Since 38 Degrees launched in early June we’ve achieved a huge amount together. We’re building a people-powered movement for real change in the UK. From demanding new laws to make MPs answer to us and flooding Parliament with emails about climate change to defending valued public services and calling for the Iraq inquiry be held in public, we’ve made our voices heard.

In just 6 months 60,000 of us have taken action 177,695 times. Across the UK we’ve been signing petitions, calling decision makers and inviting our friends to get involved.

Bankers: take responsibility
We were outraged to see bankers awarding themselves massive bonuses just after the government had to bail them out with our money. When plans to put a 50% tax on bankers bonuses leaked out, bankers went into overdrive trying to force government to back down. We stepped up to outweigh the banks’ pressure – in just 48 hours, thousands of us pressed the Chancellor to stand up to the banks’ lobbyists. People power worked: Alistair Darling stood up to the bankers and imposed the tax.

Tackling poverty, sticking up for public services
We’ve worked together to make sure the recession doesn’t hit poor families hardest. Together we helped convince the government to extend free school meals to protect an extra 50,000 children from poverty – in the words of the End Child Poverty Coalition this was “a major achievement….and could not have been done without 38 Degrees“.

We also took action to protect public services, defend the NHS from unfair criticism from a Conservative MEP and stand up for the BBC against attacks from James Murdoch. Our campaign against top-slicing the licence fee ended with a big success, with the government shelving the idea until at least 2012.

Cleaning up Parliament
The expenses scandal showed us the urgent need to make sure MPs really answer to us. Together, we’ve pushed for a recall law to give voters who have lost trust in their MPs the right to call a fresh vote. It’s great to see party leaders, and even the Prime Minister, slowly coming round to a recall law – but we’ve got a long way to go. Cleaning up Parliament is a big task and we’ll need to continue working hard both to make recall a reality and to force politicians to reveal their links to lobbyists.

Speaking up for Human Rights and Civil Liberties
We helped to convince Peter Mandelson to scale back his plans to disconnect millions of suspected internet file-sharers. We also worked with Tripping up Trump in Aberdeenshire, to oppose Donald Trump’s plans to evict families to make way for his golf course. We’ll continue to work with Tripping Up Trump in 2010. In the meantime, an 85 year old woman named Molly Forbes has begun legal proceedings to defend her home from the threat of compulsory purchase. You can show your support by sending her a Christmas card, addressed to – Molly Forbes, Paradise, Mill of Menie, Menie, Aberdeenshire, AB23 8YE.

Climate, Copenhagen 10:10, Quizzing the Minister
Our campaigning on climate change got the government’s attention. In October over 10,000 of us contacted our MPs in just 48 hours to ask Parliament to reduce its own emissions by 10% next year. This month, 38 Degrees members quizzed Ed Miliband (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change) in the first-ever public conference call with a Cabinet minister.

A growing team
It’s been a busy few months for our small staff team – David, Hannah, Johnny and Nina. None of our campaigning would have been possible without the help of our volunteers who have worked tirelessly to build and support our campaigns. Thank you Alex, Ashley, Katy, Laura, Louise, Ross, Toby, Tom, and Tosin.

What’s next?
In 2010, it will be more important than ever to keep taking action together. The general election is looming, we’re still in recession, unemployment is climbing and politicians are talking of drastic public service cuts. We’ll be working hard to make sure Blair gets a grilling at the Iraq inquiry, we’ll turn up the pressure for tough action on climate change and will be running local campaigns, like our campaign to make sure Boris Johnson keeps his promise on delivering four rape crisis centres in London.

In the New Year we’ll need to decide together what 38 Degrees should do in the run up to the election. Before that, you can tell us what you think here on our blog.

You are what makes our movement grow. Please keep on telling your friends, family and colleagues about 38 Degrees through Facebook, Twitter and email.

Thanks for being involved,

David, Johnny, Hannah, Nina, Warren and the 38 Degrees team

A seasonal postbox

It’s been quite a year. I’ve been so inspired to see so many people getting involved with 38 Degrees since we launched in June. In the last 6 months 60,000 of us have taken action a huge 177,695 times. It’s fantastic to see that people right across the country have joined in our movement – see our action map here

We’ve been working hard on issues from climate change to cleaning up politics, from tackling poverty and sticking up for public services to speaking up for human rights and civil liberties.

But this is just the beginning. What do you think we should be working on next year? How do you think we should campaign in the election? Are there issues you really think we should campaign on? Let us know in the comments below.

38 Degrees activists have been busy, very busy, since we launched in June. I wanted to share with you a an exciting visualisation of just how busy we’ve all been.

Below is our action map – it shows where actions have been taken on 38 Degrees campaigns since we launched 6 months ago. It’s exciting to see just how far and wide our movement now stretches. Across the entire UK we’ve been writing to MPs, signing petitions, inviting friends and donating to support our work. Thanks to everyone that has got involved in the short time since we launched. We’ve got big plans for next year and can’t wait to tell you all about them.

PS: If you, or someone you know, could help us build and improve our action map please do contact us. We’d love to hear from you.

In the run-up to Copenhagen almost six thousand 38 Degrees members signed a petition to Gordon Brown. We told him to secure a binding agreement that ensures carbon cuts of 40% in wealthy nations by 2020 without offsetting.  We also asked him to protect the rights of the world’s poorest people by guaranteeing adequate funding to allow clean development and measures to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Today the Prime Minister is off to take part in the Copenhagen talks, so we decided yesterday that it was the perfect time to deliver our petition to Downing Street.  Last week we sent Climate Minister Ed Miliband off to the summit with our words ringing in his ears after his giant conference call with thousands of 38 Degrees members (listen to it here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/live).  Today we wanted to give Gordon Brown the same message: that we want action.

Wrapped up against the winter weather, a delegation of 38 Degrees staff took our message right to Mr. Brown’s front door. 38 Degrees volunteer Katy presented the petition to a government representative under the stern eyes of the resident police officer.

Gordon Brown intends to be the first world leader to arrive in Copenhagen today.  Let’s hope that this is a sign of things to come.  In this crucial debate he must be the first to push for ambitious goals and first to commit his country to binding agreements.

Louise and Liz from End Child Poverty handing in the petition to Stephen Timms

Last week, we handed in our petition calling on the government to take action on ending child poverty to Treasury Secretary Stephen Timms MP. 38 Degrees was represented by our volunteer, Louise Smith, who went to drop off the petition with colleagues from the End Child Poverty Coalition.

Louise described handing the petition to the Minister, “As he took delivery of our signatures, Treasury Secretary, Stephen Timms, asked, “Are these all from London then?” When I replied, “London and the rest of the country”, he said “Really?” sounding impressed and looking visibly surprised.”

Louise went on to say how important the campaign has been. ‘It has sent a strong nationwide message to the Chancellor that thousands of people want Britain’s poorest children taken care of in the next budget. But it’s a sad fact that each recession endured has created an ever-widening gap between the richest and the poorest in society. As more people join the ranks of the unemployed and children grow up deprived of necessities, we need to keep telling the government they have our mandate to reform the system and redistribute the wealth where it is urgently needed.”

This week, we had news that at least one of the demands in our petition – that the free school meals programme be extended to include more children in primary school – had been met by the government in the Pre-Budget Report. Now, we’re looking to this government and the next to take the necessary steps to make sure we end child poverty once and for all by 2020.

Back in July, we launched a campaign to halt further government spending on the Trident nuclear weapons system until a review of the whole project has been completed.

In 2006, the government estimated that replacing Trident would cost between 15 and 20 billion pounds.  Greenpeace have gone further, arguing that once we include other costs like VAT, this total will be more like £34bn.  With essential public services in the UK strapped for cash, many of us think that the government should be spending this huge amount of money elsewhere.  Not to mention that replacing Trident seems like a step backwards now that Obama has taken the lead on scaling back nuclear weapons worldwide.

Gordon Brown has said that not renewing Trident is not an option, but those of us who signed the petition –  more than 6000 people – think differently.

Today a group of 38 Degrees staff and volunteers made the trip to Downing Street to deliver this petition to Gordon Brown, to let him know what we think about Trident renewal.

The first stage of handing in the petition was getting through security – all our stuff was scanned, even the petition.  Then we made our way up to Number 10. 38 Degrees volunteer Alex was the one to deliver the petition – not to Brown himself, unfortunately, but to a Downing Street official.  However, we’re confident that we’ve sent a strong message to the government about Trident renewal, which they won’t be able to ignore.

Afterwards, Alex told the rest of us how his delivery had gone: “This was my first time delivering a petition. I have to admit I was pretty nervous, but it felt empowering to finally hand it through the door of number 10. Whilst I was handing in the petition I spotted the BBC’s political editor, Nick Robinson, inside.  Let’s hope he was giving Gordon a grilling about what action he plans to take at Copenhagen.”

38 Degrees members have just taken part in the UK’s first ever mass phone call with a government minister, with Ed Miliband, Minister for Energy and Climate Change. 1000s of us chose the questions together, and 38 Degrees members put them to Ed Miliband direct – sending a clear message that we want him to fight for a good deal at the climate talks in Copenhagen.

Next week, he’ll be sitting around the negotiating table with our words ringing in his ears.

You can hear a recording of the whole call here: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/live

Now we need to keep up the pressure. Callers found common ground with Ed Miliband on the urgent importance of tackling climate change and we recognised good progress in some important areas. But there were other areas where we wanted him to go further -  for example on the scale of emissions cuts needed by 2020, on phasing out dirty coal power stations, and on money to help developing countries tackle climate change.  During the Copenhagen summit we can work together as a rapid response team, to pile on the pressure for a fair, ambitious and binding deal at Copenhagen. Click here to get involved with our Copenhagen rapid response plans: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/copenhagen-swarm

No government minister has ever been part of a call like this before. It was a credit to the Minister that he was willing to engage, but it happened because by campaigning together we’ve got the government’s attention. Everyone who took part – the people who asked the questions, those who commented online and everyone who voted in our question poll were all part of it: it’s yet more proof that people power works.

Together, we asked Ed Miliband the kind of searching questions that made sure he understands that there are millions of people who want him to fight for a good deal at the talks. Obviously not everyone got to ask their question, but we made sure Mr Miliband left with a copy of every single suggested question to read later.

Thanks for being involved.

UPDATE: We’ve grouped together the 12 most common suggestions for question areas from the blog, facebook, and the registration form, and set up a poll to prioritise between these.  You can now help pick the questions here: http://38degrees.org.uk/page/s/PickQs4Miliband

This Saturday, we will have a direct line to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.  Ed Miliband will be on the phone answering our questions before he heads off to the summit at Copenhagen next week.

Hundreds of us have signed up with questions to put to Ed and I’ve been taking a look at the list.  So far questions range from the irreverent  –  ‘How much time have I got?’  –  to the deadly serious.  But what are the most important things we should be asking him?

Our phonecall with Ed is happening on the same day as The Wave, a massive march through London, organised by Stop Climate Chaos.  For many of us, SCC demands are the starting point for questions. These demands are:

(1)  That the UK government seeks to secure a fair deal at Copenhagen to limit global warming to 2 degrees C.

(2)   That the UK government commit to funds on top of existing aid commitments, to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.

(3)  That the UK end its reliance on dirty coal power.

Many of us will want to know where Ed stands on these aims.

For others who signed up with questions, different issues are just as pressing. How the UK is planning to put pressure on the US at Copenhagen is a question that is top of a lot of people’s lists, including my own.  We need to secure commitments from the world’s second biggest carbon emitter, but this isn’t an easy task.  Another key concern is renewable energy. Why aren’t we investing more money in this?  Finally, many of us want to know what Ed’s strategy is for helping the UK population meet their personal emission targets. Will he use the carrot, the stick, or both?

Tomorrow our online poll will open so that you can help us decide what the most important questions to ask Ed are.  In the meantime keep your thoughts and suggestions coming by signing up on our website, or joining the conversation on twitter and facebook.