AYCC is awesome. That’s all there is to it. We have brilliant people volunteering, great plans for the future and all the ability in the world. I’ve come to this realisation over the last week at ‘Summer of Solutions’.
‘Summer of Solutions’ is what is happening all week this week in Newtown, Sydney – young AYCC organisers coming together from all around Australia – Melbourne, Brisbane, Lismore, Newcastle, Sydney and many more regions – to help plan and organise Power Shift 2009. We’ve had people aged from 15-25 rock up, of all different religions, races, political beliefs and with different opinions on what we should do to help prevent climate change, and we’ve all managed to unite around Power Shift. We have had people pitch promotional campaigns, we have media strategies in place, we have developed a comprehensive faith outreach program for the event, we have key recruitment coordinators in most states and have almost finished developing all the resources we need!
We’ve had a variety of trainings – how to write effective emails, how to talk to and approach the media, speech-writing and public speaking, how to speak to lecture theatres and school assemblies, and general brainstorming about Power Shift. I have been so impressed and proud of all our Power Shifters – each one of them came up with a brilliant way of putting the training into action – writing emails to friends or writing speeches to deliver when they get home; coming up with media strategies for the event or developing stories to pitch to their local media. Most exciting is some of the brainstormed ideas for the summit including wicked bands, people on stilts, jugglers, drumming bands, great speakers, fun and educational workshops and awesome networking opportunities.
This week has been like a mini-Power Shift – fantastic young people learning from each other, getting to know each other, having fun and coming together around a common cause – climate change. If Power Shift can be only half as good as this week has been, it will be an event that I know I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
I hope to see you at Power Shift!!!
Jess Willis
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If you’d like more information or to get involved in Power Shift, email Jess at:
jess.willis@youthclimatecoalition.org
