to say I've never In that in the rest of the world out there. I've never experienced so many people who've done so much Paying attention to their own shit. It is it is a movement full of like fantastic people um Who've done a lot of work The work as it were but um, but yeah, that was That was what I said Thank you This is joy here I may have a go. Um, so Excellent as I understand it offers some hope that things may change for the better And I just wonder how that fits with deep adaptation. Um, and also how do you lead a devolved organization? um Okay, so I'll let me just make a note of that um So so xr seems to offer hope that things might change for the better to some extent and how does that fit with deep adaptation? And and the second one which was just a sneaky add-on is how on earth do you lead a devolved organization? yeah, um, okay, so the hope one is good question and um um I like I don't really I don't really think that hope's a really interesting thing. Um And again, that's like quite I know very well. That's quite personal like I think as a young person I sort of um I just found hope to be like the source of a relentless amount of pain So, uh, so I don't really think it's very cool. Um um, but I guess The challenge is that like and this was raised by a friend of mine Actually when somebody mark who um gem knows mark recently That when we first launched we had all this messaging that said like we're fucked and hope dies action begins and All of this stuff which was really about Admitting that things weren't Looking particularly possible uh However, you you know knowing what you know and knowing how fast things could Change there's still like nothing better to do than try to do something and I don't need to like know that this is going to work to know that it's like the right thing to oppose making it worse so So that kind of like releasing yourself from like the expectation of like success or a certain outcome and being able to like act anyway from a position of like sort of Centering on your own moral compass Was really the point and I think as it's become a mass movement a lot of Somewhat more hopeful people have entered the scene in a way Um, and that's what I've noticed as we've grown because it went so big so fast It's been quite hard. I think for lots of facets of XR to be able to hold on to what was Intended to be embedded in it at the beginning and of course what was embedded from the start was also like flawed But it was just the work quite a lot of things thought about That were nothing to do with me because there were other people who were being really clever thinking Oh, we need to like set up this part on this thing and this thing needs to be thought about And and a lot of that was really really good But it had its faults and and as we've expanded there are things about the culture that have sort of Shifted and changed a little bit. There are things about the messaging that have sort of expanded and people are very concerned about like Scale of the movement and growing the movement And also to me that feels like it's constantly in a sort of um It's constantly being sort of like in hanging in a balance with like the question of like will this help get like a million more people Maybe if it sounds hopeful is it Really telling the truth in the way that I personally would like to do Perhaps if it's gotten a million people appeal Not we don't know quite but it There's a sort of I feel like there's often a tension between people who want to say No, look, this is like all of this You've just you just watched the talk. You know that it's really really bad Don't go out and say we've got 12 years to fight climate change You know what I mean? I mean when people put that banner out and say we've got 11 years I mean, I just you know, I could I've got no words really Like there's no there's no consent from me for like that kind of messaging But it sounds it sounds like earlier on you're a bit closer to deep adaptations idea of that Things are going to unravel But as xr Became huge then some of that edge was smoothed off So where are you at now in that in that dilemma then are you Is xr going to be more clear about Because the implication if the truth is that it's too late to stop a catastrophe and this society will unravel then Then adaptation whether or not deep, you know adaptation is is something to have in the conversation as much as Going net zero Where are you at with that? well at the moment i'm trying to form Some revised kind of short statements that can go through the messaging teams through the media teams as like Guidance for things that they do and don't say for example people put out something about A campaign against bailouts recently and they didn't say anything about participatory democracy They didn't say anything about assemblies. They didn't say anything about like the political Reality of why those decisions are being made. They just said no bailouts Which is fine like we should be saying no bailouts, but a lot of other people are going to be saying that the point is like We have a political system that is like owned by vested interests. That's why we want real people To be involved in politics. That's why we want a citizens assembly and whether things collapse fast or not fast I definitely want to see that structural political change and it seems to me That now the alarm has been rung last year We really don't need to hammer on about the science in quite the same way Like everyone's heard the alarm like the public are shitting themselves whether they're like paying attention or like running away from it It's It's like in people's heads. I don't think it's like a question. It's not an argument We have to win anymore when we started we were very much saying like when your paper came gen like If you look at this this this and this all together then you can tell that we're totally fucked But how come nobody's saying it because the people from NASA write this paper because the people from this Place write this paper for the people from this place write this paper the biodiversity people write this paper But nobody was putting it all in one home and saying if all of these things are real then like really that's a collective like Awful situation and it felt like last year was really like getting an alarm to go off which actually has Has happened and the youth strikes added to the volume of that and xr added to the volume of that and now I feel like It yes, we probably do need to think about how we speak about the adaptation and and and the potential Collapse narratives, but I actually also think that xr needs to like focus down on like the nature of getting like political change as well Out of the out of the demands. It seems to me that's always been the most important one um Yeah That's interesting because it came up in our conversation last night about um, maybe we don't even need to talk about our um Expectation of collapse we can actually talk about Because that's how we see things then what's important And then we can talk about what we think's important rather than necessarily having to bang on about collapse So that's interesting there. There's a parallels of what you're saying second part of the question from joy was um leading a Decentralized or distributed. Was it decentralized organization? Yeah? There we go, that's the answer. There we are very good Um, it's really challenging. It's really really challenging. I mean I I I appreciate that I'm in some like position of leadership. Um but also I think what's I think what's been a shame about xr has been that like some of the people who take leadership roles on Don't really get appreciated for them. They get scrutinized for them So then it looks like quite a shit place to be so I think probably then less people think. Oh, yeah, I'll step up I'll step up and lead a team Um, because I kind of think that I can I mean I got like elected into my new role, which I've told jem about like by the team That was in a you know, it had grown and it was like It hadn't been managed well. It was too big. It was quite messy And I got elected to go in and do that role and I do feel like a sort of stereotypical reluctant leader in that way that like I definitely didn't want this role When people said yeah, you're in that team. I'm so happy. I was like, I'm fucking not Because it's gonna be really difficult and so I guess what's interesting is is that if you don't have any sort of like If you don't have an official kind of Recognition of any of any hierarchy and authority in a space, right? Then you end up with the system that like runs on soft power and In some parts that's kind of what's that's kind of what's happened And it's also Interesting to notice that it's kind of I mean it's no different to the real world, right? But like if you know everyone then you can get shit done and if you don't know everybody then it's harder So for some people they do hold power through just relational knowledge and And relationships that they've got with each other and I'm not very clear kind of how you how How we deal how we deal better with that. I mean, we're trying to like work out ways of having Bodying systems where you like get people from other circles maybe from like Local or regional groups that don't have many people in the in the national teams and you bring those people on as like Shadow to shadow people to come into like the the national working group structure and come in and work So we're trying to do that and trying to organize socials to get people to Connect with each other in ways that they haven't so far Um, we're trying to reorganize the way that we allocate funds Because as you might know that we've like had some financial problems. We've run out of money We grew very big and we and we our income didn't keep up. So Especially with no Action on the streets in may we usually bring in a most of our money comes from crowdfunding. So Most of it would come through us going back out on the streets So we also know looking ahead that we've got like we've got no cash flow now because we're not going to go out So we're not have a rebellion. So we're not have that money coming in. So there's loads of kind of um Stuff about it, which is actually quite ordinary um, and and then and then there's something about it, which is kind of I think it struggled a little bit with the scale. So When it was quite small and as it grew like to to a mid-size it felt like it like it had um Like a Like a sort of fairly flat Like but really like tightly linked network of people who kind of all worked together And then it kind of expanded around the edges It felt like it made sense when it went around one kind of circle But I don't I don't you probably don't know about our structure But we've now got kind of three super circles of how we organize Which have all got different teams within them and that system of Organization and governance now feels to me quite complex A little bit too complex So there can be people making big decisions over here that impact people over here But they don't necessarily have a guaranteed good connection designed in And I think a lot of the leadership difficulties for me Are in like in like information flow basically Like people can find it easy to come together Around like projects or different parts There's not There's not so much contention about like oh, we don't want to work on that we don't want to work on that The problem is getting like the right people to hear about it And to know that this like campaign against bailouts is happening So how do people find that and pile in when they want to work on it? um I guess the other thing that's interesting is um Being able to like as a creative I've found it quite challenging that the self-organizing system that we use doesn't It understands inclusion, but it doesn't understand creativity somehow Which I think is you know when you get like a certain dynamic That's like a chemistry between between people that are like really going to work really well together That's that's how you make good creative work. It's not This is going to sound really dodgy, but like creativity isn't a democratic process It's it's a thing that happens and you need to like give it space and you also need to allow people sometimes to choose who they work with If you like include people for the sake of like fairness and put them in a room They don't necessarily they're not going to make like the most outstanding creative work of all time necessarily unless they're the right people And so I think there's I don't fully understand myself like how How you work with with that knowledge and in and in a way where you where you are not creating like Exclusive teams where people are like saying no no no. I'm just working with them because they're because we like each other Um, so that's a real there's a real rub there. I think So I'm one of the key things I'm hearing in answer to joy's question is um, you lead it uh a devolved organization um quite openly and honestly in terms of all the mess and um and and accept that there's going to be a bit of a messiness Um and keep rethinking about your processes and and such like joy of what do you think you've heard there? Yes, it was good. It was interesting. I um, I've always admired the leadership of such a devolved organization It's really interesting to hear from quite a lot of words. Thank you Cheers, I guess the thing from your course last year that was really helpful was thinking that like Was was really just sitting still for a minute and thinking about leadership as like a as like a thing that means you have to listen Because I'm not really I don't see myself as a leader, but I do know that I can listen and so I think that was quite I think that was really really helpful and I and that I made me go back into the space in XR and think that perhaps when I'm like Listening listening listening and sometimes slightly rolling my eyes at someone and thinking yeah, okay. Yeah, I get it I can't actually fix this, but okay. They're actually that like Understanding that that is actually really really helpful and not me just Wasting my time listening to people. Do you know what I mean? Thanks. That's Yeah, that's come up And I saw this morning with the practice we did before you Before you joined us. Um, yeah cat Yeah, I'm really interested in what you were saying about inclusiveness there Claire so Because one of the things that that really exercises me is how a lot of marginalized people don't get their voices heard And some of the projects that I've been involved with have been about not comfortable privileged reasonably educated middle-class people like me telling their story but giving them the tools teaching them the crafts and the skills whatever to tell some of their story and um I I'm wondering if you've got a perspective on how You lead or one leads, but also one brings leaders out of those Marginalized people who may not have the vocabulary of words or even of ideas That are sometimes used in creating the structures of green parties and XR and so on and so forth because for me um I have I have found Myself Disengaged from those groups sometimes on behalf of other people if you know what I mean I felt I get what's going on But the guy that I'm dealing with the shelter who's struggling with Addiction or wet brain or whatever it might be or just his literacy is not great He's going to struggle to understand what's going on. He's going to struggle to tell you What will he hopes for and so those voices may not get heard in your process Yeah, there's yeah, there's a lot in there. Um, I Well, firstly, I think if you want to hear what people have to say And this is probably my criticism of our SOS system not understanding like creativity is that if you Can find methods and ways to like hold spaces where people are being creative Well, then then that that's what I think I'm sort of saying there is it would be um It would be nice to see more sort of workshops Formats rather than like meetings. We know very well how to have a deliberative decision-making process But we don't know quite so much how to tease Tease something out of someone creatively if that makes sense. So yeah, I think if we're um I mean there's been also I think uh As a kind of recognition that sometimes people want to organize with people that are like them Which is cool, right? Um However, if that's your only like premise for like how to Welcome people into the space so that you can make your own space Then you also sort of don't do the cross-pollination thing, which is the challenge um I just there is a working class group that's uh, that sort of meets on that basis and um I'm a little overdue to have a call with somebody from there, but I want to work out with them like who Who they think would be um an interesting rec link to have coming into the media messaging team um To at least find one we found some really excellent like working class spokespeople that we've been working with recently And so I'm trying to look at like how those people Come into the space and what and what what people what people want to say um, I'm also working on like sort of trying to heal um A relatively fractured relationship with one of the other working groups, which is um ISN internationalist solidarity network who um Have set up a network of support, um Uh all over the global south so they've got people in in south america in asia in africa And they're particularly connected with the pan african reparations um campaign and um And you know, I'm from speaking to them at length. I understand that they've had some significant problems dealing with certain members of extinction rebellion who've come into um Who've come into the space um And have not really like connected with what they need to speak about properly So yes, they've posted something on social media, but it's not been quite in context not been quite in that recognition of what it What it actually says what they actually want that to come across with so um So yeah, I'm kind of interested in in how How we find Increasingly better ways to work with people that like lifts up voices and and helps them to do What they say what they need to say if you know what I mean? I think that xr could have been doing that like a lot better for for a longer time If you had different approaches, we've got a few questions. I'm coming up by kevin kriss and sam So, um over to any of either of you kevin, I think Yeah, sorry. I'll just unmute Okay, um, I'm involved with um with local councils and climate emergency declarations and xr have been brilliant kind of provoking and leading those um and and In the absence of leadership from national government where we're kind of doing our best to to lead from The bottom if you like, but but it's difficult one of the tensions there seems to be with um, I have some conversations with people in xr is is a tension between That kind of provoking that demonstrating that that saying you've got to do something and actually supporting uh, councils to to to actually do these things to to have citizens assemblies and and and all of these things Um, so I'm not quite sure how this fits in with leadership, but it's certainly a question. I'd like to um hear a bit from you about I suppose one of one of the things that I've noticed in talking to people is that trying to even get a a decision about this just vanishes into a avoid uh, because of the complex, um decision-making structure and I I'm a member of a co-housing community and I'm cast aware You know, we do all of this stuff and and I'm well aware of all these devolved leadership issues Anyway, yeah, I don't know what's in all that So are you wanting to ask about How to support getting assemblies mainly about how xr can support in a Positive way rather than just a provocative way Yeah, yeah, just just for context. So Kevin you you've been involved in this nationwide network of local councils that have declared climate emergencies and having led that work in Lancaster yourself Yeah um It's a really good question. I don't actually really feel like I know a very good answer to it to be honest I know that people in bristol have worked really hard to support the kind of local local members of Of their council to be able to push through to to get that citizens assembly agreed that that they've agreed to be led by on on climate But I don't actually know what that process looks like in terms of support I could if you want to be put in touch with me, I'm happy to try and find One of the people who was involved in it and put them in touch with you if that's helpful Brilliant and when you do let ask them to Include adaptation in their climate emergency framing Yeah um Sam you've got your hand up and then to chris and then any maybe If if you any of you know how to use the hand up function. I think if you go down to the bottom there's a Reactions, is that it maybe? um Let me yeah It's a clap and a thumbs up If you go to participants at the bottom, which is next to the little chat Oh, yeah, click on that and then at the bottom of the list of participants. You can you can raise your hand. Okay. There we go then so Wow, we've got hands coming up. So anyway, Sam then chris and then sonja and then dominic Wow. Oh, I mean now we've got claps too. I think everyone wants to oh Look at this And hello claire and thank you very much for being here and for everything that you've done Um, my question would be about business and it's in two parts And I know from doing DNA training and working in my local group. The business is not a core focus But I'm interested in your perspective because you have a great knowledge of it Overlapped within the fashion industry and that's an industry that's, you know, hugely problematic as with others. So the first part would be What have you seen that's worked in terms of helping leaders in those industries who do want to make a difference and They find themselves torn because they're not in as dynamic organization as you are And they're on the one hand desperate to do something but also within glacial Ancient structures that both give you a myriad of real reasons the word change is difficult and they give you lots of excuses Why change is difficult? So what have you done there or have you managed to work there within fashion or others or comparable leaders? And secondly is do you do you see a time when xr needs to begin to include business more? um in terms of the the scope of where the pillars of influence are as there's a Awakening and an increasing intention to do something good from that space But there's very little for those leaders to turn to that's going to help do anything, you know radical and dynamic enough Um Yeah, good question. Well, there was a thing called xr business once upon a time caused quite a stir Um and It got a few people in quite a lot of trouble and then there were there were major apologies had to be made. There was a very big kind of There was a very big swathes of people I guess across the movement globally as well as in the uk who had a kind of immediate allergic reaction to the concept and um And I think that uh That's for good reason. Um But I also think that this that the desire to do that work came from a an extremely radical place um And just calling something xr business doesn't sound like you're going to do something really radical, I guess so that I don't think there was very much Exploration and reassurance of like what that would mean. Um, there is a group called catalyzers that work on And they sound quite funny to me But like some of them went to Davos and they've been getting like executives to sit in fire circles and like Weep Which you know is gray. I would like all power to them I've got massive respect for people who go and meet those people and Hold their hands through that shit because I just couldn't fucking do it. Um Give me the anarchist silly day um but um But no, so they're doing that kind of work to try and I guess like penetrate that world and also build trust rights They go in and say like we're not here to like glue ourselves to your desk But we do want to like make you fall in love with us and then afterwards You'll love xr and it's kind of funny because I feel like it's it's obvious that that kind of probably does work Quite a little quite a little worm goes in and and then that's it They can't they can't ever like not know that there are x business leaders in in extinction rebellion that like sat them in a circle and held their hands and um So that work is happening, which is kind of interesting But um, but I guess I mean for me, uh from a fashion perspective, you know The system itself is so It's so cynical. You know, it is so cynically set up that I just I have seen people try and do good things in business and Feel like there's someone in the way that they can't talk into it Or I've seen people like very senior in businesses like implement a project Which is basically like a piss in the ocean Just to say that they're doing it and then their workforce has got no connection So they don't give a shit about it So they don't really want to do it because it gives them extra work Right, so that's a project I did with Tesco's I'm talking about so I will do a green project in the fashion thing But actually it's just loads of labor for the buyers who don't care Don't see the value But it's probably just going to go on this list of green projects that gives us like access to certain types of investors Who otherwise wouldn't come near us because we don't have enough stuff going on So the whole thing I think is cynical as fuck and um And and for that reason I think you know people activists need to be extremely cautious about how they interact with business Like in the same way that they should be as cautious when they interact with politicians, you know So um, so yeah, I think it's very serious and I don't know if anyone's seen that new Michael Moore film that's caused an absolute stink um, but I watched it last night and um Like I kind of think I I haven't had time to reflect on it and everyone I lots of people that I know and love I'm furious Um, I kind of thought it was fair enough actually like it's because that is also about business about industry It's about industry can industrial civilization deliver us from Industrial civilization and I think that's a fair question that he's asking But it's obviously been met with everyone going like fuck you don't spoil my dreams, you know um so I just would like to build on the the art because they're good answers and I have heard them I've managed to find my way to the catalyzer crew and I've heard of them sitting in fire circles And I don't you know, you said it's clear that's worked But I haven't seen any evidence that has worked and I think that's so it's I can't deny I think it's a good thing to do in this position of influence But it it falls into the argument that you know capitalism can be the answer to capitalism Which I don't I don't buy And then the other end of it of being very very cautious. I think is right I think there's there'll be so much politics and if you give them a chance to look like they've done something Then that would be the worst thing we could do Thanks, Sam. I'm conscious of um all these Well, I'm going to do is because we've got so many hands up in only 20 minutes left. Um, I'm going to ask for Three questions in a batch So it was chris on your endominic first So if you could ask your questions succinctly and then as a batch and then we can make make sure we get through everyone Hi Claude, um, I'm chris and I am a primary school teacher and I have worked actually across my school organization with with secondary students as well and You know my I guess I'm I've been thinking a lot about You know school strike for climate And and how xr is engaging, you know youth and families but also looking at from a you know teacher's perspective being sort of on the inside and having to in a way sort of be covertly Uh rebelling against this system And I guess my question really is about how xr is is building maybe those partnerships with not only with with youth and families, but also With with teachers and with you know the the the I suppose the people who are in a prime position to influence youth You know, how would you speak to to to someone like me in that situation? Thank you. Great great question Sonia and then dominic My question links a little bit with cat's question, which was um to widen it a little bit. Um, I've got a friend who um Is a real kind of disability justice warrior if you like And she's taught me a lot about ableism and looking at things from being able-bodied and has been quite critical of xr Sort of closing roads causing like mayhem for people who are disabled Without giving that any thought and using some kind of crude things about being blind and stuff like that you know and just feeling like The disability voice isn't being heard in that or thought about because it's able-bodied people again Sort of just seeing it from their worldview Just wondering about um the leadership kind of angle of thinking about things from a More diverse perspective and that kind of goes you touched on it with the south america stuff around sort of black minority ethnic kind of voices as well and Um, it there's been criticism of xr being a bit whitewashed So, thank you. Yeah question. Great and exactly and uh, dominic I fair um My question is I I work in a multinational and I've seen some of the control that they try to um Exert over them their brand. So even just the very precise color of red that's used for their logo and so on And I guess having been involved in xr edinburgh Uh, I can see that Is often asserted, you know, anyone can do an action anytime, you know feel empowered to just go out and do it Under the band of xr and I wonder How how well does that work for you? Are there issues to do with therefore controlling dilution or or corruption of the message or or or just Impact, uh, if if anything can happen anywhere under an xr flag Thank you. Okay. There's your three player Okay, uh, relationships with youth families teachers are two first. Um So, uh, we've got a strong connection with caroline hickman who um, I know is focused on that stuff And we've got xr uh groups of teachers and xr families. So there are like different Different points of contact with with that thinking I would say Um Well, we've got xr youth as well, which is another which is a whole a whole another kind of like self-organized youth group um Yeah, so I would say that there are many many parts where this comes through but it's it's interesting to think about About where this fits in the sort of Where this sits in terms of like this the the main thrust of messaging of what people talk about because I think it's um I think it's striking that within the green movement in general there are people who understand very well that There isn't there is a necessity to have that conversation about equity and often that's in reference to The global south less often it's in reference to like the working poor in the north And less often it's about intergenerational equity as well. And so I think there's a there's a lot there which which often gets like um somewhat sort of like reduced um And I think there's been a there's been a lot of people in xr who've been out saying You know in the in the moment of doing their actions who are talking about their children or their grandchildren the grandparents who Who wear the the the pictures of their grandkids around their necks or whatever when they go out and take uh direct action But in terms of like the relation to teaching the relation to education and the relation to like what what we think What do we think would prepare young people for what's coming? Rather than uh, so I guess it's like it's more an adaptation thing rather than a kind of like You know, I'm doing this for the kids the poor kids. We're really worried about them I feel like the message around youth quite often comes through in in that in that way Which is very sort of moralizing message Um about duty or whatever about about intergenerational kind of like passing on we we do speak to that but in terms of talking about um What education does and what it's for now if we sort of recognize that that the world is not going to look like the world we had um and probably quite soon then um Then yeah, I think that's I think that could be like made much more of and um And I think we need people to to support doing that work because it's it's at the moment It's a as I understand that I might Can't keep my finger in all the pies So I don't quite know what the what the teachers xr teachers group is is looking like but I think xr educators and teachers is Is it's quite fairly small space? Um, yeah um Okay ableism and race um Yeah, you might have seen the uh vice article that came out yesterday or the day before absolutely, um slamming xr america um, so Uh xr us has has been around for some time and now there's a thing called xr america, which is I don't really know all the details, but there's a group of people who've been unhappy with the way that the u.s national System has been set up So they've set up xr america um, which uh doesn't Want to say exactly the same things as xr us and there's been a lot of um kind of Left kind of arguing and fighting kind of fairly typical um Arguments going backwards and forwards um I also Have seen have recently been introduced to a guy called in heiny low pairs who's a latino, uh professor from the states whose Work is all about kind of recognizing the need to Unite people across race and class lines in order to be able to form A majority enough to To win in inverted commas for him. It's like a political win So he's talking about like getting to 60 of the country in solidarity um Which is really fascinating to me because we've always looked at this sort of like civil resistance model 3.5 percent of the population To make big change his His view which is seems very interesting to me is like 60 percent um in support and in solidarity so um So we're just sort of like exploring that space with him. I'm going to be talking to him where We had some very critical letters from a group called wretched of the earth who you may know um And there's a member of wretched of the earth who's going to come Hopefully on a live stream with ian and with roger hallam and possibly some other people to discuss His ideas really and um And yeah, I think he's uh, I think his work is fascinating the way that the way that he can present the kind of pragmatic case for the necessity of solidarity and compassion In order to be able to like move forwards because really That's the That's the messaging that works the best in his and he's done it in quite a sort of like uh method Methodical way to like go and test out the messaging on different political groups of people so he does um He's he's very well versed on like issues around race But he's actually brings it first and foremost from a position of pragmatism and says look you You guys think you're like all having an argument. You don't need to you could be working together And you would basically immediately win if you could just work through this stuff and come together um and on on the ableism thing, I think the um I think the disabled rebels group um I mean, I've recently spoke to somebody and recommended that they go and they go and like get get a stronger connection with them for the actions team um That's not to say that we don't have disabled people involved in in things. Um, but we definitely haven't focused on it enough and in october, I mean We did get quite a little bit of press around this which I think was really important But you know the police went after the disabled people in october. I don't know if you know that Um, they took the disabled toilets. They took all the ramps. They took the equipment everything that was associated with being Like hosting people with disability in a public space, which we actually did Managed to cater So kind of okay ish, you know as a first start in april we had around to the marble arch stage We had disabled poor to lose. We had some facilities set up to support having people at that at that space In a in october everything was just lifted by the police and it seemed quite pointed like we're going to make this impossible for disabled people to be here and we know What the police have been like with disabled protesters in the past in the uk and that that really does deserve more More recognition from from xr and it and it needs to be a continued A continued piece of work totally um What's the next one brand? Oh brand. This is the easiest question for me. Obviously, um The yeah the yeah, I you're at risk when your brand is like Able to be just picked up and used by any old person um But I think we've been relatively lucky so far because uh Apart from a few fascists making a few stickers that hasn't been There hasn't been as much co-option of it as I might have expected actually um And uh, we're in the process of doing trademarking the the name and the logo um Which will mean that we've got a sort of like um A big international brand status in trademarking. Um, I know some of the sort of like For some of the sort of anarchists, it's like well, if you need to go to court to do that, then that's bad and you Relying on the system that exists and you should make it all creative commons But the problem with that is that people can sell it and what we're really trying to do is stop people from being able to use our use our Our um creative assets and make money out of it because we've never wanted to do that ourselves So for example to make like a piece of xr merchandise you show up in a place And you roll around the ink yourself on the block and you print the thing So it's an action-based thing. You can't buy the t-shirt and not go to the thing You have to go to the thing to make the t-shirt and so making building that into it Was really really intentional for me from the from the beginning um and I think uh, we're hoping to kind of evolve the brand uh in a way sort of get a new fund and work on some new um visual assets and I think we just have to keep trying to Trying to stay ahead because we've got the rebel burger the rebel renting schemes the What uh, you know, so I mean it's uh the language gets co-opted even if you just want to say that that's not xr's rebel burger That's that's burger kings is it? Yeah Okay So um Yeah rebel washing it's the new thing Abigail then ellie Hi clown have a girl. So it was a quick question really about narratives. Um, I suppose just in light of what's been Happening to us all with co vid whether and how you see The xr frames and now it is shifting in response to that particularly given some of the contentious stuff That's been out there about you know, what does co vid have to do with climate change and And human behavior. So just be interested to know your thoughts on that Thanks nearly I'm interested to know about what you took away from the course in terms of The deep relating and deep connecting practices that you were exposed to and participated in How have they become part of your work with xr or perhaps not at all? Thank you Yeah, cool Um Co vid narrative, okay, so um Well, yeah, I mean everything's changed, hasn't it and so it's really difficult in an organization. Well in a movement to Be able to get everybody to recognize Something like that at the same time. I know my friend Allie was trying to Get this to land with people Particularly in the messaging team before I came into the media team Um But she was there trying to like get people to go This is going to change everything and lots of people going. Yeah, I know but we've still got to carry on Love up and she was like no You could think of what's going on in italy This is about to change everything and it's gonna like and it took quite a lot of people Different amounts of time to kind of come to terms with it. It felt like in a way Um, and I count myself in that it's sort of a certain point I wasn't really quite believing that it was going to like Decimate the rest of 2020 Um, and then at some point I sort of admitted that it was but we're all on a different kind of time frame so I think working within like trying to Trying to pull people together around narrative and around framing can be extremely challenging in these kinds of shifting sands times because People are at different stages with it and I guess in a way it's like seem to me like COVID is like a really really fast version of climate change It's like the exponentiality function over like weeks not decades and it's everyone going Ah shit, you know, but not at the same time somehow Even though we're all living through it and we feel like we're living the same day to day um, so that's been really challenging and I think um and I think in terms of in terms of bringing forward a new narrative We were already working on something before this Before this really broke Which was like recognizing that we need this new story and the thing I want to say about that is that a lot of people are going We need the new story and like it's all about the new story And I got really kind of alarmed at the thought that there was like a handful of people who thought that it was their job to write the story so um So we've we've put together this document which is nearly ready And so those of you who connected to exile you'll probably see it in the next few weeks, but it's called um, it's called the impossible book And it's a kind of an invitation to to be really really ambitious and really expansive and and It builds on the idea that kind of exile has always done stuff that like people said was impossible And I'd say like even from the beginning people would say to me like yeah, it's impossible You're not just because six of you like went off on one and spray painted city hall It doesn't mean you're going to get like how are you going to get 200 people to do that with you? That will never happen um, there's been an element of like Creating the impossible that's happened already and people are surrounded by it right now with like grounded planes and shut down businesses and all of the stuff that's happening and all of the bailouts that are going to happen that are going to seem like Impossible things that you couldn't even dream that someone could like sign the fucking check right so In the good and the bad sense there's like impossible shit everywhere So that's what we're trying to like open as a space and then from there I believe that actually the in terms of narrative I think what this could help a lot with the environmental movement is to move it to like talk more about health so Like we understand that like everything centers on health and the economy should center on health And our movement should center on health And I think maybe maybe this coveted thing is going to help us to Help us to do to do that because I I feel like that's going to be the kind of like relevant The relevant thread for people in like having lived through a pandemic thank you and for Ellie's question, um, I don't know. Maybe we called it authentic relating or Morning circles. I think when you were on the course last year um Well, we sit in circles anyway in xr So I remember this last year sitting with everybody on the course and saying talk people talking about sitting in circle And I was like, oh we sit in circle every day pretty much but um But there's something really that I loved about being like in facilitated spaces with katie. So um, I just want to like Say that because it was really really really good um The thing that I actually really liked as well, which I've like um, which I've actually done in like workshop spaces that I've held with small groups is the kind of um What's it called active listening kind of getting people to to really Do that outpouring of speaking without interruption. And I think that the there's something um There's something extremely valuable about like talking And not being interrupted but being heard um for like a significant length of time. I don't know if you've done that this this uh this time, but um But I find that a really really valuable exercise and quite often people you ask them to say one thing and they say something else and that's also like extremely enlightening basically isn't it um And uh and the improv as well like opening up some space to some space to play I I guess that's um, you know, perhaps that's also part of the Part of the question that I've got um at the moment about xr's kind of like system designs and understanding creativity and understanding opening space up um because quite a lot of the work is very like here and um And as she spoke to my therapist the other day and she and she um told me that she thinks I'm addicted to um mental activity And um And uh, and and I think she's right um, but it's but it's really like um It's really like a disconnected place to be to not be like embodied and not be doing things like uh physically with each other and so um So there was something really like Interesting about that improv session that we did uh last year that I really remember like the feeling in the room how I don't know how it like affects the people in the space and then what you're capable of at the end of it Which you weren't really able to do at the start Yeah, we didn't do a full improv this time, but um helen led us in a in a bit of um a small improv which then led into Processes which were coming from a more creative non-intellectual place claire. I've really really enjoyed the last hour um And I was impressed when you when you just explain what you're doing with xr Um, I want everyone. I'm just gonna unmute everyone. So let's just here we go. I'm muting you all So we can all say thank you. Yeah. Thank you claire You're clear. Thanks for what you're doing You lay your love