everyday social democracy

Be scared, very scared

Posted on Saturday, November 14, 2009 No Comments
Labels: organising campaigns

We’ve been out and about. People often confuse exciting and gimmicky. There is nothing gimmicky about cleaning up politics and fighting for a fairer voting system. This would transform our democracy. But with such a complex issue, the only way to get people fired up is to tap into what makes them tick.

As Crazy Epic says "Gen Y are politically motivated, politically mobilised, and have the tools to spread their opinions. Events such as Zombie Walk show that they also have the creativity to make themselves heard."

That's why we toured London to film young people with Ed the Duck on what they would do if they were MP for a day and dressed up as zombies for Halloween marching down Westminster as part of the Vote for a Change campaign. Watch the video and be scared, very scared.

Drop outs or start ups? Next generation social entrepreneurs

Posted on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 No Comments
Labels: developing ideas

The more there will be people losing their jobs, the more there will be people with more time and less money.

What can young people do with their time and energy if they've got no job to go to? How can they spend their time more creatively? Can young people out of work be the next generation of social entrepreneurs?

We don't know...That's why we want you to come and tell us what ideas we should campaign on to tackle youth unemployment. That's why we want you to come to the first of a series of sessions focused on different ways young people out of work can develop their skills.

As well as being able to have your say in shaping our priority campaign for 2010, you'll be able to hear from an amazing trio of social entrepreneurs, David Floyd (Social Spider), Peter Ptashko (Young UnLtd) and Amisha Ghadiali (Amisha/The Hub) who'll share their stories.

COMPASS YOUTH GOES CLIMATE CHIC!

Posted on Saturday, October 03, 2009 No Comments
Labels: developing ideas

You told us about your "green" ideas, from carbon taxes, green jobs to school gardening. Do you want to have your say on how to campaign on climate change and do something about it with others where you are?

If so, come and join Compass Youth & Change is Coming (ChiC) at "SWaP your Story" on Monday 19th October 6.30-8.30 pm at the Railway Tavern, Liverpool St (London).

Tell us why the environment matters more than ever in the recession. Find out how you can make change happen where you are with other activists and groups. Try out exciting techniques so you can get other people involved in the environmental movement.

Don't miss out, book your place now!

This workshop is open to all activists, whether you want to share your environmental involvement or if you want to make their first steps. Sign up at http://swapyourstory.eventbrite.com

Any questions or want to find out more? Email us now! If you can't see the video below, click here.

The only change worth fighting...

We don’t just listen to what you care about, we work with you so you can do something about it together. Because I know if you give people an inch, they'll give you a mile. That’s why I invited one of our activists Becky to run our first ever session on the environment.

Becky runs Change is Coming (ChiC), which encourages increased recognition of the power and responsibility of individuals in responding to and initiating change, through the use of creative & collaborative action. ChiC's primary venture is EnviroWiki.org.uk - a collaborative mapping directory compiling activity & debate for the growing environmental movement.

...It's time to get ChiC

You may be concerned about the threat of climate change, but find it hard to communicate it in times of recession and financial uncertainty. You may want to get involved in the environmental movement, but feel unsure where to start. You may just want to find out more. Either way, come and join us at SWaP the Story!

Noel Hatch

National Chair

Compass Youth

www.twitter.com/compassyouth

www.compassyouth.org

stop the excess express

Posted on Saturday, September 05, 2009 No Comments
Labels: developing ideas

I watched Fox News for the first time last night. In a nutshell, along with occasional expert advice from our friend Dan Hannan, they try and make people believe that there’s a socialist conspiracy to take over the world. If only, I thought... And then something struck me maybe there is…

We had a Republican president going all socialist by providing around $1tn to bail out financial institutions so that the economy didn’t go bust.
We had Wall Street falling in love with nationalisation because it's all they had left.
We’ve got the Lord who runs the agency regulating financial services supporting the iconic Tobin Tax pledge of the anti globalisation movement.
And now we’ve got the conservative duo Sarkozy and Merkel making the running to tame excessive pay and bonuses in banks.

I never realised there were on our side! And then I realised they tried to convince us they were when they expalined how the excessive greed of the other “masters of the universe” was somehow contributing to the economy. “Yes we can” they all must have said when they gave themselves bigger and bigger bonuses, higher and higher pay.

So it does feel slightly strange that many people now applaud the Establishment for calling for policies which were deemed too radical when those less in thrawl to the City called for them?

As Jackie Ashley comments, “If everyone is a member of the soggy centrist consensus, serious thinking becomes flabby and the point of parliamentary politics declines…Who can now say that the iron discipline of New Labour MPs during the boom years was such a good thing? If it meant that there was very little probing of the City and banking practice, wasn't that a mistake?”

There was (is?) as much iron discipline by MPs towards the City as there was towards their party whips. From all sides of the house. While we warned that the excessive greed of the fat cats probably affects social cohesion more than a teenager spraying graffiti on your wall, the government are still giving out ASBOs to kids and letting bankers at government-controlled banks give themselves bonuses.

But let's move beyond the "we told you so" (we did…he did even earlier) and look at how we can get out of this mess.

There are many proposals around proposing maximum wage ratios or bonus taxation. Of course these all need to be considered and the thread that brings these all together is the urgent need to review excessive pay across the board.

Now that doesn't sound too radical does it? Well…no actually, as 65% of the public polled here agree we need a High Pay Commission that would do exactly that. OK, so surely all those people must have been socialists? Well…no, as 66% of Labour voters are up for it, but so are 63% of Tories and 75% of Lib Dems.

So are we going to wait for other “masters of the universe” to tell us what to think or are we going to start rocking the boat for the right reasons?

Posted on Friday, August 14, 2009 No Comments
Labels: about me, developing ideas

why I'm (re)standing for compass youth

Posted on Monday, July 13, 2009 No Comments
Labels: about me

I'm always amazed by the passion of members I meet and your energy in making change happen, from Sam & Dan for running Compass Youth, my comrades on the committee to those who've just joined - that's why I want to say thanks to all of you!

Young people are changing the world around them - fighting fascism, lobbying for a living wage, reclaiming the night or campaigning against climate change. What really motivates me to be involved in Compass Youth is supporting people to make change happen on the issue that matter to them. Because I know if you give people an inch, they'll give you a mile.

That's why I want Compass Youth to be a space where you can do all the things you didn't think possible before, knowing we will trust and support you:

So you can debate the issues you care about, like I've done by enabling you to promote your ideas through our blog and video and discuss them at workshops like Progressive London and TUC Young Members.

I would launch a listening tour (like this and that) to find out what issues are really affecting young people - like unemployment, debt and inequality - not just in London but across the country, hand in hand with trade & student unions, community groups and others. With this coalition, we would then work with you on your campuses or local areas to develop campaigns on these issues.

So you can learn how to create campaigns with the best organisers, which I've started by organising Creative Campaigns Camp (see here http://snurl.com/n2gly). I won't only bring the best organisers to develop campaigns camps on issues that matter to you, I want all of you to develop this programme together.

So you can campaign for progressive politics - like I've done helping run Sam Tarry's campaign for YoungLabourChair.

So we can help promote your local campaigns too, like I've done helping Love Difference in London, Bristol & Northampton, Pin The Pits in Doncaster and the Yes Congestion Charge campaign in Manchester. I've also made sure Compass Youth took part in campaigns on political reform, migrants rights and ending poverty, as well as organising campaign exchanges abroad.

I want to make sure this year we give a stronger platform to all our members, especially women, disabled, BME, LGBT and working class so you can make Compass Youth more diverse and more accountable.

I also want you to develop together a leadership training programme with the "movers and shakers" in the progressive movement, so that you can be the next leaders in your student clubs, trade unions and your campaigns.

To cut a long story short, I want to make sure that for each of you, Compass Youth can be exciting and rewarding. I want you to be able to have your say and do something about it with others where you are.

To find out more, contact me at noel.hatch1@gmail.com or www.twitter.com/noelito.

creative campaigns camp - next steps

Posted on Saturday, June 27, 2009 No Comments
Labels: building skills, campaigncamp, creativecampaigns, organising campaigns, telling stories

Thank you for taking time out of your weekend to take part in Creative Campaigns Camp. It was a chance for all of us to step back from what we know and try out new ways to campaign using creative techniques.

Sign up for our next session

Thanks for the feedback about how practical the workshops were, how organically things came together for you to learn new skills and create campaigns and how we might improve.

Do you want to meet up so we can work out together what we can do next? Sign up here for our next session on Thursday 9th July at the amazing Whitechapel Gallery.

We can talk about how we can take forward the campaigns you developed, how you might like to contribute to our activities or even organise a Campaigns Camp where you are.

Sign up for our new website

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. It was amazing at how you all bonded and worked with each other so well.

Do you want to relive the different journeys of your campaigns as well as your experiences of the day? Sign up here for our new Creative Campaigns website where we’ll show all the videos we filmed of the day.

This will also give you the opportunity to not just find out about upcoming activities but tell us about projects you may be involved in, to upload your experiences and stories of campaigns and issues that matter to you.

If you have any queries or would like to chat further, feel free to contact us!

Noel and Ffiona

What will you pledge?

Sign up for our next session

Sign up for our new website

Forward this email to a friend

stop agonising, start organising

Posted on Friday, June 19, 2009 No Comments
Labels: about me, building skills, creativecampaigns, developing ideas, organising campaigns, telling stories

You might think that things couldn't get any worse after finding out politicians claiming to represent us are using taxpayers' money to build houses for ducks rather than homes for people and a government preferring to attack each other than attack the recession. With Big Brother back on our screens, it's like going from one reality show to another.

But in the real world, people are getting sacked, evicted and left on the scrapheap of the recession. And young people are getting hit the hardest, with unemployment rates much higher than other age group in "last to join, first to leave" jobs. These aren't just passing concerns but "permanent scars" even going as far as damaging their physical and mental health.

So rather than choose which sides to take in the political football games going on in Westminster village, isn't it time to stop agonising and start organising? To choose to campaign to fight the recession where we are, whether that's neighbourhoods, our campuses or our workplaces?

You may have set up an online group because you were getting ripped off. You may have invited people to a campaign session so people can live better off. You may have written to your MP to support the campaign you care about the most. You may have pitched up your tent to prevent the world turning to toast.

You may have stayed at a shelter to help the homeless. You may have gone down the beach to clean up the mess. You may have taken part in a flashmob to show people how exploitation of young people at work just isn't right. You may have marched through the streets to reclaim the night.

You may have been a street captain spreading hope not hate, you may have interviewed the wild and wonderful to instigate debate. You may have got into a bath of baked beans to raise money for comic relief...Or you may not have got involved with any of these.

Whether you've been involved in organizing before or not, you're might be curious about how to campaign and who knows even fired up about an issue you'd like to campaign on. There is no right or wrong way on how to turn an issue you care about into a campaign - just look at the examples above and you can see all the different and exciting ways people have gone about it.

So just imagine if you could bring together people who are campaigning in their communities, people that are getting their voice heard in the media and those using new and creative tools to put this in action.

Just imagine if you could work with each other to develop exciting ways to campaign, finding out how others are organising and creating the spaces where activists with different skills involved in different groups can affect real change together.

We have all been to conferences where most of the time the only way we have ever got input into our events is over a drink down the pub. Don't get me wrong, I'm still keen on having those sideline chats at the end of the bar, but there are probably other ways which are just as exciting.

That's why we've joined up with TUC Young Members and Toynbee Hall to launch a weekend to fight back against the recession. On Saturday 20th June, you'll be able to get together into groups to discuss what impacts the recession is having on young people and what the Government should be doing in response. You'll then be able to put forward ideas on how we might more effectively organise and campaign for the rights of young people in and out of work.

On Sunday 21st June, we'll share grassroots stories from local campaigners, get together with facilitators so you can develop your skills on new campaigning techniques. You'll be able to get involved with other young people in trying these out to create new campaigns together to fight the recession. We want the workshops to be driven as much by the people taking part as the speakers facilitating, as much by the intensity of developing a campaign in such a short space of time as the excitement of activists with such a diversity of experiences - working together to tackle issues which matter to you.

We do want to produce something at the end of the day however and although it will be intense, ultimately you'll have developed a campaign that you can take away together and take forward across your networks.

So let's dive right in, get our hands dirty and start campaigns - let's help people create change for themselves, from the grassroots up.

It's time to take back our future, it's time for you to take back your communities.

Noël Hatch, National Chair, Compass Youth

To take part and find out more about our activities next weekend, please go to www.compassyouth.org or contact noel.hatch1@gmail.com

WANT TO CREATE A CAMPAIGN TO FIGHT THE RECESSION?

Posted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 No Comments
Labels: campaigncamp, creativecampaigns

Come and join Compass Youth & Toynbee Hall at our Creative Campaigns Camp on

SUNDAY 21ST JUNE BETWEEN 11-5PM

Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, London, E1 6LS (next to Aldgate East)

Just imagine if you could bring together people organising in their communities, getting their voice heard in the media and campaigning through through art, film or music.

We’re passionate about enabling you develop exciting ways to campaign, finding out how others are organising and creating spaces where you can make change.

That's why the camp will feature sessions for you to:

GET INSPIRED by Toynbee Hall's experiences of campaigning from the bottom up - from That Money Thing campaign on student debt to the Post Office campaign.

GET TOGETHER in workshops facilitated by film makers, vocal artists and animators and share their skills of turning people's hopes and fears into collective action.

GET INVOLVED to create on the day with other young people, new campaigns to fight the recession that we will support you to take forward together where you are.

DON'T MISS OUT, SIGN UP NOW!

BOOK YOUR PLACE - email noel.hatch1@gmail.com

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TOO - forward this to a friend.

Want to find out more? Call Ffiona on 02073922963.

treat yourself to a milky bar - is it time for a citizen's income?

Posted on Sunday, May 10, 2009 No Comments
Labels: developing ideas

In the recent Budget proposals, it was announced that children would get an extra £20 Child Tax Credit from April next year. The Chancellor highlighted that a third of a million families would get an average £35 a week more through tax credits. Given that nine in every ten families already qualify for tax credits, you could argue that’s good news. However, campaigners argue that amounts to an extra 38p a week to the three million children living in poverty – this was more a “milky bar budget” for them than a “people’s budget”…

So should we campaign for an even greater increase in tax credits then or would more of the same still prevent families climbing out of the poverty black hole?

We know that although financial equality doesn’t directly guarantee social equality, income inequality certainly aggravates other inequalities we face as The Spirit Level demonstrates. Despite the increase in tax credits, the proportion of wealth has fallen for the majority of us as much as it has risen for the richest 10% since the earlier 90s.

Up until now, the government has focused much more on opportunity much more than equality – it even has a name for it - “social mobility” and the most visible example of this is their approach to “getting people back into work”. The paradox though for the people that take this up is that they fall into a trap – they lose most of their benefits – housing & council tax as well as job seekers allowance while the rate of deduction of their tax rates rises significantly. This obviously discourages people from trying to get back into work, as well as the practical difficulties of being able to afford to get to job interviews or even broadband to search for jobs.

How will they be able to pay for the bills at the end of the month, not knowing how many hours their recruitment agency will give them to work and facing a sharp decrease in tax credits that takes place when you get a job?

Those who suffer the most are families with children – they experience marginal deduction rates of over 60%. The only benefit which reduces child poverty and does not contribute to deduction rates is Child Benefit. On the other hand, those benefits which increase the likelihood of entering a “poverty trap” are Working or Child Tax Credits. The difference between child benefit and tax credits is that the former is paid unconditionally and the latter is means-tested. In these times of change we can believe in, we would normally look to Obama, but the US is so far behind in terms of social protection, that it doesn't make sense this time round to be inspired. What we surely need then are more unconditional and non-withdrawable and less means-tested benefits to tackle child poverty?

How about a citizen's income?

A “citizen’s income” pushes all these buttons, so should the government need to reduce tax credits to pay for a “basic citizen's income” to everyone or should it increase taxes for those who earn more or even introduce a maximum wage to pay a “living citizen's income”?

What are the overriding benefits of a citizen’s income?

The Citizen’s Income Trust argues that it’s unconditional, so it would also reduce the stigma attached to means-tested benefits. Its non-withrawable, so it would also reduce the stress attached to working out how much they would be left with at the end of the month. It’s redistributive as income is redistributed from people who are better off more towards those less so. Those who earn the least would get a quarter more in come than they currently do, while those who earn the most would only get a bit less. The rest of us would either get an increase in income or would stay in the same position as we are now. It's empowering as it would also encourage more flexible working, lifelong learning and retraining which is so important at the moment.

A survey amongst MPs shows that there is support expressed right across the political spectrum that everyone would gain from getting a “citizen's income”. If we don’t want to turn back on our pledge to reduce child poverty by half by next year, we need to do better than the “milky bar budget” we got a few days ago. Isn’t it time for a citizen’s income?

Thanks to Cliph for the photo published under Creative Commons