True Spring Assembly

In the sunshine of True Spring or Poorneet (tadpole) season we gathered at RMIT PlaceLab to connect and share the abundances of spring. On the same day, we woke up to the news that six of Earth’s nine planetary boundaries have been breached, while simultaneously pressure in all boundary processes is increasing. This raised the question - how do we reconcile the different postures between the experience of this life giving season, and the knowledge of how threatened life currently is?

Part of the work ahead is creating resilient and adaptive social infrastructure for collective impact. We have a responsibility to acknowledge our contribution to the problem, but also to act. Looking back at our history, we can draw inspiration from the restoration of the Ozone layer, which was once a transgressed limit before it was restored to a healthy state through global cooperation. We have the ability and experience to accomplish the seemingly impossible, together.

Following the format of previous assemblies, the team introduced our portfolio of Wildly Ambitious Projects and set up stations for everyone to explore the different aspects of activity happening across Regen Melbourne - all connected by the shared spirit of taking agency and action for the city we love.

Missed it or are interested in coming along to the next one? Here is a quick recap.

Swimmable Birrarung: What emotional or cultural story stops you from jumping into the river right now?
Participatory Melbourne: What does it mean to participate in our neighbourhoods, the commons, the market and the state? What feels similar in these domains, what is different?
Regen Streets: What is your recipe for your Regenerative Street?
Measuring What Matters: How can we use the City Portrait as a compass for transformative action?
Other: How do we engage in collaborative play with Doughnut Economics, to work together and save the world?

Swimmable Birrarung

When we introduce the Wildly Ambitious Project to make the Birrarung/Yarra River swimmable again people either light up with excitement and a story they have about the river, or grimace and say “good luck”.

We’re constantly learning about the barriers to a swimmable Birrarung - some real and some perceived., Challenges such as stormwater drainage, upstream agricultural pollution, the fact it’s illegal, Melburnians generally low literacy on river safety (compared to beach safety), the list goes on.

What we don’t know enough about is this inherited, embodied, emotional response that people have when we ask *“and what is stopping you from jumping in, right now?”.*

Charity’s group discussed some of the main reasons including the tonnes of pollution that end up in the river, making it unsafe and unappealing to swim in.
They identified a deep need for more data transparency on water quality, so that we can play an active role in stewardship of the river’s health and all its connected tributaries.

Other insights from the group:
Someone mentioned that they have been swimming upstream at Warrandyte their entire life
Everyone agreed they would like to see flourishing plant life and the platypus come back
And, our ever favourite question of “why swimmability?”

Participatory Melbourne

After the exploration phase, Participatory Melbourne is emerging as an initiative with the goal of a thriving democratic life for all. What capacities, infrastructure and conditions do we need to meaningfully participate in all the realms of our lives, and ultimate pursue freedoms within the systems we live in rather than pursue freedom from the systems we live in (thanks Indy Johar for that zinger).

To this end, we’re starting to look at what meaningful participation looks like across multiple domains of our life. In this way we can understand the connections between what it means to participate in our place.

**Caro’s group played with the idea of participation across four different areas: bonding neighbourhoods; activating the commons; realigning institutions; and rewiring value.**

These clusters resonated as a way to capture the different areas where we see, or want to see, participation. We talked about whether there were ‘sequential’ and had a starting spot at the neighbourhood level which then encouraged participation into other areas. While this might be the case for some people, thinking about the domains as intersecting non-linear spaces to develop the conditions for participation was felt was more impactful, it could be that participation in a co-operative or B -corp (rewiring value) then spreads into more neighbourhood participation.
Our “ask” for the next phase is to help unlock how we might help people take that first step to get household and commons level things happening and identify the barriers that are in the way for them.

Regen Streets

Regen Streets is all about downscaling and localising our regenerative movement at the neighbourhood level.

Nina, our experienced local convenor for Village Zero Sandringham, layed out the different ingredients that were at play in getting Village Zero started including: federal government backing, an engaged local council, diverse community groups, a brand, capacity to organise, a library to meet in. This station then explored which ingredients are staples and which other ingredients give the cake their own unique flavours of place.

**After everyone sharing different experiences and talking with Nina, the recipe book was added to:**

“Courage to step up” was a necessary binding ingredient to add to the mix early on, this reflects the new style of active leadership we’re seeing in places that aren’t seeking permission to take the climate crisis into their own hands
Having clear, visible outcomes and actions early on to help with momentum
Willingness to connect and be vulnerable in establishing shared ways of communicating and a shared vision

Measuring What Matters

Recently, much of Regen Melbourne’s work has been focused on the City Portrait. We’re getting ready for a launch in November and the digital prototype has been in testing mode as part of the Wild Hope: Conversations for a Planetary Commons exhibition, in collaboration with RMIT University and PlaceLab.

Quick recap: The City Portrait is a snapshot of Greater Melbourne’ progress towards meeting the needs of society while not transgressing the means of our earth's systems (no surprises, we’re currently not doing either) - organised around a conceptual model for economies in the 21st century, called Doughnut Economics.

The Doughnut can be used in two ways, as a mirror to reflect how well we’re doing toward that ultimate goal, and as a compass to guide us toward what we need to get there. A lot of our recent work has been developing the ‘mirror’ part, collectively setting the goals then metrics for our social foundations, while working with researchers on our planetary overshoot. This way by November 13th (launch day!) we’ll be able to show a snapshot of our city’s progress.

But what about the compass? What will we do with this information, and what is already underway either individually or organisationally that is contributing to this progress?

Alison’s station explored this question - *how can we link the data from the City Portrait to the transformative action we know we need?*

Identifying the importance of showing linkages between the various dimensions of the Doughnut to illustrate and understand how the city works as a system
The value of showing very indicatively how movement can happen (shortfall or overshoot growing or shrinking) due to different actions or changing patterns, but acknowledging that it's impossible to show the contribution of a single action on the change.
Using stories for helping key messages to stick in people's minds and starting messages with shared values and visions that resonate strongly. For example, effective messages about ending homelessness have started with health as a human right, because people agree with that more consistently.

Other

Our most famous project area, where all the bits happen that don’t fit neatly into the existing portfolio.

This was filled by the wonderful alliance member, Katherine Cunningham of AlchemicalWork, who led a game of Earth Rising. Players work together to bring the world into sustainable harmony - playing with roles like eco-investor, activist and politician to collaboratively reduce the strain on our planetary boundaries.

Basically - Doughnut Economics in game form (we highly recommend!).