Affinity groups

Affinity groups are small groups of ~10 people undertaking non-violent direct action (NVDA) together. On this page, we provide information to support XR affinity groups. See end of page for guidance on when to use these different documents.

Rebels who wish to be in an affinity group (AG) must attend an XR non-violent direct action training (NVDA). Exceptions may be made for those highly experienced in NVDA, however they still must be briefed on XR organization and action agreements.

Affinity groups may be formed at or after NVDA training. If you already know people who you would like to form an affinity group with, it is ideal if you can attend the same NVDA training but you may form an AG together after each of you are trained as well.

Organization and action planning

  1. welcome pack: how to form an XR AG, roles within AGs, meeting agendas, spokescouncils, and more.

  2. All actions must adhere to the information in our NVDA intro, which includes the XR principles and the XR action consensus

  3. To go forward with an action, AGs must follow this process of approval with the Action/Strategy working groups or AG spokescouncil (section 7 of the welcome package).

  4. XR UK has put together this Action, Arts, and Logistics How-to manual. Be careful to discern XR UK specific sections, particularly with legal information.

  5. Scouting manual from RUCKUS to guide your assessment of locations for actions

Wellbeing before/during actions

  1. VERY IMPORTANT, XR Mass specific: documents covering the basics of legal info and NVDA support are shared in NVDA training. Please contact your NVDA training organizer if you misplaced your copy of these documents.

  2. XR Mass specific FAQ: feel free to comment in new questions if you can't find the information you need after reading the other documents.

  3. Not all of the available XR UK action-regen information is relevant to XR Mass. Thus, the regenerative culture group has included some useful ones below, and put together a set of excerpts.

  4. Descalation at actions and non-violent communication (from XR UK)

  5. Contact our arrestee support team (as.xrmass@gmail.com) to notify them of any arrestable action well in advance. They can help liaise with the National Lawyers' Guild to provide legal observers at the action and legal representation in court.

  6. Check out our action safety page.

Wellbeing after actions

  1. Post-action check-in for affinity groups immediately following an action (from XR UK)

  2. Very important action debrief 1-3 days after the action, with editable template to send back to working groups (from XR UK). More about how to debrief.

  3. Inform our arrestee support team (as.xrmass@gmail.com) about who got arrested, where they were sent to jail, and about any court dates. Affinity groups must have jail support built in. Our arrestee support team is there to bring extra people to support our arrestees in court and show our massive appreciation!

  4. If you're struggling after an action, check out this information on action trauma.

Media

  1. Social Media (email: socialmediaxr@gmail.com): send our social media team advertisements before your actions and any media generated during your action for online promotion. Our media team can also provide editting help for your press releases, and help contact TV, radio, and newspapers.

  2. If you want to invite the public, put your affinity group event on our calendar

Arts and Flyers

  1. Songs are a great way to shape the energy at actions, whether to de-escalate or increase morale - we consider it an integral part of action wellbeing. Here's an excellent climate songbook from Thrive Street Choir.

  2. General XR arts resources

  3. XR Mass flyers: both editable templates and ready-to-print. Includes a "We're sorry" flyer to hand-out if disrupting the public.

How to use these documents

To help you use these documents effectively, we've outlined the process you might go through to plan actions and indicated which documents that will help along the way. (OA:Organizational/action documents, BA: wellbeing before/during actions, AA: wellbeing after actions (debriefing), AF: arts and flyers).

  1. Attend XR NVDA training (OA2, WB1)

  2. Create affinity groups and meet together (OA1)

  3. Create action proposal (OA1, OA4-5)

  4. Go through an approval process (OA3)

  5. Prepare for your action

    • Review OA2: action consensus and principles
    • OA1, OA4, AF section
    • Prepare for wellbeing on the action (BA1-4), including arrestee support (BA5)

  6. Action!

  7. Check-ins immediately after action (AA1)

  8. Jail and court support for any arrestees (BA1, AA3)

  9. Debrief and feedback to working groups (AA2)

  10. Go back to step three

You can find all of XR UK's action-wellbeing documents here.

Last modified: Nov. 5, 2019, 2:36 p.m.