Green Action Southampton

This coming bank holiday Monday is Environmental Rock 2013, the yearly green festival we help organise at The Hobbit where local green groups and businesses mingle with the public with a background of local musicians, veggie food, organic drinks and a huge raffle! Doors open at 12pm with the main day lasting until 6pm (after which the music carries on until late) – suggested entry donation of £1.

It’s officially a Green Action social, so it would be great if lots of you came along to enjoy the day (Green Action will be sharing a stall with SUCV and SAPAM under the SU EnviroSocs banner). We’re also looking for volunteers to help the day happen smoothly, so if you feel like helping out in return for free entry, a free raffle ticket and a free t-shirt (if you’re one of the first 20 to volunteer) than get in touch!

After last night’s AGM we have a new committe for the next academic year! Congratulations to the following for being voted in:

President: Tom Hicks
Treasurer: Adele Wratten
Secretary: Matt Worsdale

Co-ordinators:

Publicity: Matt & Amy Edwards
Campaigns: Matt & Tom
Socials: Amy Edwards
City group liaison: John Preston
Food Co-op: Rachael Avery & Amy Nicholass

Thanks to all who turned up, and we wish all the new committee members good luck in their roles!

If you’d like to read the official minutes of the meeting then read on:

Green Action AGM2013 (23/4/13) minutes:

Present: 14 members (David A. McKay, Rachael Avery, Tom Devine, Paul Kiddle, Chris Stow, John Preston, Sai On Lewis Tang, Joe Tait, Michael Cutter, Amy Edwards, Amy Nicholass, Matt Worsdale, Tom Hick, Adele Wratter), apologies from 3 (Craig Rye, Sally Jensen, Ben Barton)

• David A. McKay introduced the AGM as chairperson, explaining the roles available for election and what they involve
• Questions were received on the past direction and activities of Green Action and the role of Green Action on campus; it was established that Green Action’s role is to promote environmental awareness and campaigning on campus via any way the committee sees fit and that the last year has been quiet for Green Action due to many active members having heavy course workloads
• Nominations were invited for each position, with each candidate briefly stating what they would do if elected. The results for each position are summarised below: President: John Preston and Tom Hick nominated, Tom elected; Treasurer: Adele Wratten and Matt Worsdale nominated, Adele elected; Secretary: John Preston and Matt Worsdale nominated, Matt elected; Co-ordinators: Amy Edwards nominated for Publicity and Socials, Matt Worsdale nominated for Publicity and Campaigns, Tom Hicks nominated for Campaigns, John Preston nominated to liaise with relevant groups in the City, Rachael Avery and Amy Nicholass were nominated for Food Co-op, all were elected (with some roles shared)
• Overall the new committe promised in their speeches better publicity and promotion to try and expand awareness of the society on campus (and especially to relevant courses e.g. environmental science students), with support for starting new campaigns and carrying on with local community gardening and the food co-op
• Paul Kiddle led the Food Co-op GM (minutes to be made available to Food Co-op members on the FC website)
• The Treasurer’s report was presented, establishing that Green Action has £591.29 in the account (an increase of ~£100 on last year), mostly reflecting Food Co-op membership deposits and surplus and some budget leftover from SUSU 2011/12 allocation (due to the cancellation of a talk). SUSU has allocated us £45 over this last year used for printing and gardening costs
• A handover and planning meeting between new and old committees was proposed and accepted, to be organised to happen later this term
• The AGM was closed

The time has come to prepare for Green Action’s AGM! It’ll be on Monday 22nd April in the Nuffield Building Lecture Theatre C (06/1083) at 8pm (or meet us in The Stag’s Head from half 7), followed by a celebratory social afterwards.

This year there’s going to be a high turnover of current committee members graduating or becoming too busy in their degrees/PhDs to be organisers, so we encourage all of you to consider coming along and taking part to help Green Action carry on.

No previous experience (or even attendance) necessary, just enthusiasm and a desire to continue bringing environmental activism to Southampton university!

The main positions we have to fill are President (overall figurehead and co-ordinator), Treasurer (manages finances) and Secretary (stays on top of admin), with other co-ordinator positions including Publicity (make sure people hear about us), Activism (organise joining in with activism locally and across the country), Events (co-ordinate occassional events e.g. film showings, debates, workshops etc.) and Socials (keep everybody social!).

Positions are flexible and can be edited, but we’ll need at least 3 people taking the main roles to keep SUSU happy.  It would be a shame in this day and age to not be able to fill the positions needed to carry on Green Action as an affilliated society, so even if you haven’t been along before it would be great if you could get involved and help take Green Action in a new direction.

Have a good rest of your Easter break,

The Green Action Team

This week we’re excited to be putting on our first PowerDown gig of the Academic Year at The Art House this coming Saturday (24th November)!

PowerDown is an occasional unplugged, electricity-free and intimate gig run by Green Action Southampton. The space is lit by candles and all the acts – including Humla (Folk Rock), Skipped (Junk Band), Rich Mandell and Paul Kiddle – perform without amplification.  We’re being hosted by The Art House, who’ll be serving organic/fairtrade food and drink downstairs throughout.

To bag a place check out the website to book your free ticket – there’s limited space (around 40 places) so shotgun your place ASAP!  Tickets are free, but there’ll be a ‘Magic Hat’ being passed round for donations to help keep the not-for-profit Art House open to continue hosting events like ours.  Come along and bring friends and housemates – it should be a great evening!

Elsewhere this week there’s also a lecture by the Campaign Against Climate Change this Thursday, our sister-soc SAPAM are gardening on Saturday at Ropewalk Community Garden and on Sunday students are welcome to hope some locals build up their new community garden in thornhill.

Hope to see lots of you on Saturday,

The Green Action Team

P.s. There’s no official Monday Moot this week as we’re busy preparing for PowerDown (though a few people might end up at Candle Club at The Talking Heads later anyway), but Monday Moots will be back soon!

Hi everyone,

After having lots of fun at Soctoberfest last week, this Monday we’re getting on with planning some of our up and coming projects and events followed by some chilling to some live music at SUSU!

We’ll be heading over from The Stag’s Head at half 7 to Murray Building Room H (58/1025) [p.s. note we're heading over at half 7 rather than at 8pm!] to discuss upcoming plans (e.g. environmental rock, PowerDown, Food Co-op orders, community gardening etc.) and any new ideas members want to do, before heading over to see our friends in the Junk band Skipped at the SUSU Bridge Bar from 9pm.

If you want to get involved with any of our current projects or want to suggest something new, this is the perfect opportunity to come along and get involved with Green Action!

See you on Monday,

The Green Action team

This week the long-awaited Soctoberfest is on Wednesday at 8pm in The Bridge Bar (in the SUSU building on Highfield Campus) where all the campaigning, ethical and activist societies at the University will coming together to put on a party to welcome new people and celebrate what we do!

There’ll be great music featuring Anja McCloskey, the #tags, Nomibasra, Paul Kiddle, a Cycle-Power Soundsystem, Skipped junk-music and juggling, and with societies including (except ourselves!) Stop the Traffik, Fem-soc, SAPAM, the Conservation Volunteers, Water aid, Circus soc and more, with entry only £1.

This’ll be a great evening that we’d love to get as many people to as possible, so please come along and bring your friends and housemates for what’s set to be a fun evening of music and mingling!

As we’ll be so busy getting ready for Wednesday, this week’s Monday Moot will be a quieter affair, meeting at 7:30pm in The Stag’s Head (moving on somewhere else tbd after 8) for an informal catch-up and social.

Hosted by Medsin: Dr Danny Hutley is a Southampton graduated doctor, who was one of a group of students which got the UN to significantly change their climate change policy! Come along and find out what made him give up a promising career in medicine to campaign full time, and learn about the tools we can use as students to have a real impact on the course of world events.

# Followed by going to The Stag’s Head for a drink and chat! #

Welcome to both new and old members for this year’s Academic Year of Green Action! 

We’ve got lots of events and projects to get involved with over this coming year, the first of which is a joint Meet, Greet & Jamming session along with the Conservation Volunteers and SAPAM on Monday evening, where everyone can get to know each other and what we do better whilst listening to some live music (including by our very own junk band, SKIPPED) and enjoying nibbles and a variety of drinks!

Meet us from half 7 in The Stag’s Head (opposite the Union building on Highfield campus), and we’ll lead people from there to the Murray Building (58), Seminar Room H (1025).  Don’t worry if you haven’t met us before or don’t know where stuff is – look out for Green Action signs in The Stag’s and we’ll show you where to go!

Green Action brings together students who want to make a difference. We host workshops, socials, discussion groups, festivals and much more. Find out more and get involved!

We meet every Monday at 7:30pm in the Stag’s Head pub on Highfield campus. All welcome; whether you’re brand new to green issues or long in the tooth. Sign up to the mailing list to find out about what’s going on each week!

Some of the projects we’ve been running recently include:

Food Co-op:
A bulk-buy scheme for our members to get organic food at wholesale prices.

Ecological Economics:
A discussion group for finding out more about how our current economic models are failing us and what alternatives are available.

Environmental Rock:
An annual music festival at The Hobbit that brings together green groups and businesses from all over the South.

Socials:
Film nights, music nights, group trips, all sorts!