When persusing the motions of old, I came across one which was not used that seemed like something we should do. This motion said that the minutes of Forums (or Things) should be published in DF news so that everyone knew what was going on. However, the minutes for Scottish Thing are some 8 pages long, and it would therefore be impractical to put them in DF news. So what I intend to do is to summarise what was discussed, the full minutes will be available online shortly.
This is a pack to raise awareness of DFs, it was decided to make this into a DVD as it would be more accessible and could be made more entertaining.
We are compiling all the rough guides of the past and putting them together in an updated and accessible form and they will probably be on the new website.
A new website for DFs is currently under design and which is expected to be up running by 22nd March. We also have our very own DF Wiki where you can write about all the things you love about DFs. This is very exciting as it can also be an interactive forum for group night ideas and other things to do on a district level. Hopefully this will mean we have many more active local groups.
We talked about an event to be run in the summer of 2009 to encourage more young people to become DFs by giving them a taste of what DFs is like.
We talked about finding locations and organisers for different events and finalised dates for the next year. We also made sure things were on track with imminent events.
You may or may not know that we now have a DF store with lots of useful equipment for camps and we now have two paid managers of the store to make sure our things are all right and to look into what else we need.
Thanks to excellent budgeting on the last year of events and hard working DFs at Workers Beer we now have about £12,500 in the bank when the cost of the Scottish thing is taken into effect. Some of this was raised years ago for the Palestine Israel campaign but then never used so it would be good to get that up and running again.
After the success of holding some elections at Winter Wonderland this year we are looking into the possibility of bringing a motion to Althing to move General Council elections to Winter Wonderland.
It was discussed, mostly on the train home, that we should organise a music festival in the summer to raise money for the movement and to increase knowledge of DFs. This would not be a DF event but would be organised by any DFs who want to get involved.
If you have any ideas relating to anything that has been discussed in this article or want to get involved in any of the projects then email someone in committee and we will be more than willing to accept help.
This article has been extracted from DF News Spring Edition 2008. Written by Jack Brown.
The District Fellows Movement is the 16-20 year old members of the co-operative educational youth charity, the woodcraft folk, whose ideology is based on the principles of equality, peace, social justice and co-operation, with an emphasis on the empowerment of young people.
DF meetings usually consist of a group of like minded individuals meeting up at a regular time and place (someone's house, or a pub for instance, or even a community hall if the group is large enough) and taking part in usual woodcraft activities. These activities range from co-operative games, orgainising events, workshops and discussions, and general socialising!
The DF movement also meets up on a national basis frequently, to hold both social, educational events and business events allowing everyone to be involved in the running of DF's...
North East Thing: 11th to 13th December
Winter Wonderland: 27th to 30th December
Span that World With Music: 26th to 28th February
Spring Awakening: 6th to 10th April
