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Katie Collier, she/her, UPenn, Fossil Free Penn/Divest Ed Fellow, ktc@sas.upenn.edu
Elly Ren, she/her, JHU/f2d2 NEST (yall should join), eren2@jhu.edu
Jessie Kinsley, she/her, Brandeis
Shelby Dennis, she/her, UMKC, Fossil Free UMKC, sadqm9@mail.umkc.edu
Connie Lu, she/her, Divest Dartmouth, connielu800@gmail.com
Sasha Bishop, she/her, University of Michigan, sgdbishop@gmail.com
Christina Lee, she/her, WashU in St. Louis, Fossil Free WashU christinalee@wustl.edu
Dhruv Tatke, he/him, University of Michigan, dhruvtatke@gmail.com
John Foran, he/him,UC Santa Barbara, jforan5@gmail.com
Ari Bortman, he/him/his, University of Pennsylvania/ Univeristy of Sydney, abort@seas.upenn.edu
Nadya Dutchin, she/her/hers, Power Shift Network, nadya@powershift.org
Neve Tilbury, they/them, UMKC, genevatilbury@gmail.com
Rachel Schlueter, she/her, Divest Ed rachel@betterfutureproject.org

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Logistics Requests

Keep your mic muted when you’re not speaking
Use the chat

Ask a question
Comment
Make a request of the facilitators

Have the Google Slides up on a browser window

side by side with Zoom

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Agenda

[5 min] Settle in
[5 min] Logistics + Agenda
[10 min] Climate Strike Basics
[5 min] UMKC share
[30] Discussion and Sharing
[5 min] Close

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Climate Strike Basics

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What is the Global Climate Strike?

From the Global Climate Strike:

“School strikers are calling on everyone: young people, parents, workers, and all concerned citizens to join massive climate strikes and a week of actions starting on September 20.

“People all over the world will use their power to stop ‘business as usual’ in the face of the climate emergency. We will join young people in the streets to demand an end to the age of fossil fuels and emergency action to avoid climate breakdown.”

When is it?

The global strike is on Friday, September 20th, 2019. Following the Global Climate Strike is a week of climate action ending with a Workers’ Strike on Friday, September 27th.

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Divestment & Climate Strikes

(adapted from the two-pager on our website, read it here)

Is there a local strike initiative already planned in your area?

Yes: If this option is available to your campaign, we strongly recommend joining and supporting a local strike initiative. Check to see if a local high school or environmental group, your local Sunrise Movement chapter, or your local 350 node is already planning one. If applicable, consider marching from your campus to the main rally to build solidarity between campuses and with the community at large. Also, be sure to ask the organizers how you can support by offering to provide speakers, materials, social media advertisements, or any other skills and resources your campaign your campaign is willing to share. This is a great opportunity to build and strengthen alliances with the groups in your area. More information about supporting school strikes can be found here.
No: If there are no groups organizing climate strikes in your area that you can connect with, you can participate in the day of action in other ways. Campaigns that have the resources and energy to do so are encouraged to hold a march, rally, or walkouts. Other options for engagement include tabling on your campus, posting or holding signs in a highly visible area, and promoting the strikes on social media. When posting, remember to use #ClimateStrike. Check out Divest Ed’s website for campaign resources.

Click here to see a map of climate strikes in the US!

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UMKC

Coordinating students was difficult

Coalition on organizations to make it happen on campus, reached out to high schools in the area. Easier to do this given relationships with high schools in the area.

Strike on the 20th - a few actions planned, working to get more high school and college students involved.

Plan: 3 actions happening - morning action with XR, 11am walkout scheduled for college and high school students to leave classes, meet at 11:30am. Marching off campus to a park for speakers. Working to get more college students involved. Rally in the afternoon (for folks not able to strike) at 5pm in Kansas City.

Increasing attendance: introducing “captains” for different majors at the schools. Goal: get 10 people to join the strike, then also get 10 more people

Question: how did you get in contact w the high school students?

Relationships w local high schools
Personal IG sharing for strike, made a campaign one now
Connections w the students

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Climate Strikes as a recruitment tool

No matter how your campaign chooses to participate, remember to keep the message centered around climate justice and divestment as a tactic to achieve it. These strikes are intended to spread the narrative of the youth climate strike, taking leadership from the youth who sparked these actions, not to advertise individual organizations.

The climate strike is a base-building opportunity to recruit students interested in climate justice to our campaigns and the larger divestment movement.

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The climate strikes are an opportunity to base build towards the fossil fuel divestment movement’s escalation plans like the Fossil Fuel Day of Divestment (F2D2).

To join the team coordinating national escalation (otherwise known as the National Escalation Strategy Team, N.E.S.T.) fill out this form.

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Open Discussion: What is your campaign plan for the Climate Strikes?

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Climate strike ideas:

Join a local climate strike

Do an action on campus

Stage a walkout
Hold a rally
Plan a march
Art installation
Disruptions/blockades
Banner drop

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What are your climate strike plans?

Fossil Free Penn (UPenn) - organizing with 350 Philly, Sunrise Philadelphia Hub, and high schoolers organizing the strike.

FFP is hosting an art build, receiving funding for art supplies
Best plan for us to support the high schoolers (who are taking on most of the work)

Fossil Free WashU (WashU, STL) - plan is to join and recruit for climate strike downtown being organized by local 350, Sunrise Hub, high schoolers

Not taking a major role in that, focus on recruitment and getting folks downtown that morning
Sept. 27th we will host our own rally on campus - absorption from the Global Climate Strike

Refuel Our Future (Johns Hopkins) - walkout and head to DC Climate Strike together

At the DC strike, we want to meet up with FFAU and FFTU and also give a short speech about divestment
Most likely have a banner drop on the 23rd
Potentially host a rally on campus on the 27th? We would also invite Baltimore community orgs (sunrise, XC, peoples climate movement, our revolution, united workers, other sustainability groups on campus)

Tip: take photos and record videos for your social media and a future national ff divestment hype video (our for your own),

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What are your climate strike plans? (cont.)

University of Michigan - primary organizers from our strikes in the area, hosted a strike on March 15th that heavily involved high school students as well

The HS students were already really interested, ready to jump on board in a big way and ended up being some of our strongest presence at the strike, rally, gave really great speeches
Event focused on university-level demands - divestment and carbon neutrality
Banner drops on natural gas power plant being expanded on campus
Ended rally with a sit-in at administrative offices, still dealing w the consequences from that
Plan for September - more community focused - what comes next? Strike being held on U Michigan’s campus, coordinating with high school students to get them to campus. Broke into teams to figure out logistics for each campus group.

Teach ins and education oriented, workshops
Plugging people into existing organizations / fights
Local businesses closing their doors for the day as well

Building up towards 4 day teach in, theme of environmental justice

Dartmouth - weekend of the 20th we have a meeting with the Board of Trustees - focus of our organizing right now, not sure if/how we are engaging with the Climate Strike

1 high school in the area, unsure of what a community action would look like

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Discussion Notes

Exciting new tactics happening on campus - access to public transit cards
Ari: in Sydney, university strike more at the forefront of national growing movement, rather than just one facet

5 minutes before lectures are happening, canvass lecture, have the class pass motion to support the strike, demands of the strike! Great way to get a lot of folks at once with one pitch
Small rally events in a visible location - stand out tactic

Sasha: distributing ppt slides to faculty to share. Disruptive vs. welcomed in for class resolution?

Ari: In Sydney, academia coming across as more left-leaning, depends on the class still
Not too many professors have shut me down, some folks curious to hear what he had to say / set a time limit
Generally a lot of support from the staff
Most of the work: reaching out to processors and departments - lots of buy in

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Absorption

What is your absorption plan? How are you going to keep folks engaged post-strike?

Some options:

Divest 101 event
Potluck for new + returning members

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What are your absorption plans?

Sign in sheet at the event itself
Framing information sharing

If there is any way that Power Shift Network can help amplify your actions, please feel free to @Power_Shift as we will be on social media to highlight your local activities. Have a great night and we’ll see you at the Philly and DC strikes on 9/20! 

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Thank you!

Follow Divest Ed on:

@divesteddotorg

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Check out our website for more resources!

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Pluses & Deltas

Like having Shelby speak about UMKC’s past experience
Hearing from UMKC and UMich about past climate strike engagement and lessons learned for this one

Maybe make a poll beforehand in the slack to survey what people are doing/ ask in the slack for people to comment

What suggestions for how we could improve?

What worked well for you?

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Tech help slides

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Welcome!

Mute yourself again, if needed

Click “Participants”

and “Chat” again

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Set-up

Click microphone and video