Long term plans for At the grassroots

On occasions, we take a step back to review what we do with At the grassroots – decide what is and isn’t working, and then make the necessary changes. Needless to say, this is done in the context of what’s happening with this Stirrings from below project. It’s also done in the recognition of the fact that because of other commitments and also, simply wanting to have a life, we only have so much time and energy we can devote to activism. So, we have to prioritise. There will be times when events dictate what our priorities have to be, regardless of whether we like that or not... You only have to take a look at some of the recent posts on here to realise that!

At the grassroots is a secondary project, it’s not the main one. It doesn’t get the traction that this blog gets. It seems that anything relating to the actual nuts and bolts of building a better world doesn’t excite people in the way that doom-mongering about WW3 or social breakdown does. Sometimes, we ask whether it’s worth running At the grassroots as a separate blog or whether it should be merged with Stirrings from below to make our lives a bit easier.

Having said this, At the grassroots as an idea is not going away, that’s for certain. While the form it manifests itself in may well change as a result of circumstances, the end goal of what we’re trying to achieve with it is way too important to abandon. This is explained in the next section:

Prefigurative action and the need to start building parallel systems

It’s this that informs much of what we’re trying to achieve with At the grassroots. It’s about prefigurative action – starting to build the new world we want in the here and now. It’s about building the parallel systems we need to support us as society enters what can best be described as a partial collapse – one brought about by a complex range of factors. It’s about decentralising and localising, as far as possible, what we need to sustain our lives. This is particularly the case when it comes to how we produce and distribute our food. Whoever controls the food supply, controls the population. The aim is to make sure that as far as possible, food production and distribution is controlled in an accountable way, at the grassroots, and not by corporations or the government.

Building parallel systems and prefigurative action is a long term project. It involves a lot of unglamorous hard work at the base. It also involves suspending political purity tests for those involved in grassroots projects. It’s a case of being pragmatic when it comes to supporting projects – if an initiative is broadly moving in the right direction, it’s not our place to quibble about issues such as how they fund themselves and the like. The important thing is to get a project that aims to build an alternative off the ground and worry about the details later. We have to adopt this flexible, pragmatic approach because with the way things are going, there’s more urgency than ever when it comes to the need to build parallel systems.

One important part of this is creating resources that help to promote and encourage what’s going on at the level of the neighbourhood, and where possible, share that as an example to inspire people. This is the purpose of At the grassroots and also, this resource that lists a range of grassroots projects operating in Bristol, Bath and the surrounding areas: The Directory.

At the grassroots and The Directory

Wee seriously thinking of eventually archiving the At the grassroots blog and putting content about prefigurative action and building parallel systems onto this Stirrings from below blog. Obviously, if we do decide to do this, it would not happen until distribution of the current At the grassroots paper has been completed towards the end of this year.

If anyone in Bristol, Bath or the surrounding areas would like to help with the distribution of the paper, it really would be appreciated:)

The reason we have been thinking about it is that Stirrings from below has a considerably bigger audience than At the grassroots. There has also been a fair degree of cross posting between the blogs which has sometimes left us asking – why are we running two blogs? Suffice to say, this is not a decision we want to rush into. Should more people come on board to help out with At the grassroots during the rest of 2025, then things could start to look very different.

The Directory has now been moved to a separate, stand alone location. This is because at some point in 2026, we would like to pass on running and building The Directory to people or a group that have more time and resources to do this than we do. With all the other pressures on our time, there’s only so much we can do with The Directory which amounts to little more than keeping it ticking over. It’s something that has a lot of potential but, needs the kind of dedicated, consistent input that we cannot provide without sacrificing other areas of our work.

Onwards and upwards

To repeat what was stated at the start of this post, At the grassroots will continue in one form or another. Prefigurative action and the need to start building parallel systems is too important a priority to scale back on. The only thing that will change is the form At the grassroots takes. We hope that we can get more outside input from people involved with neighbourhood level initiatives into this project during the second part of this year. If that can happen, then things will take on a completely different dynamic:)