Planet movers, A quick update: Moving Connecticut is featured on the moving-planet.org homepage — one that features major actions from around the globe, and that is seen by thousands a day. Scroll through to see our picture come up. With 800+ people in New Haven on 9/24, our rally measured up next to the major rallies in Boston, NYC, San Francisco and Minneapolis. We should be proud!
Lots have asked where you can get/download photos. Do that on Flickr.
Updates, more photos, media coverage and ways to get involved are all at 350ct.org/move. And take a moment to share your favorite moment on Facebook from 9/24 Moving Connecticut and celebrate an amazing day of action!
Yesterday you did it. You moved, and you moved big, and things aren’t going to be the same anymore in our state. Moving Connecticut was a great success. Together we sent our message that it’s time to get past fossil fuels, to bike and walk and take the train, to use more solar power and live more efficiently–and to make a lot more noise about it. A huge collection of sister events around the globe, all part of Moving Planet and all sponsored by 350.org sent the same message at the same time.
On the New Haven Green the weather was great. Our leaders spoke with passion and our musicians played with soul and more than 150 of us cycled together through the heart of the city. You can see photos on the 350ct Flickr stream, including our giant “350” as seen from high above the Green. We’re also getting a lot of great coverage in the media, much of which is collected on our media page.
If you have photos or videos you’d like to share, send them (full resolution, multiple-per-email is fine) to [email protected]. We’ll add them to our photo stream. Put the title of the photo plus “New Haven, CT, USA” in the subject line, and put “Photo: <your name>” and a description in the body. Photos from around the world are available on moving-planet.org.
Today is a day for gratitude. Together we are grateful for our partners, sponsors, and organizers, the folks who invited their friends and family, and the people who were present in New Haven and at the many other events around our state. And we’re grateful for you and your support!
But today is not the end of anything. Though 9/24 is done, the work of reshaping our future is not, and 350 Connecticut is just getting started. We’ve shown that we can do amazing things, and now it’s time to do some more. So get involved! Three great things to do right now:
Show your support and appreciation andLike us and our partners!
Spread the word about 9/24 Moving Connecticut and all the important work we’re going to do together going forward. Post some pictures on Facebook or write an op-ed.
Those of you who requested to be added to the 350ct mailing list will get invites soon–don’t forget to confirm. Be assured: you’ll hear more from 350 Connecticut!
Tomorrow’s the big day, and we couldn’t be more excited. We have heard from so many of you about how important this event is to you and how eager you are to come — it’s truly inspiring to be coming together like this with all of you.
Moving Connecticut will happen rain or shine. Please tell your friends and co-workers and neighbors that we’ll meet 9/24 at 4pm on the New Haven Green regardless of weather. Our critical mass bike ride will leave from the Green at 4pm sharp rain or shine. If it’s nasty out, we’ll move the rest of the festivities indoors to 57 Olive St, New Haven CT — St. Paul and St. James church, which has generously opened their doors to us in case of rain. In all cases, the definitive place for updates is 350ct.org/move, and we’ll be cross posting updates on facebook and twitter. To get up-to-the-minute updates on your phone, text “follow movingplanetct” to 40404 (no quotes).
Tomorrow is a critical day for us to stand together in-person and show the world that we’re organized and ready for action. If you absolutely cannot join us in person, please stand in solidarity by sending us some pictures! Make some signs, grab some friends and family, and send some pictures of you all to [email protected]. If you can send them by 5pm EST, we’ll do our best to show them to the whole crowd here.
Metro North has given us special approval to take all our bikes on the train tomorrow on the 2:07pm train out of Grand Central towards New Haven and the 10:10pm train out of New Haven toward Grand Central. More info here.
Two important things you can do now:
Send out a personal note to your friends and family and tell them why you think 9/24 Moving Planet is important.
We are 9 days out from Moving Connecticut on 9/24, and the momentum is building faster than we could have imagined. Across the state, organizers are working on all sorts of great events in their communities — bike rides and cleanups and solar tours and parties that will all then converge in New Haven at 4pm for a rally that is going to be huge. I’ve met with grassroots leaders across the state this last week, and the energy is high — higher than I’ve ever seen it before. By all accounts, 9/24 is going to be a truly incredible day.
We’re in crunch time now, and that means the need for help is even greater than before. Whether you’re getting involved for the first time or have been helping out since the beginning, there are a few things below that we are asking everyone to help with. If you have other ways you can help, please offer.
Write a personal appeal to your friends and family asking them to join us on 9/24. Tell them why this is important to you, and speak from the heart. It often happens that we support or pour ourselves into things and we forget to tell the people closest to us what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. If you’re giving your time and energy to help our state move beyond fossil fuels toward a brighter future, your friends should know about it. See Genevieve’s personal appeal here, and post your own in the comments below when you send it out.
Help build our list of supporters by tabling or talking to friends and collecting names and emails. Enter the email addresses in (one by one) at https://350ct.org/signup/ or send them to [email protected]. Either way — make sure they get to us!
Bring us more partners. Partner organizations are ones that support 9/24 Moving CT and agree to publicize the event, though many of our partners are doing much more than that. Partner organizations are the bread and butter of the coalition organizing we’re doing. Talk to organizations you’re a part of or know about and ask them if they can partner with us for a day to get beyond fossil fuels. There’s no money involved. Let us know at [email protected] so we can put them up on the partners website.
Post fliers. Post them everywhere! Talk to coffee shops and ask if they’ll post our flier in a special place as a sign of support. The fliers can be downloaded at https://350ct.org/move/flier/, and we’ve got printed copies, too. Artistic? Design your own flier and send it our way so we can post it on the website. Just make sure it has 350ct.org/move on it, and the correct date and location (4pm 9/24 New Haven Green). We’d love to see someone do tree-ribbons again, too. We’ll buy the ribbon. And we’ve got tons of Buzz Boxes to be made.
Give us some Facebook love. Make sure you’re signed up at the Moving Connecticut FB event and that you’ve Liked 350 Connecticut. Check back on 350 Connecticut and Like some of the posts like this one. The more people that Like a post, the more it will be seen by the rest of the world. And don’t forget to invite your CT friends to the Moving Connecticut FB event, too!
If you can help us out on the big day, let us know via the Volunteer Form. Anything else, get in touch with us directly at [email protected].
Thanks to everyone who made it to our meeting last night! The meeting minutes are available below. Be sure to scroll all the way to bottom to look at next steps and let us know if you can make any of them happen.
I’m highlighting two things we could really use some help with.
1) We need volunteers to go to other events and sit at the 350CT table. Reply to this email if you can show up for any/all of the time. The events are
9/10 – CT Green Expo. Edgerton Park, New Haven. 11am-4pm 9/17 – East Rock Festival. Orange St @ Willow St, New Haven. 10am-8pm 9/17 & 9/18 – Live Green CT. Taylor Farm Park, Norwalk. 10am-4pm
2) Things we need for 9/24. Reply to this email if you can provide (or know someone who can provide) these items.
Thanks to everyone who showed up to the meeting on Monday. A lot was accomplished and I think the way forward is becoming more clear. The meeting minutes are below. An audio recording of the meeting is available here.
A huge thank you to everyone who showed up at the meeting tonight. I’m psyched about continuing to work with all of you over the next few months.
Attached are the meeting minutes (also pasted below) and a picture of our “tasks” white-board brainstorm. Thanks to Kim and Jackie for taking notes during the meeting!
And now, WE NEED YOUR HELP. Below is a link to a spreadsheet with a list of the tasks we brainstormed that have to be accomplished. Please SIGN-UP anywhere you can help out. And get your friends to volunteer too. Also feel free to add/modify any tasks.
350 Organizers and Supporters across CT, Three important points about 350 + CT. I’ll be brief.
Moving Planet Organizing – bit.ly/mpct-interest Our organizing for Moving Planet on 9/24 is cruising. If you haven’t gotten involved, now’s the time, and we could use your help on our core organizing team or with regional outreach and regional event planning. List of core organizing leadership positions is at the bottom of this email. If you’re interested, here’s the place to let us know or feel free to email me directly.
Trainings – http://www.doodle.com/rgfvtp24wfk2bzhp We will be holding a 1-2 day organizer/activist training in August led by me and 350.org staff from the NYC or DC office. Trainings like this are worth their weight in gold, and 350 is running this training in CT because of the capacity this state has to make big waves. If you’re interested, fill out the doodle and get in touch by email or the link above. Travel reimbursement is available.
Internships Finally, we are announcing a select number of justin by August 1st, 2011. Applications are considered on first-come, first-served basis until the positions are filled.
Outreach Coordinator: to coordinate and push forward our outreach to NGOs, businesses, k-12 schools and universities
Volunteer and Recruitment Coordinator: to coordinate and track volunteer interest and availability, and to recruit organizers
Meeting and Event Coordinator: to plan and schedule meetings and parties, set agendas, send out minutes and either take on or delegate meeting leadership and note-taking.
Media and Public Contact Coordinator: to make noise about the work we’re doing, coordinate/submit op-eds, take interviews with the media
Social Media Coordinator: to keep an active presence Facebook and twitter and to update our website (http://350ct.wordpress.com/)
City or University Lead Organizer: to build a local organizing team and take leadership of mobilizing a town, region or university. Consider this and one of the other roles above.
The real heart of our work last night was the discussion of desired outcomes and how the scope/format of the event can help us achieve those. We centered on six possible outcomes:
Moving Planet brainstormers: great to see you last night. Thanks for a fun, thoughtful, creative brainstorm session, with lots of good ideas and lots of ways to move forward.
As promised, here are my notes from the meeting (below). We agreed that each of us will pick 5 of our favorite ideas or themes, make a list of outcomes we’d like to see from the 9/24 event, and give suggestions for organizations or people to reach out to. That last point is especially important — we’ll need to assemble a solid team of organizers to pull off a statewide action like this, and so we need to continue to identify people with the energy and vision for this kind of work.
