In March 2023, the RSPB, WWF and National Trust launched the People’s Plan for Nature, a plan that had been created by a 103-member citizens’ assembly over four weekends. Why had three highly respected and popular conservation organisations in the UK made the decision to commission the People’s Assembly for Nature? How does this deliberative process fit with their campaigning and advocacy role and to their wider programmes of work?
The KNOCA Learning Call will unpack the motivation behind three of the UK’s largest charities commissioning the People’s Assembly and the wider National Conversation that fed into the Assembly. We will explore the blended nature of the Assembly – two weekends in person at the start and finish with two weekends online beforehand. And we will explore the responses to the Plan and Assembly from the three commissioners and a number of other civil society and public bodies. The central theme running through the Learning Call will be the creative tension between deliberative processes and civil society campaigning. How can these different logics be combined for productive ends?
We will be joined by Helen Meech, previously Head of Movement Building at RSPB (now Executive Director of the Climate Coalition) who originally came up with the idea; Kathryn Machin, Head of Community Engagement Campaigns at WWF-UK and co-commissioner of the People’s Assembly and Sarah Castell, CEO of Involve who designed and delivered the Assembly. More guests to follow.
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