I’ve spent this weekend at the Northern Gathering 2007, which is a sort of residential weekend away for Friends of the Earth groups in the North of England. Basically we all go to a hostel somewhere (York this time), do some workshops, have a site visit and generally socialise and network with members of other groups.
This year we held a mock House of Commons debate, where we discussed ‘Green Wash or Green Revolution?’. I ended up next to the leader on our side, so I got a couple of chances to stand up and lamblast the opposition’s arguments, although this did lead to people comparing me with John Prescott! I really got into the debate, to the point where I ended up making an impromptu speech inviting the House to ‘laud him [the opposition leader], applaud him and ignore him’. I didn’t think this was particularly good as a soundbite, but I got applause and cheers from both sides of the room, which was pretty cool. Even more surprising was the number of people who came up to me afterwards and said how convincing I’d sounded in both speeches and how well I’d come across generally. I don’t usually think that I come across terribly well when I’m delivering presentations, so it was nice to have people suggest that I should consider becoming an orator—especially as this was before the drinking started (but that’s another story…).
As well as the debating, I also came up with a couple of interesting ideas, including the possibility of writing a ‘How to get and retain members’ document for local groups to use and perhaps running a workshop at the next local groups conference. I seem to be gradually moving up in the world of FoE as well—most people seem to recognise me from previous events and activities—so all is well there. Other stuff is going less well, but I will post about that another time.