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All Green Drinks follow the Green Drinks Code. Read it to see how Green Drinks works and then apply to set up in your town or city. More tips and mentors are available once you have started. We are currently setting up about five new cities a week, so jump in!
The Green Drinks Code
1. Green Drinks are Open
- Green Drinks is mostly for people working on environmental issues, but anyone can come -- people from environment groups, business, government, academia and as individuals. There is no 'us and them'.
- Organisers and all attendees actively welcome newcomers and introduce them to others in the group.
- All attendees commit to meeting new people at every session and not just sticking with people they already know.
2. Green Drinks are Freeform
- There is generally no agenda or theme, Green Drinkers mingle and share insights and provoke and exasparate and inspire and delight each other. There are moments of serendipity and a lot of 'oh, you if are interested in X then I must introduce you to that person over there who knows all about it' ...
- All kinds of people come to Green Drinks and this is what makes for the interesting interactions.
3. Green Drinks are Regular
- Usually monthly.
- Most organisers find a fixed date in the month is easiest to manage, at the same venue and something like the second tuesday in the month. Fridays and Thursdays tend to be busy for most people, so Tue or Wed is best.
4. Green Drinks are Simple to Organise
- Usually held in a convenient, central location that is free. A corner of a pub or bar for example. Put a sign up on the table where you are gathering so that people can find you.
- A private space is the best choice in the end. However, booking a private room usually means the organiser has to incur cost or risk of not enough people turning up to cover the cost of the room. Instead most Green Drinks have an arrangement something like: "Hello Mr/Ms Bar Manager, if I bring along 15 / 40 / 100 people who want to buy your beer and food on a normally quiet night can we have a space to ourselves somewhere?"
- Set up an email list for invites or use something like mailchimp, google groups, meetup or evite.
- Start with maybe 10 keen people you already know, and get them to each invite 5 others the first time.
- Many Green Drinks start with a dozen people and then grow to be a regular size -- 30 people is the most common size with 70 or 150 as the other common sizes for larger cities.
5. Green Drinks are Self-replicating
- People who come to Green Drinks each invite others along by word of mouth, who in turn themselves invite others, etc.
- Email invites mean that people can foward the invite to friends easily. This is the core for exponential growth.
- New cities are easy to set up and people moving often set up a Green Drinks in their new location.
6. Green Drinks are Local
- Cities or towns or suburbs.
- 45 minutes' travel time apart from each other.
- Avoid date clashes and being in the same week as neighbouring Green Drinks.
- Check the website for your nearest Green Drinks and talk to the organisers; they will be happy to hear from you.
- Counties or areas or bioregions are allowed only if rural (less than 200 people per square mile) and rotating between several towns.
- County Green Drinks also have to be prepared to change their name later if necessary and also niche with and support independent town or city drinks as they emerge within the county. If you are sticking to one town as the venue then the Green Drinks would be named after that town. There are successful Green Drinks in towns as small as 18,000 population.
7. Green Drinks are Agenda Free
- Green Drinks is not a channel to circulate announcements or news about environmental issues. Green Drinkers are already deluged with information from thousands of other sources. Green Drinks is a place to go to get away from all that.
- It's OK to have speakers for 20-30 mins or so or to have a theme for the evening to help stimulate discussion, but the bulk of the evening should be freeform and random.
- The host venue itself creates some slant inevitably but must be gracious and open; independent venues such as bars or restaurants are preferred.
- Green Drinks as an entity will never endorse or have a position or stance on an environmental topic.
- There will be no non-Green Drinks-related content or messages or appeals or ads circulated to the city organisers or appearing on the greendrinks.org website.
8. Green Drinks are Decentralised
- Each city does its own thing.
- There is no central mailing list of attendees.
- There is no central logo or branding as each city has its own logo and style to adapt to each location
9. Green Drinks are Non Profit
- Organisers mostly use free resources and volunteers and donate their own time.
- Voluntary charge at door if necessary to cover costs; per event only, no membership fee.
- Mostly free to attend, each participant pays for their own drinks and food.
- Incorporation as LLC or Ltd company is OK for larger groups.
- Event sponsors and venue hosts OK as long as freedom of discussion is not compromised.
10. Green Drinks are Run Responsibly
- Organisers and participants work to create a safe, non threatening environment for all and drink responsibly.
- Organisers niche and collaborate with other Green Drinks in their area.
- Organisers keep their pages on www.greendrinks.org updated with the date and venue of the next Green Drinks and a contact name and email so first-timers have confidence to travel across town and devote an evening to Green Drinks.
- Organisers don't sell their email lists to advertisers.
- Some organisers act as mentors to help and advise other groups.
11. Green Drinks are Fun
- There is a very informal vibe and overall light feel.
- There are lots of benefits to green drinks; they are hard to quantify, but when you have seen people come and make new links and learn and argue and set up new schemes and get new jobs etc, it is a good feeling.
12. Start A Green Drinks in Your City
- Check that you can comply with this Code and then email new_city [at] greendrinks.org to apply and have a page on www.greendrinks.org set up. This will send you an autoreply with the details you need. If you don't receive them, please check your spam box and first and then contact Edwin.
Green Drinks Code Version 2.3 December 23rd 2019
Sample invitation email:
LONDON GREEN DRINKS DATA SHEET:
WHAT: Come to the world-famous *** Green Drinks ***
WHEN: 6.30 'til late, Tuesday 13th January 2009
RULE: Second Tuesday of every month
WHERE: DOWNSTAIRS at our NEW VENUE The Glasshouse Stores, 55 Brewer Street, Soho.
HOW: Walk, cycle, bus, tube: Picadilly Circus. Taxi OK if more than 2 passengers ;)
WHO: Anyone working on environmental issues or studying them
WHY: Fun, contacts, alcohol (or not), info, gossip, inspiration, business and pleasure
NEW: Just go up to someone and say "are you green?", and you'll be made welcome.
REMIND: To get on this email circulation list, send an email to: join [at] greendrinkslondon.co.uk
PRIVACY:This email list is ONLY for Green Drinks reminders. We will not give your email address to anyone else
STATUS: Informal, self-organising network. Every month since 1989. Average attendance: 70
GLOBAL: Now active in 430 cities worldwide! Australia | Belgium | Belize | Botswana | Brazil | Canada | Chile | China | Czech Republic | Denmark | Finland | France | Germany | Greece | Hong Kong | India | Ireland | Israel | Italy | Japan | Malta | Mexico | Netherlands | New Zealand | Norway | Philippines | Poland | Portugal | Singapore | South Africa | South Korea | Spain | Sweden | Switzerland | Thailand | UK | USA |
URL: http://www.greendrinks.org
FORWARD: Please send this email on to others who might want to come!
The Small Print
Disclaimer 1: The info on this website is not all up to date. Sometimes organisers do not have their latest event on display on their page, so please also check their facebook or other pages. Sometimes a Green Drinks may have shut down yet is still showing 'the third wednesday of the month' or some such, so again please check by other means before travelling if there is any doubt.
Disclaimer 2: By attending or organising Green Drinks events, you agree to release greendrinks.org and its owners from any responsibility, liability or claim in law which is incurred as a result of the use of any of the material or information or services provided on this website.
Terms for Organisers: Please update your page regularly. If it gets to be 6 months since you last updated your page you come up on our radar. If we can't tell the date of your next Green Drinks then we have to assume you are no longer active and your page will be switched off. Get in touch if you want your page switched back on so you can update it. By having a page on greendrinks.org you agree to follow the Green Drinks Code.
Privacy and Data Protection: greendrinks.org does not hold any private information. The information held is only that which city organisers post on their pages, which is by definition public. Any personal information that organisers choose to make public by posting on their pages will not be shared with third parties or processed other than for being displayed for public view on greendrinks.org and for backup. Personal information will be erased five years after a page is switched off. Get in touch should you wish to exercise your rights under GDPR. Greendrinks.org does not use cookies.
Changelog
Version 1.0 February 12th 2000
Original concept, based on organic principles
Version 2.0 April 10th 2002
Clarified county-level Green Drinks
Version 2.1 December 5th 2008
Added mailchimp, meetup and evite
Version 2.2 December 5th 2016
Added numbering
Version 2.3 December 23rd 2019
Added the Small Print section