New groups

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

And then get in touch after six months (or a year?) to see if they’re still solid?

Hey all

Our CRAG for Maryland is now up and running. We have one member other than myself (yay!- we are two weeks old!) and I am in recruitment phase. Visit our site and give us feedback if you have the time.

Setting up a new CRAG requires a few main things and if people don’t do them, I am not sure if you have a CRAG:

1. Set up a presence on the website that explains the group
2. recruit members
3. Establish your Carbon Year
4. Determine which emissions count and set and emissions target
5. Work to reduce your personal emissions
6. Report on your personal emissions

Perhaps you need to have an expectation for a few “core” things that have to be ready within a certain timeframe of starting the CRAG. Otherwise someone may be interested but can’t join or start one because their carbon accountant/leader is technically there but is asleep at the wheel.

Part of what is difficult with setting up a new CRAG is the chicken and egg conundrum- you want to have something there when people come to visit but it feels weird to develop the group goals without people. I have moved forward with setting an emissions target and a start date for September guessing that will give me a chance to find people and figure out exactly how their bills work for reporting. We are also doing a trial run in July just to help with this issue. Of course we are having to invent a few things as we go along because we have different units and assumptions in the US. There seemed to be a good bit of work involved in setting up the CRAG because there were a lot of questions to answer. I was also trying to figure out how the site worked at the same time, etc. Everything you need is pretty much here but it does take some time and thought to put it together. The CRAGs are very DIY and that is a big part of their charm but it is also part of what excludes some people.

You could also have proto-CRAGs, which is what Maryland is going to be until other groups in North America form their own. It’s like an internship- come to Maryland, be part of a CRAG to figure out how it works, and then hopefully go form one in your own state. Starting a new CRAG is intimidating and I’m not sure I would have done it, even with all the help from Andy and Robin, if I wasn’t such a global warming nut. Having a starter culture may screen out people who just come to the site on impulse, and remove the intimidation factor for people who want to start a CRAG but are overwhelmed by the starting energy.

Anyway, some thoughts since I just formed a CRAG.

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

That’s interesting feedback. So it would probably be a good idea to have a postcode-based group finder on the groups index page. If there was no nearby group, we could point users to a CRAG start-up guide.

andy_ross

website team CRAGger Glasgow Leamington

Not every CRAG will want to use the website or be very e-communicative but I do think it should be clear which CRAGs are “live” (i.e. have started their carbon year) and which are still “forming” (i.e. looking for a critical mass of members to get going). As long as the contact email is working and willing to be a contact, I don’t think we need delete any “forming” CRAGs.

I think the “live” CRAGs should clearly state their carbon year, ration and penalty/reward (if applicable) on the groups page.

The Leamington CRAG was effectively “dormant” for most of its carbon year but successfully settled up last April before podding into 3 new CRAGs (of which 2 are now “live” and 1 is still “forming”). Some CRAGs will want to meet regularly. Others will be happy to meet once or twice a year. Non-activity on a website does not equal non-activity in the real world.

Perhaps we could start with a couple of very simple questionnaires:

One to all CRAG admins:

Q1. Is your CRAG “live” (i.e. have you started your carbon year?)?
If yes, please answer 2A, 3A, etc.
If no, please answer 2B.

Q2A From when till when is your carbon year?
Q3A How many are in your CRAG?
Q4A What is your agreed ration?
Q5A What is your agreed penalty/reward?
Q6A Are you counting anything in addition to home energy, car and plane travel?

Q2B Do you need any help with getting things going?

Another to all registered users:

Q1 Are you part of a CRAG?

If yes, please answer 2A.
If no, please answer 2B.

Q2A To which CRAG do you belong?

Q2B Are you hoping to join or set up a CRAG?

Shall we send this out?

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

The CRAG admins questionnaire looks good, and is similar to emails I have been sending out trying to gather CRAG data: essentially templates that allowed admins to fill in their data, returning the email for a “superaccountant” to enter it into a spreadsheet e.g.:

Group info
Formed (date): 12/2006
Carbon year start (date): 1/12

2007 data
Members (#): 10
Carbon allowance (kgCO2/person): 4050
Carbon price penalty (p/kgCO2): 5
Carbon price reward (p/kgCO2): 5
Cap on carbon debt (pnds): ??

The information gathered from that is at CRAG Census spreadsheet, and you could probably tell from the level of information there whether a group is live or not, by whether they have set their targets etc. and started their carbon year. The spreadsheet needs updating and it takes a good deal of work, even with quite small numbers of groups. There’s a role someone could take on (i.e. superaccountant!) – any volunteers?!

It is worthwhile asking whether a group is live or not, but we need to be clear what “live” means: in my opinion it should be: i) targets set; ii) footprinting details decided; iii) carbon year started; iv) brief group description. Group status (“live” or “forming”) should then be clearly indicated on group pages and on the groups list.

As for the registered user questionnaire, I think if a person is registered on the website, then their membership of CRAG groups can be determined from the website groups they are subscribed to. We should be able to get lists of CRAG members in that way, which could save some work on questionnaires and collating information.

andy_ross

website team CRAGger Glasgow Leamington

From a questionnaire sent out to all CRAG admins over the summer, our best current estimate is as follows:

There are 14 active CRAGs (all in the UK) with a total population of at least 182 CRAGgers. [Note that this figure includes 49 brave WSP employees taking part in their PACT scheme – possibly the first company sponsored personal carbon allowance initiative – who may or may not consider themselves as CRAGgers!]

There are a further ten CRAGs in a more or less advanced stage of formation – three of which are in the US. These have a population of at least 52.

All the data that I have received are set out at the end of this message. You will see a number of “tbc“s(i.e. “to be confirmed”). If you can confirm any of them, please do so!

General feedback from the CRAGs included the following comments:

“The member sign-up is complicated for new people – right now on the sign-up form the only CRAG people can join is Islington. I don’t know if this is intentional. Is there a way to have someone click a box for a group and have it notify the site admin to contact the person to see if they are really interested?”

“The only thing that people struggle with is getting the hang of the website, mainly because we have our own yahoo group and public website so the crag only gets visited infrequently and people forget their usernames and passwords, and how to comment or reply etc etc.”

“An informal point that’s been made several times is whether ‘CRAG’ is the right acronym. This may sound daft, but it doesn’t take much of a leap to change one key letter, so we’ll probably go for a different acronym on launch. Do you have any experience from other schemes?”

“Some advice on motivating people and pinning them down to a meeting and recruiting new members would be useful.”

“I think we could do with a starter pack of resources, howto guides for
banners, cards, posters availablefor new groups. A mentoring system
would probably be good too.”

CRAG name – status – number of members – carbon year or first meeting – allowance – cost of carbon debt – other

Islington – active – 10 – 01/12/06 to 30/11/07 – 4050kg – 5p/kg – 6 monthly carbon settlement
Oxford – active – tbc – 01/01/07 to 31/12/07 – tbc – tbc
Glasgow – active – 12 – 01/01/07 to 31/12/07 – 4500kg – 0p/kg or 7p/kg – counting long-haul train and bus
Birmingham – active – 15 – 01/01/07 to 31/12/07 – 4500kg – 0p/kg in year 1 – counting significant non-commuting train and bus journeys
Wokingham – active – tbc – 01/01/07 to 31/12/07 – 4500kg – 2p/kg
Surrey Green Party – active – 7 – 01/01/07 to 31/12/07 – 4000kg – 10p/kg
Langport – active – 7 – 01/04/07 to 31/03/08 – 8400kg – 2p/kg – £100 maximum
Hereford – active – 12 – 01/04/07 to 31/03/08 – 4000kg – 0p/kg but possible labour swaps! – counting public transport > 30 miles
Redland – active – 15 – 01/04/07 to 31/03/08 – 4500kg – 4p/kg or 8hrs work per tonne – £100 maximum
Sevenoaks – active – 9 – 01/04/07 to 31/03/08 – 5000kg average – 4p/kg with proceeds going to charitable offsets
Leeds – active – 25 – 01/04/07 to 31/03/08 – individually set – individually set
York – active – 10 – 01/06/07 to 31/05/08 – 4500kg – penalty not decided – food being considered
WSP – active – 49 – 01/10/07 to 30/09/08 – 6000kg – maximum payment or receipt of £100
Leicester – active – 5 – 01/09/07 to 31/08/08 – 4500kg – 4p/kg penalty – counting public transport
Maryland, USA – active – 4 – 01/12/07

Stratford – start-up – 10 – first met in July 07

North Herefordshire – start-up – 10 – meeting in Sept 07
Stroud – start-up – 10 – meeting on 19/09/07

East Kent – start-up – 4 – hoping to start 01/10/07

Peckham – start-up – 3 – meeting on 16/10/07
Exeter – start-up – 3 – hoping to start 01/04/08

Columbia Gorge, USA – start-up – 1 – meeting tbc
Atlanta, USA – start-up – 5 – meeting tbc
Tower Hamlets – start-up – 2 – meeting tbc

Leamington – dormant – original membership dispersed to other groups

copied to the CRAG census thread – please post any further CRAGs data there. cheers, david.

Georgia, one of our 50 states in the USA, will be forming a CRAG. I am very excited for Kirti, expecially since she has already recruited about 10 members!

Georgia’s site is up and running as of today, thanks to Andy. I think Kirti has ten members already.

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

John, I think this is a great piece. It’s very readable, and gives a good insight into running a CRAG.

I’d suggest, however, that it goes in as the Starting new CRAGs wikipage. That tag has a variety of other resources and threads under it, and this material seems a natural summary for it. The How do we start a CRAG? FAQ page could stay as a short bullet list, but link in with the longer piece.