No Membership, No Logo, No Password: Just Turn Up

There’s a new movement building, and it doesn’t want your email address. No login, no password, no subscription, no logo. You just turn up.

It’s the antidote to everything pulling us apart: mass consumerism, an insecure job market, a housing market that moves people on before they learn their neighbours’ names, social media, evenings spent in front of the television, and the Neighbours from Hell idea that that’s just the way it is.

We can only really live in community. Rev. Paul, the priest at St Luke’s where we meet, puts it that living in unity is blessed by God forever. That stems from the early Christians who had to stay together to survive persecution. There’s a parallel there for us today. And we can’t even think without community, because nobody believes only themselves. Almost everything you know, you know because someone you trust told you.

Our recent film night showed ACTionism, a coming-of-age documentary about an 18-year-old school leaver who couldn’t make sense of her place in this climate-changing, unjust, brutish society. She starts doing the only thing that makes sense to her, fixing broken things, and finds her people in the re-use and upcycling trade, turning worn-out outdoor gear into things other people actually want. Nobody sold her a lifestyle, she just found something that made sense. A cure for climate anxiety and a fix for carbon emissions.

Some ideas for community engagement:

Turn up to one new thing next month: a film night, a community lunch, a community garden, a community energy group, a litter pick, a walk, a protest.
Take someone with you, because the second person makes it easier to do again.
Don’t wait to be organised! If the thing you want doesn’t exist, find someone like-minded and try starting it.

Turning up costs nothing, needs no new equipment, and always counts as action for nature or the climate, even if it’s only in comparison to what you would have done before.

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