The Fire These Times + Budget Poll Results: Project Mushroom's Latest
Creator Spotlight: The Fire These Times
Hey Project Mushroom! This month we'd like to recommend you check out the work of spore.social member Joey Ayoub (@joey@spore.social), who is the founder of the podcast The Fire These Times. Each week, Joey and a team of hosts discuss a wide range of topics with their guests, aiming to "embody values of internationalism from below, intersectional feminism, anti-imperialism from the periphery and anti-fascism."
The highlighted episode of The Fire These Times is "There is Another Way – A Roundtable on Palestine-Israel," which Joey featured in this post on spore.social:
The Fire These Times accepts financial support through a tiered membership structure on Patreon.
Budget update and Project Mushroom Roles
Voting on our 2024 budget happened in January, with strong support for keeping at least 2 years of reserves for core server expenses. You also voted in favour of providing honoraria for proactive moderation so we can keep being a safer space on the Internet. We will also create and contribute to open-source tools that will help both our moderators and moderators of other Mastodon communities. In an age of vast amounts of AI- and bot-created content, we believe that thoughtful moderation and online communities with intentional values will become even more important.
We also approved budget for a new logo and visual identity, which we are excited to roll out over the coming months as we create an identity separate from our former parent company.
Take a look at our Volunteer Roles page on the Wiki, which describes who's doing what here at Project Mushroom. We're always looking for helping hands — let us know if you'd like to get involved somehow. If you're interested in details about the budget, you can find them on our Finances page.
Chanterelle Chatter: Solarpunk edition
We've been seeing lots of people posting with the #solarpunk hashtag — solarpunk, as opposed to cyberpunk, is a cultural movement that envisions a future where we use technology in balance with nature and where we value ecological wisdom over economic growth. It's a refreshing antidote to doomerism, and we love the discussion that's been happening in this space!
Solarpunk Now! posted a video of a talk they gave at a Solarpunk Conference:
You can find some #solarpunk book recommendations in this thread by member Merson the Person – and of course you can join the discussion and add your own!
And check out this article that member Emma the Curious posted about about growing flowers to clean polluted waterways:
How to get involved in Project Mushroom
Project Mushroom is a Mastodon-based social network focused on climate and social justice. With 554 monthly active users, we are one of the biggest activist communities on Mastodon. If you're not in the space yet, you can click here for an in-depth guide on how to get started on either our projectmushroom.social or spore.social servers.
Project Mushroom recently became independent of its former parent company, Currently Weather Service, and is now fully led by the community. Paid subscriptions to this newsletter now go 100% to funding Project Mushroom expenses, which are primarily server costs. We've recently added the option to make a one-time contribution as well. If you have the means, please consider joining the 199 other supporters who help us keep the lights on!