New Toronto West CRAG

Hey it’s great to hear that you are starting a CRAG in Toronto; there is also one starting in Vancouver! Let me know if you want any help setting up. I was really excited to hear that our CBS thing inspired you- it made my day!

Shannon

Jessica

website team CRAGger Islington

Hi Anders – Delighted to hear you and Heather are setting up a CRAG. We look forward to hearing how you get on, so please keep us updated on here. Good luck!

andy_ross

website team CRAGger Glasgow Leamington

I just received an email from someone in Ottawa keen to know how to go about finding others interested in starting a CRAG. I have posted my reply below but I am sure Michael would welcome any additional thoughts, especially from Canadians.

Hi Michael

Great to hear you would like to set up a CRAG in Ottawa. In your situation (which was mine 18 months ago), there are at least two ways you can do it.

1. Send out e-publicity to as many green groups and poster as many green venues as you can find in the city giving a date, time and place of an Intro to CRAGs meeting. I held this at my flat. I didn’t know if anyone would come. In the end about 10 people did, most of whom liked the idea when I explained what is was about, and now we are about 20 (if you include the kiddies!)

2. Publicise your meeting morely wider public through the local papers, radio stations, community websites, etc. Book a larger, more formal venue and hope you can fill it. The local council might offer you a room for free if you tell them what it is about.

The pros of the first approach are the opposite of the cons of the second approach and vice versa namely:

1. is likely to result in a small group of keen committed and supportive members who “get it” pretty much from the off and are not put off by the “less is good” message. In the subsequent meeting or two, you will manage to agree on how your CRAG will operate and go “active” within three months of the initial meeting. Most of your members will already be pretty heavily committed to other activities so, while willing to participate in the CRAG, don’t be disappoint if most do not have the time to help you facilitate the group or seed new groups if that is what you would like to do.

2. is likely to result in a larger, more mixed initial gathering of people, some of whom may actually be there to argue against what you are proposing! It will be more difficult to establish a consensus over what you will count, how it will be counted, what ration you will allow yourselves and what reward/penalty system you will apply at the end of year for carbon saving/debt. You may end up with something that is very different from what you originally envisaged. On the other hand, you may enthuse someone who is not tied up with other commitments and decides the CRAG is what they want to do.

If you go for the first approach, here are a few sites worth contacting that I have just googled up by entering “ottawa” and “green”:

http://www.planetfriendly.net/ottawa-environmental.html#centres
http://www.ottawagreens.ca/ottawacentre/
http://greenlivingottawa.com/
http://www.biothinking.com/greendrinks/index.php?country=Canada&city=Ott…

I am sure you will have no problem finding a roomful of people willing to throw around some CRAGgy ideas if you put some feelers out.

One word of warning, you may at some point find yourself caught in an ideological hole where some don’t like the equity aspect of CRAGs because it sounds too socialist, others don’t like the financial aspect of CRAGs because it sounds too market oriented, still more don’t like the rationing aspect of CRAGs because it sounds too big brotherish, etc, etc. So have your polite counter-arguments prepared before hand! For a great insight into the problem check out this article. It was written well before the emergence of CRAGs and unfortunately most of it is still spot on!

http://www.eco-action.org/dt/blame.html

Lastly, please get in touch with the other North American CRAGs because, unlike me, they actually have some experience of taking the CRAG message to the North American public. So feel free to ignore all of the above!

Good luck!

Andy