GM Systems Changers

Group picture of some of the members who are present

At our Autumn Members Meeting to continue our discussions on how we make decisions as a network and what we want to do together

#GreaterManchester #Network #DecisionMaking #Weaving #SelfOrganising #DeepDemocracy

Our hearts are with the victims of this morning attack against a synagogue in Manchester, on the most important day of the Jewish calendar.

We're sending love and support to their families, and everyone who feels hurt and unsafe right now. We hold one another in grief, and solidarity.

Submit your proposals

Our network is shaped by the proposals that members bring forward. If you, as a GM SC member, have an idea you’d like the network to explore, now is the time to share it for the next Members’ Meeting. Proposals don’t need to be polished or even written, they can be shared as a voice note or short video. The Transition Team is also available to support members in shaping them. Proposals will then be shared with everyone ahead of the Members Meeting, discussed collectively at the meeting, and all members will then be able to vote on them remotely. This is how, as GM SC members, we can decide together the future of GM SC.

Our network is shaped by the proposals that members bring forward. If you, as a GM SC member, have an idea you’d like the network to explore, now is the time to share it for the next Members’ Meeting.

#GreaterManchester #SystemsChange #NetworkWeaving #CollectiveDecisionMaking

GMSC newsletter sept 2025 visual with a sunflower and the key points of the newsletter

Hi beautiful people!

In this month's newsletter, you'll find:
- Invitation to the next Members' Meeting
- Template to submit proposals to discuss as a network
- Form to register new circles
- Decisions tracker
- Updates from members and allies

mailchi.mp/1d7e53f29b0a...

#SystemsChange #Network

GM SC history and strategy GM SC has been shaped by the activists, artists, organisations and collectives that make up our network. Committed to tranparency and accountability, we’ve regularly updated partners via this newsletter, our blog and social media, especially in the past year, sharing what we’ve been working on and our evolving strategy. So if you have missed them please head to our blog, especially the most recent posts, to find our history, where and why we started, the challenges we’ve faced, and the lessons we’ve learned along the way. These reflections offer insight into our collective work and the vision that continues to drive us forward.

From partners and allies 84Youth are piloting a school programme on youth violence and Joint Enterprise, get in touch to join them. Free and confidential sexual health service in Bury, the second Thursday of every month with EarlyBreakUK. Northern Lily’s weekly community gardening sessions have starting again! Support the Ryebank Fields campaign by objecting to the planning applications. Join the Horsfall Community of Practice. Wonderfully Made Women’s befriending service for single mothers. Amplify the voices of Black women and girls with Mama Health’s Project Wendi. Ceebee Gold Foundation free sewing and beading workshop is back. Create energy with the Brilliant Club. Turn anger into action for the disabled community. Free face-to face support group to help people of African ancestry heal from the trauma of anti-Black racism. Join Northern Police Monitoring’s community meeting and book launch of Defiance: Racial Injustice, Police Brutality, A Sister’s Fight for the Truth. The art of 'scaling deep' for systemic change.

If you haven't received it, you can read it and sign up for the next one here: mailchi.mp/35ba9a761381...

#GreaterManchester #SystemsChange #Network #Newsletter

GM SC newsletter March 2025: - We are now a member-led network! - Our history and strategy - Update from partners and allies

View this email in your browser Greater Manchester Systems Changers Hi 👋🏾 It’s the GM SC Temporary Stewards. Here is your monthly update as we become a self-reliant, organised, and governing collective, as well as stories, events and updates from some of our members! Organising from a place of solidarity with working class women and young people, predominantly of colour, toards collective liberation With love Welcome dreamers, ​ ​​ Here is your summary of this month’s newsletter: ​ 🌻 GM SC’s next chapter: we are now a member-led network! 🌷 Where do we come from: GM SC history and strategy until now ​🌹 From partners: solidarity, community actions, creating together, and much more! ​​ With love and solidarity, GM SC core team ​ ​Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up to get your own copy directly to your inbox to not miss anything from our journey. ​ Send us your updates! We want to share the stories, research, events and opportunities from our partners, DM or email us yours so we don’t miss them 💖 Visual harvesting of the decision-making forum 🌻 We’re now a member-led network! Over the past seven months, GM SC partners have come together to shape the future of Greater Manchester Systems Changers. Last month, they decided to transition GM SC into a member-led network centering centre care, solidarity, and liberation. Members will be expected to agree and align themselves with the new vision and mission, they will have decision-making power, and will be invited to work on proposals aligned with our collective priorities. (At this stage, there are no fees or funding attached to membership.) Over the next two months, the current Temporary Stewards will confirm the membership, create a transparent process for members to put themselves forward for roles, and will facilitate the transition until a new admin team, elected by members, will take over on the 1st of June. If you have been part of GMSC’s journey, you will have received an…

Don't miss our last newsletter!

In this month's edition, you will find out more about how we became a member-led network, our history and strategy up until this point, and news from our partners and allies.

We celebrate mutual aid, radical care, collective power, and all the work being done to make another world possible.

We recognise that these struggles are interconnected, and today, we celebrate those who fight for futures where all women, whether or not they're racialised, disabled, and/or trans, can heal and thrive together.

For us, women’s rights are not just about representation but about dismantling capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy in all the ways they shape our lives.

On International Women’s Rights Day, we honour those who have always been at the forefront of struggle, challenging systems that seek to exploit and oppress us, and building alternative to them.

#IWD2025

Some of our members, sat as a circle at our last forum

At GM SC, we center and organise in solidarity with working-class women and young people, predominantly of colour, who are leading movements for justice, care, and liberation.

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Where we are now: SEEDS OF OUR FUTURE.. Political analysis We are resisting: • Capitalism: systems prioritising profit over people, • Colonialism and oppression: structures that continue to harm marginalised groups, • Injustice and inequality: barriers that prevent all communities from thriving, • Needless monitoring practices: overly rigide evaluation processes that undermine trust. Principles of how we want to be together: • Inclusivity and equality: ensuring everyone has a voice, • Transparency and trust: clear, open communication and shared accountability, Collectivism and shared power: decisions made together, • Cross-generational collaboration: bridging older and young generations to build lasting solutions.

Where we are now: SEEDS OF OUR FUTURE.. Vision GM SC as a universal 'safety net' - a foundation that supports both collective and personal liberation through action. Mission GM SC as a sustainable, self-funded entity, governed collectively by the network that centres the leadership of working class women and young people, predominantly of colour, which also includes those of us who are also older, queer, trans and/or disabled. Aims Connecting and bridging gaps between grassroots and radical leaders, organisations, and collectives who may not yet know one another.

These principles guide how we show up, share space, and shape a future beyond capitalism, colonialism, and oppression. Read more about the values that have shaped our work so far, in order to inform where we might be going next.

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What we are building on... Political analysis of being anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialism, anti-racist, anti-ableist, anti-misogynist, anti-transphobic, anti-homophobic and anti-classist. Principles of how we want to be together: Participation, Perspective and Power and Justice. Vision To establish a self-organising and governing network of grassroots communities and organisations working towards Collective Liberation in Greater Manchester. Mission Organise from a place of solidarity with working class women and young people, predominantly of colour towards collective liberation. Aims To generate a critical mass of changemakers. To create critical connections between these changemakers. By Redirecting the flow of money through traditional and participatory grant-making towards marginalised grassroots communities and movement builders -Creating spaces to learn and unlearn together (e.g. learning labs or training).

Our work is rooted in solidarity, collective liberation, and unlearning oppression, creating spaces where we can grow, organise, and build power together.

How we want to be together... These are the guiding principles for our time together. They are not rules, but ways we can create a space where everyone feels heard, valued, and able to contribute. Check-in. What am I bringing into this space? Take a moment to notice what you're carrying -thoughts, emotions, experiences and how they might shape your participation. Listen from the heart. Truly hear each other, without rushing to respond. Listen with care, curiosity, and an open mind. Make space, take space. Be mindful of how much you're speaking. If you tend to share a lot, step back and make room. If you tend to stay quiet, step forward and contribute. Speak as directly as possible, from the "I" (where relevant). Share your own experiences and perspectives rather than speaking for others. Be open and curious about each other's views. Differences can bring new insights. Approach other perspectives with curiosity rather than judgment. Appreciate and trust different perspectives. Everyone brings valuable knowl-edge and experiences. Trust that diverse views strengthen our collective understanding. Say "yes, and..." Instead of shutting down ideas, try building on them. This helps us move forward together. Build on each other's ideas. Collaboration happens when we connect ideas, rather than compete with them. Practice unlearning oppression. We all carry biases and inherited ways of thinking. Let's be willing to challenge and unlearn patterns that exclude or harm others. Support each other when things feel difficult. If someone is upset or triggered, we check in with care and without judgment. We give them space if they need it, or support if they ask for it. We trust people to know what they need and respect their choices in the moment.

We recognise the cycles of harm that our communities face, and resist, and build alternatives to the charitable industrial complex that pushes us to depoliticise our struggles, accept scarcity as inevitable, and prioritise survival over liberation.

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How we want to be together... This is our radical practical space. In this space, our values are not the values of ableist white supremacist hetero-patriarchal capitalism. We recognise and welcome all body types and the neurodiverse without pathologising or assuming what our capacity and limits are. We recognise and welcome all genders, sexualities and none, all religions, spiritualities and none, all statuses and none, and all the varied lives and life paths that share this space with us. Here, we prioritise and centre the most marginalised and exploited, as full beings, and as experts of their own experience. We also recognise cycles of reproducing harm that can happen inside our own communities, (class violence, colourism, ableism and exploitation), and how privilege also exists within our communities. We are curious and committed to the ways in which we can unlearn oppression and practice new ways of being together. (Openers and principles from Voices that Shake!).

At GM SC, we have been trying to build a radical, practical space where the most marginalised are centred and leading.

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👮 Witness an arrest at a protest? Here's what you can do...🧵

First you should check if a Legal Observer (orange bib🦺) is nearby, call them over and they can do this. If not, do as much of the following as you can. Don't worry if you don't get everything! 1/8

4) And finally, news from our partners and allies with their new initiatives, their events for #IWD2025, new reports and funding opportunities:

3) An invitation to the next healing session on Monday 3rd March held by Paul and Shamshad:

2) An invitation to our partners to our next Learning into Liberation on care and how we are with each other:

1) An invitation to our partners (organisation we've funded over the past 4 years) to join us for the next set of forums to decide the future of our network:

Don't miss this month's newsletter!

If you haven't received it, you can read it and sign up for the next one here: mailchi.mp/d50182684f96...

In it you'll find ⤵️

#GreaterManchester #SystemsChange #Network #Newsletter

Over 100 charities and faith leaders unite against refugee citizenship ban Well over 100 charities and faith leaders have come together in an urgent call against the Government’s decision to effectively ban tens of thousands of refugees from ever becoming British citizens. O...

"Citizenship is not just a legal status; it is a tangible fulfilment of the promise of safety, dignity, and opportunity."

With over 100 others, we signed this Refugee Council letter urging the Home Secretary to rethink their citizenship ban. www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/latest/news/...

This next phase will be rooted in collective dreaming and action, continuing our work of resisting oppression and nurturing alternative futures through creativity, solidarity, and systemic change.

If you have received funding from us in the past, join us: gmsystemschangers.org.uk/decision-mak...

From March 2025, we will be exploring new forms of governance and sustainability, asking whether we should evolve into a co-operative, a constituted group of change-makers, or another structure that ensures long-term impact.

This phase included financial support to partners, expanding the core team with 18 Temporary Stewards, and investment in life-affirming demonstrators such as food sovereignty networks, community asset transfers, and alternative economic models.

In 2024-25, we transitioned from a grant-making body to a phase of collective sense-making and decision-making about the future of GM SC.

Through participatory and traditional grant-making, funding was directed towards grassroots collectives, creative practices, and initiatives like Universal Basic Income demonstrators.

Many of these organisations, led largely by women and youth of colour, received their first funding through GM SC.

By 2022, GM SC moved away from traditional systems change approaches, instead, we focused on redistributing funds and resources in solidarity with working-class women and young people, predominantly of colour.

Illustration featuring diverse people around a heart marked GM SC. Texts on each side of the heart reads "Severe and Multiple Disadvantages", and "Place Based System Change". 2015-2019 is written at the top.

Illustration for 2020-2021 showing that GM SC is tending to collective liberation from the ground up. Centering solidarity and collaboration. Resisting discrimination, oppression and coercion.

Illustration for 2022-present showing that we are questioning if we want to become a self-organised and self-governed collective? We prioritise justice over charity, shift from critical mass to critical connections and celebrate grassroots resistance and vision.

GM SC was established in 2021.

From the outset, the core team was set up to be temporary, prioritising justice over charity and seeking to shift power and resources towards grassroots communities and movement-building.

gmsystemschangers.org.uk

ABCs Workshops The ABCs of Community Assets is a new training programme to inspire a nation of new community asset leaders, featuring workshops and study visits to support local groups to acquire, manage, and future...

Opportunity for partners in GM:

free places on the ABCs of Community Assets, a workshop and study visit programme that starts in early March.

What to expect: www.stirtoaction.com/abcs-workshops

Places are limited, so please share with your networks!

Sign-up: airtable.com/appS96XFMePt...