Winter Scheming at the RYSE

After a residential packed Summer the RYSE is spending our time this winter bedding down, regrounding in our roots, reconsolidating our work and building a strategy🌿

We’ve been around for 4 years now, and we’ve done a bunch of things .

Our OG tagline is ‘a home for our generation to learn the art of disobedience’ and the RYSE started with the intention of building an educational institution that could support a revolutionary youth movement.  We knew this institution had to be rooted in both global and local communities of resistance, and challenge miseducation.

Over the last 4 years we’ve experimented with lotsa ways to build and strengthen this vision.

You might know us for participating in the PRALER process + amplifying other community struggles. You might know us for our workshops we run at educational and activist gatherings, or residentials we run in Stroud. You might know us for the publications we’ve put out. You might know us for launching Mutiny, Stroud’s Youth Assembly. For opening Redz youth hub, or squatting the SISTER summer school. Maybe you’ve seen us at demos and events. Maybe its the general community work and open sessions we’ve done locally.

Long story short we’ve been a sprawling project, and through this we’ve built and sustained some epic stuff / opportunities. We’ve made bare resources, built a sick team and networks and now have Redz Youth Hub - we’re really proud especially of our staying power and our juggling of many strains of work at once in a small team.

But there’s a lot of weakness in this approach. We’ve been unfocused at times, and not prioritised the most important pieces of work. We’ve let ourselves be too reactive and at times bogged down, juggling lots of different relationships - struggling to balance local base building, internationalist accountabilities and educational work. These things need to go hand in hand, but we need to be more strategic about where we put our energy and day to day time.

We’re an ambitious bunch - often a strength - but we’re also absolute yes-men - so when we see something that needs doing we’re there and involved despite not having the time or resources often. These times call for focus and decisive action, not randomly showing up to everything we’re invited to, trying to fill every gap or weighing in on every issue.

And as many wise (and unwise) people have said - strategy means saying no, and knowing what we’re saying no to.

So we’re spending time this winter reflecting and planning. Shoring up our vehicle and setting a stronger direction. Its strategy time babeyyyy. What is the RYSE actually trying to be? What role(s) are we actually trying to play??

We’re discussing this with some of our comrades and trusted organisers from other organisations also - and if you have some cents to throw in please drop us a message or an email at theryse@riseup.net.  

To be clear, while we’re doing this internal work we won’t ignore the outside world (how could we??) We know we need to be responsive, not bury our heads in self indulgent process work.

So we are still going to be:

• Actively mobilising through reparations season with PRALER and delivering on Glocal projects.

  • This includes an event on the 14th of December at the Trinity Rooms, where we'll be digging into the question of "What is Wealth?" and fundraising for the PRALER Fund!

  • And please donate any unused tech you have hanging about to the Afrecycle! 

• Wrapping up educational work from the summer

• Coordinating a level of openness at redz

• Supporting Mutiny!

• Running Friends of the RYSE sessions - next one is Wednesday 12th November at Redz Youth hub!

• Organised in the Gloucestershire anti-fascist coalition - keep an eye out on the broadcast for this for the most up to date calls to action on this.

• Putting out some media / reflections - we're planning a RYSE in 2025 Magazine to come out end of November/start of December, so watch this space!

We also intend to document parts of the process that might be helpful to people, because well structured and thought through organisations are the backbone to a successful movement.

But we won’t really be saying yes to new stuff or taking on new work.

We’ll put the work in now so we can emerge stronger than ever; so family - see you in the new year!

The RYSE Team 🔥🔥🔥