Viewing Message #7
Time : Fri 26-Oct-2007
From :
Subject : Simpol Newsletter No 5.
Message :
25/10/07
Dear Colleagues,
It has been sometime since we sent out the last newsletter. My apologies. In the interim neither the mind nor the body have been idle – but it has been appropriate to take time out and rethink the basic Simpol-NZ strategy. We have a General Election next year and we have either to make an impact then or wait another three years while the global situation continues to deteriorate at an ever-increasing speed.
At the recent AGM, the minutes of which will be posted out in the next couple of days, there were several aspects of policy discussed and all of which require further discussion. In this letter, to keep it all within the bounds of one attention span, I am writing about one aspect of internal organisation in particular.
I would be grateful for your response.<
Thank you.
Hugh
Local Action Committees.
If Simpol is going to achieve the very really possibility it has of success, it needs your help now. Think about it. Decide to do it and get in touch. Below I lay out the embryonic Local Committees that I can see being established based on present membership. If you find yourself as the only member of your Committee initially, be not dismayed – that’s what it’ll feel like every time you set out to establish a new Committee!! If every one who has adopted says “yes’ to this idea:
Northland would have one member.
Auckland would have eight members shared between two Committees.
Wellington would have three members
Nelson would have two members
Blenheim would have five members Christchurch would have one and a half members (the other half being time spent in France!)
Dunedin would have one member.
To cheer you up, I recently posted you the two most recent press releases from Simpol International – each announcing a new MP signing the Pledge to implement SP. The UK already has more SP Pledged MPs than Simpol-NZ has members!
If the system works in UK, it can certainly be made to work in NZ. Were we to achieve 25 MPs in the Beehive, we would already be far down the track of achieving our goal of making NZ the world leader in this movement for global change.
I also have pasted below an email I received this morning from ISPO (Simpol International) This is the sort of thing we have got to get into.
Please forward to your networks
What's Wrong with the Global Justice Movement?
Global Justice Strategy Forum
Saturday, 24th November 9.00am to 3.00pm
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Open to the public - free admission* - Tube: Holborn
While global activists cheerfully proclaimed 'victory' over globalisation after shutting down the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999, nearly 10 years on it has to be admitted that the free-market juggernaught has comprehensively swept the global justice movement aside.
Despite numerous protests, the World Social Forum, Make Poverty History, Live 8 and the support of a string of high-profile rock-stars, we should acknowledge that, while we've done a great job in raising public awareness of global problems, by and large our efforts to obtain adequate action by governments have failed. It's not that we've failed to get ANY government action; it's that it remains far too little compared to the really decisive moves needed if global warming, let alone other issues, are to be properly addressed.
Something is deeply wrong with our movement's strategy - meanwhile the planet burns. Isn't it time we admitted this failure and discussed it openly and honestly? If you're fed up with hearing only about global problems and want to hear about and work on practical and coherent solutions, be they local, national or global, then this forum is for you!
The Forum is being hosted by Simpol-UK and will open with a Forum Focus at which all attendees will have an opportunity to frame the debate and identify the key issues to which our panel of invited speakers will be asked to respond. The Forum will finish with a further opportunity for cross-fertilising the reactions and ideas of all present, crystallising the most promising solutions, while identifying any key issues which may need to be dealt with at a future Strategy Forum.
* Admission is free but to ensure sufficient space, you must reserve your seat by emailing Diana Trimble at dtrimble@simpol.org by no later than Friday 9th November.
Speakers:
Charles Secrett, former director, Friends of the Earth UK
Colin Hines, activist, author and former economist for Greenpeace
Aubrey Meyer, director, The Global Commons Institute http://www.gci.org.uk
David Wasdell, director, the Meridian Programme http://www.meridian.org.uk
John Bunzl, founder, the Simultaneous Policy http://www.simpol.org
Note: The Forum will be followed at 3.30 pm by Simpol-UK's Annual General Meeting.
Dear Colleagues,
It has been sometime since we sent out the last newsletter. My apologies. In the interim neither the mind nor the body have been idle – but it has been appropriate to take time out and rethink the basic Simpol-NZ strategy. We have a General Election next year and we have either to make an impact then or wait another three years while the global situation continues to deteriorate at an ever-increasing speed.
At the recent AGM, the minutes of which will be posted out in the next couple of days, there were several aspects of policy discussed and all of which require further discussion. In this letter, to keep it all within the bounds of one attention span, I am writing about one aspect of internal organisation in particular.
I would be grateful for your response.<
Thank you.
Hugh
Local Action Committees.
- Introduction.
Simpol has a difficult problem to resolve. It offers what many believe is the most rational and most accessible way forward from the current globalised anarchy. Indeed, far brighter people than I, believe Simpol’s proposal to be the only system of improved global governance in with a chance of resolving the developing crisis before it proves fatal to billions (among whom, we or, in what might be interpreted as a better case scenario, our children, will probably be included.)
The fact that the global success of the Simpol project could well be triggered by its initial success in New Zealand, leaves we few Kiwi Simpol Adopters, with a heavy responsibility.
We have this solution to the world’s weightiest problem in our grasp, but in order to have any hope of realising it, we need to gain the active support of another several thousand New Zealanders.
- The Problem we face.
To place it within reach of its goal, Simpol probably needs the support at election time, of about 1-2% of the electorate. However, even this small number is very hard to reach in the initial stages.
Simpol is based on a concept, which, though it is becoming ever more in harmony with the Zeitgeist, remains cerebral and unemotive. A Simpol Adopter of consequence, capable of an active contribution to the ultimate success of SP, has to pass through several gates. Firstly, acceptance of Simpol demands a relatively sophisticated understanding of, and concern for, the problems faced by the global community. Secondly, the potential Adopter has to have the time and attention span to devote to fully understanding the concept. Relatively few New Zealanders fall into both categories.
The problem does not end there. For sufficient people to pass through those first two gates they have to be informed of, and guided through the Simpol concept by someone who has passed through a third gate – that of having a small amount of time available, which they are prepared to donate to the active and systematic recruitment of new members.
John Bunzl argues that before someone can pass through the third gate they have to be armed, firstly with real FAITH that Simpol CAN work and be achieved and, secondly, with a genuine and wholehearted acceptance of personal RESPONSIBILITY for making it happen - in the certain knowledge that, if we citizens don't, no one else will.
Once Simpol can find the recruiters, it should not take long to find an additional 1-2% of the population prepared to passively support Simpol between elections and to give their vote to Simpol pledged candidates, when called upon to do so. Once Simpol has had a significant success in an election, it will not be difficult to engage a far higher percentage of the electorate in a more emotional embrace of the overall concept. - Experience so far.
As things stand, at the end of year one, Simpol-NZ has twenty-two Adopters. This is insufficient to swing an election! To-date, recruitment has been done, with a couple of notable exceptions, by one person – who happens to be based in Blenheim and thus, far and expensively removed from the major centres of population, which represent the most fertile recruiting grounds. The major task at this stage is to multiply one person’s efforts and to recruit and train recruiters.
With this in mind, I feel I have been making a tactical error in my recruitment drive. I have been presenting Simpol almost exclusively to activists working in international social justice NGOs. This wonderful group of people, almost without exception, pass through the first gate: of understanding that the global community has problems. With a couple of egregious exceptions, most of them could easily pass through the second. They take the trouble to listen and to understand the concept, at least in its basics. However, only a few have gone onto the next step and formally taken the time to Adopt SP. I try and explain this failure by trying to see the Simpol proposition through their eyes.
Firstly, they think they are already doing more than their share to improve the world and don’t need to take on any additional responsibility. Secondly, they probably come up against such ideas as “democratise the UN General Assembly” or appeals to support this or that petition, or “join us in lobbying so-and-so” on a fairly regular basis. Life is too busy and too short to give support to more than a very few of these distractions - unless they have first demonstrated that they are going to succeed and thereby, contribute to the goals of whichever NGO the recipient happens to be committed. Simpol, should it succeed, would certainly contribute to the resolution of their problems: but, will it succeed?
I am convinced that nearly all the people in NGO’s whom I have spoken to, will Adopt SP, if and when we can convince them that we are going to come out of the next election with even just three or four SP pledged MPs. However, be that as it may, I am also convinced that we are not going to be able to persuade more than a very few of them to become active in our search to recruit and train new Adopters. All the NGO people I have met, have huge workloads and many of them spend as much time out of the country, as they do in. They are all just too busy and too committed to other things. It is unrealistic for us to expect them to devote time to Simpol at any stage before what looks like the final push to the achievement of its goals. - What next?
As things stand at the moment, people Adopt Simpol and then read a few emailed newsletters while they sit and wait until the next General Election. At that time, they’ll be asked to write a letter to their candidates and then cast a vote on the big day. This is hardly a formula for the development of an enthusiastic and dynamic movement!
To overcome the inertia, which is built into the current system, and the inherent limitations of a one-man recruitment band, it was proposed at the last AGM that we should establish a system of local Action Committees around the country. I would ask every member and Adopter who reads this Simpol-NZ newsletter, to think about this proposal and to give me their comments as to whether or not they would be prepared to participate in it - and also, as to how this first draft of an initial proposal could be improved.
- The
Local Action Committee System.
In outline, the system would consist of a network of Local Committees, each consisting of not more than five members. The members of each Committee would be based within fairly easy geographical reach of each other – initially the gaps between members might be greater but, as the system builds up, there will always be the opportunity to establish or to join a Committee closer to home.
To start with, Adopters who express willingness to take on this commitment will join a Committee, on the basis of geographic proximity
Committee members establish email and, if feasible, physical contact with their colleagues. One member of each Local Committee is made responsible for communications, coordination and reporting with neighbouring committees.
The mission of each Local Committee is to:- Educate its members to better understand the Simpol and other mundialist offerings.
Organise its own programme of marketing and propagation of the idea (Giving talks, supporting local NGOs as an expression of Simpol solidarity, taking stalls at local shows & events etc.).
Organise its own programme for bringing home the concept of SP and its implication to local MPs and candidates for election.
Lobbying MPs on behalf of causes that are important matters of potential concern to the Simpol movement.
Recruitment and training of Adopters until their Committee reaches its ceiling membership of five.
Thereafter, uniting to assist one of its members establish a new Local Committee in a neighbouring locality.
Help initiate and formulate New Zealand proposals for Simultaneous Policies which will be fed back into the international Simpol system for further debate and discussion.
In addition to the above, Committee members can be seen walking the walk as well as talking the talk, by a symbolic reduction in their personal carbon footprints. (“Symbolic” as such individual moves are not going to resolve the fast approaching global crisis. Only concerted political action, such as that which we are attempting, can hope to achieve that.)
If Simpol is going to achieve the very really possibility it has of success, it needs your help now. Think about it. Decide to do it and get in touch. Below I lay out the embryonic Local Committees that I can see being established based on present membership. If you find yourself as the only member of your Committee initially, be not dismayed – that’s what it’ll feel like every time you set out to establish a new Committee!! If every one who has adopted says “yes’ to this idea:
Northland would have one member.
Auckland would have eight members shared between two Committees.
Wellington would have three members
Nelson would have two members
Blenheim would have five members Christchurch would have one and a half members (the other half being time spent in France!)
Dunedin would have one member.
To cheer you up, I recently posted you the two most recent press releases from Simpol International – each announcing a new MP signing the Pledge to implement SP. The UK already has more SP Pledged MPs than Simpol-NZ has members!
If the system works in UK, it can certainly be made to work in NZ. Were we to achieve 25 MPs in the Beehive, we would already be far down the track of achieving our goal of making NZ the world leader in this movement for global change.
I also have pasted below an email I received this morning from ISPO (Simpol International) This is the sort of thing we have got to get into.
Please forward to your networks
What's Wrong with the Global Justice Movement?
Global Justice Strategy Forum
Saturday, 24th November 9.00am to 3.00pm
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
Open to the public - free admission* - Tube: Holborn
While global activists cheerfully proclaimed 'victory' over globalisation after shutting down the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999, nearly 10 years on it has to be admitted that the free-market juggernaught has comprehensively swept the global justice movement aside.
Despite numerous protests, the World Social Forum, Make Poverty History, Live 8 and the support of a string of high-profile rock-stars, we should acknowledge that, while we've done a great job in raising public awareness of global problems, by and large our efforts to obtain adequate action by governments have failed. It's not that we've failed to get ANY government action; it's that it remains far too little compared to the really decisive moves needed if global warming, let alone other issues, are to be properly addressed.
Something is deeply wrong with our movement's strategy - meanwhile the planet burns. Isn't it time we admitted this failure and discussed it openly and honestly? If you're fed up with hearing only about global problems and want to hear about and work on practical and coherent solutions, be they local, national or global, then this forum is for you!
The Forum is being hosted by Simpol-UK and will open with a Forum Focus at which all attendees will have an opportunity to frame the debate and identify the key issues to which our panel of invited speakers will be asked to respond. The Forum will finish with a further opportunity for cross-fertilising the reactions and ideas of all present, crystallising the most promising solutions, while identifying any key issues which may need to be dealt with at a future Strategy Forum.
* Admission is free but to ensure sufficient space, you must reserve your seat by emailing Diana Trimble at dtrimble@simpol.org by no later than Friday 9th November.
Speakers:
Charles Secrett, former director, Friends of the Earth UK
Colin Hines, activist, author and former economist for Greenpeace
Aubrey Meyer, director, The Global Commons Institute http://www.gci.org.uk
David Wasdell, director, the Meridian Programme http://www.meridian.org.uk
John Bunzl, founder, the Simultaneous Policy http://www.simpol.org
Note: The Forum will be followed at 3.30 pm by Simpol-UK's Annual General Meeting.