[Peakoil] Re: Formalisation of roles

[Leigh Kite]

If anyone doesn't agree with all this, now is the time to sing up.  :)

To assist in understanding the thought process behind the mission 
statement: -

The first draft didn't have the "environment" and "sustainability" wording 
because the primary
thrust of members has been "Peak Oil within a framework of (environmental) 
sustainability",
and we've identified the fact that "sustainability" opens up an entire can 
of worms (eg the entire energy crisis, environmental destruction, a poor 
system of economics, etc).


Regarding "public, political and corporate": -

In order to run campaigns, you need an "engagement strategy" produced by 
public affairs/marketing lead, technical lead and strategic management.  We 
haven't done this yet, but the entire target audience should fit
into these three categories: -

*    General public (the average, below average and above average Aussie 
just living their lives);

*    Political (Federal, state, local);

*    Corporate (all business's and industry).


Regarding "raising awareness": -

The most strategic thing the ACTOAG can do for now is focus on raising 
awareness of Peak Oil to the Australian people.

The reasons for this are: -

*    A high enough level of expertise and experience or seniority in 
pertinent fields doesn't yet exist
      within the group for full scale political and corporate engagement;

*    There doesn't yet exist a high enough level of group cohesion and 
organisation to consider
      complex and risky campaigns (such as aggressive political/industrial 
engagement).

Most of us are in our earlyish 20's and don't have a great deal of 
experience NGOing.  It wouldn't be a good idea to be in a position where we 
find ourselves going head to head with senior economists and ministers only 
to be blown out of the water.  We also don't want the advice we dispense to 
the Australian
people too heavily criticised by various squeezers from the antidepletionist 
camp and develop a bad reputation.


Regarding "welcome mats and new comers etc"...

Yes, we are going to help people out with ideas for what they can do and 
give them support etc etc, but what Keith has said raises an important 
issue: - We still have nothing to say because we don't know the answers 
ourselves!

One of the first campaigns we'll probably launch will be something of a "how 
do I develop a fossil fuel independance to ease the transition when it 
starts to really sting" kind of thing.

When that ramps up, we can have a two paragraph mission statement with the 
second bit saying something along the lines of "To assist the Australian 
people with the transition by developing and presenting strategies for a 
post carbon lifestyle" or whatever.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith Thomas" <keith at evfit.com>
To: "ACT Peak Oil discussion Oil discussion" <peakoil at act-peakoil.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 8:35 PM
Subject: [Peakoil] Re: Formalisation of roles


>I like this.  The marrying of 'sustainability' with 'environmental' brings 
>in the human, social aspect.
>
> If I wanted to split hairs, I'd say that 'raising awareness' is pretty 
> hands off.  It implies that we don't see any role for the group in 
> advising people.  That's prudent.  However, when the statement sees the 
> group drawing out the implications for sustainability and the environment, 
> we are channelling our perspective to some extent; there is implicitly a 
> judgement on where priorities lie as we have gone beyond mere 
> awareness-raising.  I, for one, agree that we should do this, I just want 
> it to be openly understood at this stage (for example, we have not 
> mentioned the religious aspects, the aspect of equity - thank goodness!).
>
> I thought about the special reference to 'corporate'.  At first I thought 
> it was odd because it's originally a US term and, to me, it's implied in 
> the 'public, political'.  But then I remembered the film many of us saw 
> last year "The Corporation", so I'm happy to leave 'corporate' in the 
> statement.
>
> About the only thing that I see missing is that we will provide mutual 
> support.  Newcomers might come to us with questions, doubts, worries and 
> look to us first-up to help them put things in perspective and I'd like to 
> see that 'welcome mat' obvious to them when they first arrive. Do you 
> think we should include that role at the mission statement level? It could 
> quite easily go in an "about us" section of our re-designed webpage - 
> which I expect will be one consequence of these deliberations.
>
> Anyway, I'm content to go with what Leigh posted. His proposed statement 
> doesn't exclude our straying beyond our mission should the need and the 
> occasion arise, but it's a useful, practical, easily-understood statement 
> that will help newcomers understand our role (what we do and what we don't 
> do). And if we don't like the statement in the future, well, we change it!
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Keith Thomas
> www.evfit.com
> --------------------------------------------
> On 08/09/2005, at 6:07 PM, Leigh Kite wrote:
>
> Mission statement too long, here's draft three: -
>
> "To raise public, political and corporate awareness within Australia of 
> the inevitable decline in
> availability of oil by researching, analysing and presenting the issue of 
> Peak Oil and the surrounding sustainability and environmental impacts."
>
> Are we happy?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Leigh
>
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