Community organising in the North East
Hello and Fit Like from Michelle (North East Community Engagement Officer) and Guy (North East Organiser) in North East! Can you believe we’ve reached the end of 2025 already?! And for the team, what a busy year it has been with lots of great work and events taking place.
Talking to the local community
We started the year with door-knocking and survey work around Boddam, the small village loomed over by the Peterhead gas power station and home to Michelle, meeting the local community to find out their opinions on the station. It was great to hear from so many concerned citizens to hear about what they truly want to see in the area over a second power station being built.
During the Spring, Michelle joined with local campaigners on the Save Aberdeenshire Libraries group which saw villages across the Shire come together to save 12 of 13 libraries that were under threat of closure in the area, a great win!
Exposing the true pollution from new Peterhead gas
Another big win was Friends of Earth Scotland’s successful push to force energy giant SSE redo its Environmental Impact Assessment for the proposed new gas burning power station at Peterhead. Guy spent much of this talking with Aberdeenshire councillors and local activist groups, giving them vital insights into the false claims from SSE and Equinor which really helped alert even more people to the climate threat of this plan.
Getting active in Peterhead and beyond
As we went into Summer, the launch of a new free monthly film club – Reel Change – started in Peterhead Community Centre in conjunction with Take Once Action. Headed by Michelle, it was great to see people coming together to enjoy stories from all over the world and having meaningful conversations about how these similar problems affect us locally, as well as how we as a community can come together and fix them. It also held a joint event for Fairtrade Fortnight alongside Peterhead and Buchan Fairtrade and Co-op, as well as a film dedicated to Climate Week North East.
The Summer saw other events such as Michelle giving a talk at the Green Tease in Aberdeen with Take One Action and Culture for Climate Scotland. Over 20 activists came together to explore climate justice and international solidarity, and reflecting on entanglements between people and land. The foraged herbal teas were an added bonus!
Both the team headed into Peterhead for the town’s second largest event of the year, Seafest. 20,000 people came together to support local businesses and charities in the North East and it was great to see so many happy faces and have some great chats.
Taking to the airwaves to spead the word
In the City, the creation of a new radio show called Fit’s the Point took place in SHMU with Guy and our other North East colleague Scott bringing amazing guests in to create meaningful and strong conversations around climate justice. You can listen to past episodes on Mixcloud
Heading into Autumn, we saw the hard work put in by many of our FoES colleagues as thousands came out in Glasgow for Scotland’s Climate March. Guy joined the busload of Aberdeen activists who journeyed down, citing how everyone felt empowered and appreciated the solidarity from the event.
Aberdeen activists came out in force to call out the oil company Dana Petroleum for its plans to work with the Israeli Government to drill in Palestinian waters. Energy has long been used as a tool to oppress the Palestinians and these contracts risk repeating that harm. It was great to see people in the North East join with activists in South Korea to stand with the people of Gaza.
Making big plans for 2026
Which brings us to now to the chilly month of December. As we reflect on the year, we’ve enjoyed all the different people, campaigners and groups we’ve met along the way. We’re already looking forward to the work 2026 will bring, as well as our new office space in the city. One large chunk of our campaigning energy will be around fixing the dire bus situation for the City and Shire, which I am sure many of you have probably faced too. Another big piece will be around the upcoming Scottish elections, ensuring prospective MSPs are committed to delivering clear action to improve lives as we combat climate change, as well as a just transition for fossil fuel workers.
Of course, we’ll continue to bring fun and engaging events within our community with more exciting radio guests, the return of Reel Change in the Spring, interactive stalls at local events, a quarterly North East newsletter for supporters to keep up with what’s happening, and more. This is all thanks to our wonderful members who give us the opportunity to deliver our work across the North East.
We hope you have a great run up to 2026 and we will see you in the New Year! A guid new year to ane an’ a’ mony may ye see!
By Michelle Marshall & Guy Ingerson