Save the bees!

Friends of the Earth are asking people to sign their petition to save the bees.

Why?

Bee-cause...!

But seriously, read their petition to find out why the loss of bees is a major environmental issue.

Shared from the Justice Matters Facebook Page

Ungreening a generation?

If you are a politically aware or socially concious young adult, does that make you unusual?

"The Futures Company has quite strong views on Millennials, which have been covered in posts here in the past. So when I noticed an academic paper from San Diego State University, which argued – on the basis of a 30-year tracking study – that Millennials (the generation born in the late ‘80s or so) are much less politically and environmentally engaged than previous generations – it seemed to be fuel for the fire."

Read the full article here: http://blog.thefuturescompany.com/2012/05/04/ungreening-a-generation/

Shared from the Justice Matters Facebook Page

Reasons to be cheerful

I love this new video from Stop Climate Chaos - see what can be achieved when people get together!

May Bank Holiday

Happy Bank Holiday Monday friends! 

How are you using your day off? Did you know that in days gone by, it was common for people to give anonymous gifts to neighbours on May Day in the form of 'May baskets'? Personally, I spent most of the morning lazing in bed (listening to a particularly interesting Start the Week on Radio 4), but I wonder if any of us have made plans to spend this extra day off giving back to our neighbours and communities? Do let us know if you have. 

Perhaps its a tradition we should re-establish? 

Those of you who have been part of Justice Matters for some time will hopefully know that we have a monthly rhythm, but others won't be so clear. For anyone who didn't know or has forgotten, here's how it works:

Week 1 - Encourage; informal discussion over drinks in a local pub

Week 2 - Seek; space for you to volunteer or give in some practical way

Week 3 - Learn; formal gathering at Coffee Republic, often with guest speaker

Week 4 - Plead; space for self-organising gatherings of 2 to 4 members of JM to get together and campaign / pray for an issue close to their heart

Thanks to everyone who came along to our discussion on democracy and the London elections last week - the conversations were productive and fruitful by all accounts, so thanks for taking part. This Wednesday is the second on the month, so its a SEEK week - space for you to do something practical to foster social justice. If you are not currently involved in volunteering, ask us about ideas for where and how to get involved.

Next week, we have our activists networking evening at Coffee Republic. This will be an opportunity to get to know each other on a deeper level than perhaps has been possible so far, so we hope you will join us and make some interesting new connections in the process.

Getting plugged in

Life is pretty busy, we all know that, so keeping track of what's going on in your favourite network for activists, optimists and ordinary radicals can sometimes feel hard.

With this in mind, we are striving to make it as easy as possible for you to keep to keep up to date with what's going on at Justice Matters through the communication channel of your choice. To this end, we have a Facebook Page (please Like us!), a Twitter feed (please follow us!), updates on this website and we also circulate weekly email updates to members on our distribution list. Given that email is the most accessible channel, all the most important information is shared this way, so if you are not yet on our list and would like to be, please just drop us an email and we'll get that fixed.

We don't want to spam you with a hundred emails as week, so not everything we share on Facebook or this site goes out by email. For the full experience therefore you probably need to keep on eye on Facebook or this website. But don't worry if you don't have time to keep checking in to see if anything is new - you can sign up to receive blog updates direct to your email inbox using the box on the right of the page. Alternatively, subscribe to our RSS feed to consume our updates in Google Reader.

Hopefully we've made it possible for you to find the information you need in the way that works best for you. Our intention is to make it as easy as possible to know what's going on and thus how to get involved with the network. We aspire to be a significant, dynamic community of individuals, both active in our areas of interest and interconnected with each other. In light of that, we invite you to take your engagement with us seriously - please read our updates and make time to attend our gatherings. Likewise, if you come across stories, campaigns or articles that you'd like to share with other members of the community, do post them on the Facebook Page or email them to us and we'll put them on here.

In an age of consumer capitalism, active participation in anything is fairly counter-cultural. It is our belief however, that the only way that we will see real change in our communities and across our world, is for people to reject the consumerist approach to life in favour of a more intentional lifestyle that 'seek[s] the peace and prosperity of the city' rather than self-interest and personal gratification. This is the idea at the heart of Justice Matters. Thanks for coming this far with us. We hope you'll join in striving to continue living it out.

An unfamiliar landscape

I came across the image below on Facebook this week. Its an incredibly powerful reminder that, contrary to our popular misconception, the world does not revolve around the West. It also reminded me of the West Wing episode in which CJ meets the Cartographers for Social Equality (watch a clip here if you don't know what I'm talking about).

(Click the image to see a larger version on which you can actually read the text.)

At Justice Matters we want to develop a more accurate (and therefore humble) understanding of our place within this strange and wonderful Creation and the humanity which peoples it's surface. If you'd like to join us in exploring what that means, please drop us a message or just pitch up to one of our meetings. We look forward to meeting you as we learn to walk this unfamiliar landscape...

Justice Matters update

The next Justice Matters pub discussion is this Wednesday (2nd May).  We're going to be talking about the upcoming local and Mayoral elections, why it's important we cast our vote, thinking about some of the policy ideas being put forward and debating the options.

You might like to look at the London Elects website beforehand, but don't worry if you're clueless about the election - you're just as welcome!

We'll be at The Cavalier pub in Whetstone from 8pm and we look forward to seeing you there!

UPDATE
Good turnout to our discussion on the London Mayoral and Assembly elections, and democracy in general. Thanks to Viv and Andy for the excellent provocation and everyone for taking part. Our next gathering is on the 16th May at Coffee Republic. In the meantime, don't forget to vote!