General Social Change Stuff (by Lottie)

Ohai,

I've been pondering social change, lately. For your co-op to be a member of Radical Routes, each member needs to do 16 hours per week of work towards social change. We're not members yet, though we hope to be soon. So I'm trying to get myself motivated to get the hours done. I've got a piece of paper attached to my kitchen door, where I'll keep a log of how many hours I'm doing and how they're being spent. Generally speaking, here's some of the stuff I do already; it's not very energetic or radical, but I'm working on it. I'm going to blog here about anything really interesting I find, in case you're looking for inspiration.

• I do some gardening. I grow a few of my own veggies in my 12 x 14 foot raised-bed-like area. Here's some Flickr photos of how it looks when it's tidy and productive! I compost most of my food waste, and a lot of my non-food waste too.
• I knit a tiny hat every day for Innocent Drinks; for every hat on a smoothie that's sold, 35p goes to the awesome charity Age UK. I blog about it; the deadline approacheth, and I am way behind.
• I take part in the co-op cooking rota. Every week we all cook once for everyone. At the moment, I am really enjoying learning to cook new dishes. I plan to do a blog post working out how much money this saves.
• I do lots of little things; I use and talk about my Mooncup, I turn down plastic bags all the time, I recycle everything I can, I make things from other things so I don't have to pay for them, if I have good stuff I don't want I leave it on the side of the road for someone else, I buy only second hand clothes, and when I can I go to various community events.

I have this illness that means I can't get out and do things as much as I'd like, but when I have the energy I take part in protests and rallies for radical change. I like excuses to go to London on the train!

In the near future, I plan to take part in more community events as energy allows, especially sexuality and skillsharing gubbins. I'm very open to craft-related social change ideas and ideas for direct action, so bung your thoughts in the comments if you feel like it.

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