Our Report to GC

Feb 22, 2012 by louise delmege    No Comments    Posted under: Chair of DF Committee

In order to improve the communications between the wider Woodcraft Folk and us fine individuals your committee sent of a report about everything we’ve been up to to General Council. If you wanna check it out, it’s right here…

So much has been going on in this, another fabulous year of the DF Movement.

Getting involved with DFs has never been easier. During those long, cold, weeks away from our friends there are now a thousand ways to keep your DF spirits up. The new Challenge of the Month idea is going strong. It encourages everyone to contribute to the Movement in easy ways, such as, sending in photos from an event or writing a recipe for vegan cake. Of course the Zine is still going strong, anyone can contribute to it at any time.

Projects like MEST-UP, Rainbow Network and Right to Play are going strong. Opportunities to learn new skills, teach others and change the world are being created all the time. You will have seen their work at CoCamp this year where they, particularly MEST-UP proved invaluable for the event. The PARTY project looks all set to begin growing again this year in tune with our Direct your Democracy Campaign.

Our annual events are still going strong. As well as our three big social events many more local and grassroots weekends of fun are going strong. Spanthatworld with Music and Costume were fantastic successes. The over £1000 raised went to Stanley district to help them bring a delegation of refugees to CoCamp as part of our Right to Refuge Campaign. Our brand new Fundraising Weekend had a shaky start but plans for 2012′s event are all set to make it fantastic. Our Welsh DFs have brought back the wonderful Valentine’s Hostel, keeping a bit of romance in our lives along with a Bradford based Valentine’s gig, showing off local talent.

Post CoCamp lack of funds meant that DF Camp was a bit smaller than in previous summers but this was more than made up for by the company of our fine friends who’ve left DFs in recent years. We hope to keep our links with the rest of Kinsfolk as strong as ever and look forward to more events like Winter Kinting in years to come. Both Winter Wonderland’s have been roaring successes, including our first alcohol free event, proving that we don’t need anything to help us have a great time.

Things are still the shining beacon of democracy they have always been. London Thing had a few problems, but thanks to the resilience of DFs and our unwillingness to let anything come between us and business time we managed to make it one of the best business events ever. In order to make sure all our future events are problem free we’ve ramped up the support for our event coordinators. We can now proudly say that no prior experience is necessary to run a DF event, more than just our Events rep, more than DF Committee, the entire Movement is ready to support our coordinators with whatever they need. Our brand new events pack is a shining example of this. As is the facebook group where KPs old and new (and not just DFs) can share tips and tricks on how to plan a delicious, vegan menu.

DFs continue to fight sexist, exclusive and aggressive behaviour within ourselves and across all of the Woodcraft Folk. Our new consent policy, to be read at the start of event event, makes it clear to all those who attend that the culture of the DF Movement is not one that accepts any action that offends the values we stand for. Our Putting an End to “Boys will be Boys” workshop pack is an invaluable resource for all ages of the Folk. We hope to make it easier to educate others for this social change. The improvements to out event coordinator support will mean that any questions on the appropriateness of an activity will be answered prior to the event. This will remove any possibility that the issues of last years Winter Wonderland South could be repeated.

We’re working hard to find ways to help first time DFs get along at events. It’s always scary being plunged into a group of new people and even though we know we’re wonderful, friendly and down to earth folk we need to work on getting that across. We trialled a “Buddies” plan, where a new DF would be paired up with a more experienced DF “buddy”, to help show them the ropes and introduce them to us all. We had loads of volunteers from DFs wanting to make a new friend but sadly the new DFs weren’t so interested in the idea. So, we are now working on other ways to appear less intimidating. Thinking up new clan, based activities at the start of events should help, as well as a selection of fancy name games.

Our work within our districts is ever improving. As well as our local and regional DF events we have begun the New Roots Fund to help provide the financial resources to kick start new groups. We’re doing everything we can to help Woodcraft grow into the beacon of an organisation we deserve to be.

 

Here’s what General Council thought of the report…

“Ebullient Report” – Jack Brown  

GC felt that DFs often only come up in a negative light, more reports like these will show GC what we’re really up to.

Also, the wider Woodcraft Folk is up to a lot of the same stuff as us, hopefully these improved communications will help us work together. Perhaps our DF rep to GC could take more detailed reports from our Things to their meetings.