Register for the 2025-2026 Upcoming Sessions:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/54j5rE7vTvmak8P8X3Tobw
Upcoming Sessions
2025/2026 Schedule: First Tuesday of every month! Upcoming dates will be: October 7, November 4, December 2, January 13, February 3, March 3, and April 7. Please register for as many as you can attend!
October 7 – SPECIAL EVENT Get ZAP’d! Launching our Zine Archive Project & DisOrientation Weeks
Nov 4 – Design and Disability Justice
Dec 2 – Building your activist networks & ideas, Activist-ing in Ontario
Jan 13 – OPIRG chapters going to referendum! Let’s talk strategies to win!
February 3 – A discussion of how we navigate AI in our activism
Mar 3 – Strategizing Membership Engagement and Outreach
Apr 7 – Kicking off the growing season: Exploring our Community Gardens and Food Justice initiatives
In 2024, OPIRG Provincial launched a pilot program called Collaboration Lunches to better connect and engage our PIRGS, boards, action groups, volunteers, and the wider community. These are held virtually and monthly to help us better connect and share campaigns, actions, and research work throughout Ontario and beyond! Folks have joined from PIRGs across Kanada – including NSPIRG, APIRG, and QPIRG. We hope to grow and strengthen these connections! We’d love for you to join us in a chill online (Zoom) environment, where you’re welcome to share and listen to what folks are working on. Some ideas can include Cops Off Campus campaigns, Palestinian solidarity support, Free Stores, Labour organizing, environmental justice, local community work and campaigns, and so much more! Please bring your ideas, and current work, and be ready to share (in the way that feels best to you) – with folks across the province.
Transparent and Accessible Programming:
- No specific topic or preparations needed
- Safer space policy guidelines in place for sessions
- Rotating facilitator and minute takers/documentation as needed or requested
- Zoom automatic closed captions
- Breaks at any time as needed!
Full details will remain updated here: https://ontariopirg.org/collab-lunches
Upcoming Sessions
2025/2026 Schedule: First Tuesday of every month! Upcoming dates will be: November 4, December 2, January 13, February 3, March 3, and April 7. Please register for as many as you can attend!
Collab Lunches Feedback
The OPIRG Provincial Board continually reviews how best to shape future programming. Your feedback is valuable to us. It informs how we grow and adapt our work to reflect the needs and priorities of our chapters and communities! If you attended a session and would like to provide feedback, please email: opirgprovincialcoordinator@gmail.com.
Previous Sessions
| Past Sessions | Theme |
| 1. July 2, 2024 | – Resource Sharing & Idea Generating- Slideshow – OPIRG Provincial Collaboration Lunches: Session 1, July 2, 2024- Jamboard – Collaboration Lunches |
| 2. August 6, 2024 | – OPIRG McMaster and OPIRG Kingston presenting on their PIRGS, for example, how your PIRG is structured/ how it works, and discuss where things are at/ have changed! |
| 3. September 3, 2024 | – In this session, OPIRG Brock and folks from QPIRG presented on their PIRGS, for example, how thier PIRG is structured/ how it works, and discuss where things at, and how things have changed! |
| 4. October 1, 2024 | Open-topic discussion – PIRGs or members of action groups, working groups, members of PIRGS, etc in attendance can share. We have a Figboard with previous ideas we can use to add to or keep track of. |
| 5. November 5, 2024 | Folks from NSPIRG in Nova Scotia joined us to discuss their PIRG, and we will discussed funding and PIRG threats that many of our locals face. NSPIRG shared current and ongoing campaigns, work and past work. |
| 6. December 3, 2024 | Open conversation for ongoing work at your PIRGs and chapters, or working groups/action groups! |
| 7. January 7, 2025 | Film: peace love (unicorns) & communism – peace love (unicorns) & communism (linktree) screening together with director Adeola Egbeyemi. Discussion, questions and open conversations on PIRGs as a vessel for collective memory (campaigns, lessons, etc), issues with student unions in organizing, repression and conflict, ways that University institutions disrupt student organizing: tactics of delay, recuperation and pacification but also, trying to find hope amidst all of these issues! (more above on this page) |
| 8. February 4, 2025 | Accessible Graphic DesignVictoria gave an interactive presentation focused on building up logistical skills for accessible graphic design more above on this page) |
| 9. March 2025 | Free Stores & Mutual Aid – OPIRG Brock presented on the Niagara Free Store |
| 10. April 2025 | Free Stores & Mutual Aid – Part 2, OPIRG Peterborough will speak to their Free Market |
| 11. May 2025 | Feedback session on Collaboration Lunches & a space to ask questions about O-CAT – end of May 2025! |
Special February Session: Accessible Graphic Design – Making your designs more accessible
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
12-1:30 pm ET
Registration: (now closed)
A lot of our work in movement spaces takes place or is publicized online – digital design, websites and graphics are needed now more than ever. But how do we ensure our designs can be seen/read and accessed by all? Through this interactive session, participants will walk away with tricks and tools they can use to make their digital media and designs more accessible, alongside frameworks and resources to continue to expand their learning. Workshop Takeaways: Understanding of concepts of digital design/websites, principles of design justice and accessibility as important things to consider in digital design/website creation; Practical/easy-to-use tools you can use to create digital designs; Tool-kit of accessible design tips and tricks; Practical experience creating a WordPress site designs; Optional (if time allows): Practical experience creating accessible designs
What you need for this workshop: Computer and/or cell phone with wifi/internet access; Zoom/ability to use Zoom; An open mind, heart and body! Be prepared to learn and share with each other – the facilitator is very open to critique and questions, and will support all learners in the best way possible; Optional: Canva account – Create your account and have it open/ready for during the workshop (it works both on a desktop or a mobile phone App) – desktop is likely easier for this workshop, as this is what the facilitator will use; Optional: Paper/pencil/drawing materials (optional – if you prefer to notes)
Access info: No website or graphic/web design experience is necessary – you will have a presentation and facilitation guide to assist.
Victoria Barnett (she/her) is a digital graphic designer, facilitator, community organizer, and collaborator at the service of social justice initiatives. She works with and for community organizations to pull on their own creativity and resilience, to create designs that are accessible, collaborative, and needed. Her work is based on the Principles of Design Justice, a network that she supported as a volunteer, a Steering Committee member, and a part-time Operations and Membership manager for many years. She supports and is active in various community groups based in Tkaronto (Toronto, ON).
You can see more about her here: victoriabarnett.com, or on LinkedIn here.
Special Session for January 2025, Student Film Screening:
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
12-1:30 pm ET (GMT-04)
Film: peace love (unicorns) & communism
Synopsis: chatting with another recent graduate, a former student activist learns about the controversial origin of a now-beloved campus group. she embarks on a journey through the recent past, weaving conversations with a vast ensemble of young organizers into a tapestry of disruption and determination. political, personal & bursting with youthful exuberance, peace love (unicorns) & communism is a homegrown chronicle of a decade of movements at McMaster University. As past struggles echo in the present, the film poses an urgent question to today’s rising generation: do you believe that we will win? (Director/Producer, Adeola Egbeyemi, will be in attendance for the screening and available for questions!)
Film Credits: Director/Producer, Adeola Egbeyemi, Editor, Yasith Weerasinghe
Follow the film on Social: www.instagram.com/peaceloveunifilm
We will watch part of the feature film together, and then pose questions and open conversations on PIRGs as a vessel for collective memory (campaigns, lessons, etc), issues with student unions in organizing, repression and conflict, ways that University institutions disrupt student organizing: tactics of delay, recuperation and pacification but also, trying to find hope amidst all of these issues!