A wrap on Summer 2025

Hey family, Roma here - 

As the early October chill blows through the valleys it can only mean one thing - an autumn of reflection, strategising and deep conversations is upon us. The go-getter, manic energy of the summer is quieting down and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. 

In the RYSE seasonal calendar, this also represents the start of a new year. We build our yearly plans in October-November, and then do our best to rest and get cozy for the cold months. The last two years, between the squat eviction in 2023 and the decolonial open communiversity in 2024, it hasn’t quite worked out like that, and we’ve suddenly found ourselves in January too tired from the extended summer to make good on all our plans.

This year, we really want to prioritise this part of the year to come back stronger and fighting fit for next year. 

But first - reflection - so what have we actually been up to? 

In a return to our roots as an organisation, we ran two residentials on topics that we’d been wondering about. Over the summer, we brought nearly 40 young organisers from different movements, backgrounds and places together to work out such easy and uncomplicated questions as: “why aren’t we talking about the climate crisis?” and “what does being English mean in a context where it is being used by the far-right as a racist identity?”. You can read our reflections on the climate residential here, and although the process for the englishness outcomes is a bit more complicated, soon we’ll be ready to talk about some of the answers and more interesting questions our group of young people came up with over that weekend. 

These sessions were not based around us giving people answers, but were based around a “problem posing” methodology, where we opened up the floor and designed exercises to draw out people's answers and experiences, relying on our participants to create their own answers. As a facilitator, I find this method mildly anxiety inducing because of how much it relies on the room, and the frame of mind you can cultivate with the culture setting, the food, the atmosphere. As an educator, I love this method. I love watching people get curious about each other and pool their learnings, and analyse their experiences. I love watching people actually engage with the question and each other. 

Last Autumn, we said we wanted to experiment with longer sessions and re-orientate ourselves to a national movement. Through the residentials, we had the chance to hold people through a longer educational journey after reflecting that the one off sessions we were doing - both locally in Stroud and nationally - were not allowing us to reach the depth of education and discussion we wanted to cultivate. We're looking forward to the chance to reflect on this - one of the things we’ve thought during both residentials is that it still didn’t feel like enough time to take people from strangers to having conversations and ideas that go beyond a surface level. 

So who knows, maybe the RYSE 6 week adventure camp is on it's way!

As well as hosting our own education, we also went along to a lot of things this year. Robin and I went to the New Organising Conference and ran a session for the progressive Trade Union movement on how schooling creates young people unequipped for collective organising, and met with union leaders and members in attendance. Sadly there were no members of the NEU in attendance for us to run our schooling ideas by. 

Some of us also attended the DSEI protest, attempting to shut down the world’s biggest arms fair. The policing was intense, but the protestor numbers were better than in previous years. I wrote about this for the New Internationalist, which you can find here! 

We're also still at Redz, and you can pop in for a cuppa at 6th Threadneedle Street! We supported Mutiny, Stroud's Youth Assembly, in their most recent assembly. They're about to launch an important October campaign - learn more here!

Looking forward, here are the outward facing autumn plans you're all invited to:

• Our next friends of the RYSE will be on October 8th, 6pm, at Redz, discussing outcomes from the Berlin AEPPPRADIF reparations conference! Grab your seat here!

• We'll be speaking on a panel about climate justice at this year's The World Transformed festival in Hulme, Manchester, from 10th-12th of October.

• Our Meg will be joining Zarah Sultana and other local organisers on Sunday 26th October at Stroud Brewery to discuss Your Party and community organising.

• To mark 250 years since the Stroud Water Riots, we'll be gathering at teh top of the high street on the 8th of November at 12pm! Expect collaborative art, music and some ceremonial dunking!

And although we're not super involved, some of our PRALER friends in Manchester are running a drive for people's unused technology to send to communities of resistance. If you have an old phone/hard drive/camera knocking about that you've been wondering what to do with, you can offer it to the tech drive here!

The RYSE has just turned four, and as we enter our fifth year of existance, we're still committed to building a powerful, educated and grounded youth movement. If you're with us, please spport by donating here!

Thanks for taking the time to read and find out what we are up to, if there's any questions, things you want to be involved in or contribute or just reflections, you can contact us at theryse@riseup.net!