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The Process

How the question was chosen by the movement
  • Week 1 Sat 28 June - Fri 4 July: Rebels submitted ideas for movement assembly topics via Polis
  • Week 2 Sat 5 July - Fri 11 July: Everyone got the chance to vote on everyone's ideas via Polis
  • Polis results: Comments and votes made were processed by the Assemblies team to determine the question for the Movement Assembly #1, with Data Analysis & Insights Circle's support.
The Question - "How might we effectively engage and activate more people in the climate and nature crises?"
  • Sun 27 July: Movement Assembly #1 (online)

You can watch the recording (46mins) of the first part of the assembly. This recording allowed anyone who could not attend the Zoom-based assembly to take part subsequently, voting on the ideas generated via Polis.



After the assembly
  • Tues 29 July - Tues 5 Aug: Voted on the outcomes of the assembly via Polis
Links shared during the assembly

The first part of the movement assembly saw a variety of speakers from XRUK teams. The following links were shared to help people learn more about those team's work:

Details of the three week process to choose the question
In Week One ...

Sat 28 June - Fri 4 July
Over 600 ideas were gathered from almost 480 people throughout the week Polis was open for participation.

Duplicated ideas for topics were edited out by Moderators to minimise overwhelm and frustration of participants. However, the breadth of issues people want to discuss means everyone taking part saw many possible ideas to vote on. See Moderation info

In Week Two...

Sat 5 - Fri 11 July
Everyone voted on the topics that were submitted in the first week.

A pre-agreed moderation process was followed by the organisers in XRUK Assemblies team. Some duplications were merged and some sentences rephrased to statements which left 588 ideas to vote on.

Assemblies sent out the message that anyone taking part didn't need to vote on every idea. Polis works its magic even if you only vote on 20 ideas of 588. The tight schedule of messaging meant this message may not have fully landed, however.

A Guide: Polis for Participants was shared with rebels to help them better understand the process and to help them make the most out of taking part in deciding the topic for our first Movement Assembly, by voting on everyone's submissions.

In Week Three...
  • Polis identified the most popular ideas for topics which to be the basis for a Movement Assembly.
  • XRUK Assemblies [the Assembly Organisers on this occasion] then supported, coordinated and publicised this first Movement Assembly.
  • Results are here on the Rebel Toolkit and were publicised on the Rebellion Broadcast.
Data from the Polis used for choosing the question

Polis Report

  • The full Polis Report. Please note: you will not be able to download the 'raw data' from any Polis exercise, given risk to privacy of participants.

Explainer: How Polis Works | Groups and Their Opinions

Polis's algorithms takes the data (ie statements inputted and participant responses to these), then breaks the participants down into groups of people whose opinions converge or differ significantly. This does not mean that they don’t agree on anything, but more that their priorities lie in different places.

In July 2025, it found three distinct groups (A, B and C, seen in the results breakdown).

Their opinions can be broadly defined as:

  • A (43 people; 3%) – in general voted negatively on most issues and passed on few statements. However, they showed support for discussing XR internal strategy, actions and reform. This offers scope to explore the tensions held by this group in relation to those aspects of how we work, either in a subsequent assembly or Polis exercise.
  • B (135 people; 11%) – in general voted positively on most issues and passed little. They showed strongest support for discussing questions around structural and political change and engaging the public in the climate movement.
  • C (1068 people; 86%) – in general voted positively on most issues, but passed regularly. They showed strongest support for discussing how to engage large numbers of people in the climate movement.

How To Use the Data to Gain Insights

At the bottom of the report under the 'All Statements' section, the results (ie responses to statements inputted to Polis) are displayed for all participants OVERALL and broken down by group (A, B, C) for every statement.

You can select the drop-down arrow next to 'Sort by': and choose different options to display the info according to what you find most interesting. Two of the most useful options to gain insights into perspectives of participants are Number of votes and % Agreed.

Overall Results

  • The Overall results are most closely aligned to those of Group C, who made up 86% of respondents
  • Those in Group B felt more strongly positive about the Top 10 statements
  • Group A felt more negative/mixed.

The aim of Polis is to allow the statements upon which most people are likely to agree ‘rise to the top’; it does this via algorithms which analyse initial responses coming in. In this case, the themes that most closely align with the majority of those participating were around engaging the wider public in the climate fight.

Summary

Screenshot 2025-07-13 122420.png

  • The UK Assemblies team involved relevant teams to co-create the question for our first Movement Assembly.
  • We then got to deliberate on that question at this first Movement Assembly.

How we prepared for the assembly

Details of how we prepared for the Assembly included:

  • Compiling descriptions of each step of the assembly into guidance documents for eg Participants, organisers, moderators
  • Explained - albeit with more limited understanding at the time - how Polis would be used post-assembly. We used the Rebellion Broadcast as our main communication tool to get messages out about the various stages. In the process, we have created template RB messages to use in future.
  • We called out via the Rebellion Broadcast and via the Assemblies Sharing channels for anyone to consider volunteering as a Facilitator or Note-taker for the Assembly. We were mostly successful in finding volunteers who had some assembly support experience.
  • XRUK Assemblies team set up drop-in sessions in advance for anyone considering attending or supporting the assembly for a chat and to seek support.
  • We liaised throughout with the Disabled Rebels Network to ensure maximum participation, engagement and enjoyment of participants, whatever their circumstances.
Optional Pre-Reading Provided

This was a list of things that the Assemblies team thought people could find helpful before joining the assembly.

The outline of the assembly:

  • 75 minutes - Intro and input: Assembly host introduction and overview, Speakers, Q&A, a short break
  • 75 minutes - deliberation and discussion in Break-out Rooms
  • Priority identification of break-out groups; group Note-takers entered these into Polis, followed by checkouts in the main room

Any questions? Contact the XRUK Assemblies Team.

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