Miriam Robinson is a former public servant, who moved to Ballarat after retiring from her post at the Department for Education.

They are not, in short, the sort of people you expect at the heart of a global protest movement. But that is where both have been focusing their energies since stepping away from the workplace.

Drivers on Sturt Street may have seen them in their new role. Every Friday from 5.30pm, they are hard to miss at the Lydiard Street intersection. At that time, they gather with other members of Ballarat's Extinction Rebellion branch: a mix of people, including several other retirees. They are reminding everyone who passes about the spectre of climate change - but they all seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves as they do it.

This is not the sort of glue-yourself-to-the-road, get-yourself-arrested protest seen at last October's Extinction Rebellion rally in Melbourne.

When the lights turn red, the group moves in front of stationary traffic, bearing placards and requesting honks of support. Then they fade out to the footpath until the next change of lights. No one gets delayed but the message gets out there.

Ms Fry explained the thinking: "You can have one big rally and everyone goes home again or you could have small actions that just keep pushing, nibbling, putting it in front of people, reminding people.

"That's our style in Ballarat, just keep doing it, keep reminding people the climate emergency isn't going away and neither are we."

At the Burke and Wills fountain for The Courier's photoshoot on Wednesday, Ms Fry and Ms Robinson were both bearing their placards. It was not an official demonstration, but the honks started anyway: firstly from a ute driving down towards Bridge Mall, then a whole sequence as they stood briefly in between the green men.

It even came from the other side of the thoroughfare as a man in a City of Ballarat ute honked and gave a thumbs up through the window as he drove past town hall.

Ms Fry and Ms Robinson smiled and waved back. It couldn't be further from the hush of Ballarat Library. Protesting never looked more fun.

"Sometimes it's just a cacophony of toots and horns, people actually wind down their windows and speak to us and say 'thank you, thank you for your work'," Ms Fry told The Courier.

While the response is overwhelmingly positive, they acknowledge not everyone is on board. A couple of times each Friday they hear "Get a job!" shouted out the window instead of a toot - perhaps not the most cutting of put-downs for retirees.

Ms Robinson, who has acted as a spokesperson for the movement in Victoria, said new people were showing up every week, including many completely new to protesting.

"They always go out on the road for the first time going 'oh, it's a bit scary' standing in front of the cars...

"Every action I have done, people start a bit nervous at first, but at the end they're on this sort of euphoric high, just from doing something - and this is no different."

Both want the movement to grow and appeal to as broad a cross-section of people as possible - extending the reach to people who wouldn't normally have considered an activist role.

"People are saying they are worried but they don't know what to do - they don't want to go to Queensland and chain themselves to a train because that's too much or they can't because they've got kids, or they've got jobs, or they can't get away or so forth," Ms Robinson explained.

"But Extinction Rebellion allows people to do things in their own areas, like Ballarat, in a way they can fit it around their life - Friday afternoon for an hour, they can spare an hour. They can do actions that are relatively safe."

She acknowledged the reputation of people within the movement for getting arrested, but said that was "not compulsory".

"If they want to get arrested, I am sure we can arrange that. We haven't arranged anything like that in Ballarat yet. We haven't felt the need, we are still building the movement so there's no need."

She said the movement aimed at being as inclusive as possible, saying there was a place for more direct activism and support roles - as well as the more gentle activism on display every Friday.

"Extinction Rebellion is building a mainstream involvement in climate activism," Ms Robinson said. "You don't have to be covered in tattoos and have dreadlocks or be a vegan or do any of those kind of things."

She put the goal at getting around 3.5 per cent of the population actively involved.

"Then things start to change," she said. "Ordinary civil servants, teachers, students, whatever walk of life you're from - everyone can become involved."

Both talk of the sense of camaraderie among those coming along.

"We've all become really good friends so it's working in a number of positive ways," Ms Fry said. "And that's part of the thing, it's bringing people together and looking after each other."

A hardcore of around 10 are almost guaranteed to turn up each week to face the Sturt Street traffic, with numbers fluctuating with the weather.

"We have had extremely hot days, we've also had some really cold, wet days," Ms Fry said.

"It's quite fine for people not to come because you do have to look after yourself. The dust storm days were really awful so we didn't expect people to make an effort that day. But some people still did."

So why did she feel compelled to get involved herself?

"I have done so much in my personal life: eradicating plastic, I hardly drive my car now, [and] was just at this point of exasperation," she said. "[I thought] I am going to have to get political because this isn't working on my own personal scale.

"Then Extinction Rebellion turned up. It helped me understand that all those personal things we do, they're all valuable, they all count, but we're not going to get to the scale we need to get to without the government scaling up what it does."

The Friday night protest in Ballarat is a noisy but good-natured - and completely legal - but Ms Fry told The Courier she would be quite prepared to take a more radical stance.

"I am probably going to be arrested before much longer because I am feeling such a level of frustration at the inaction of the current federal government.

"They're criminal in their behaviour. The state government and the local government are doing some work, but not hard enough and not fast enough."

"After this summer, I don't think anyone can pretend anymore that we are not at the front line of the climate emergency here in Australia."

Summing up, Ms Fry concluded with words rarely heard in her old workplace. "It's time to make a bit of noise."

The movement is a recent one, beginning in the United Kingdom in May 2018, spreading to the United States, Australia and beyond. It advocates non-violent civil disobedience and has organised widespread disruption in London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne, Amsterdam.

In October last year, there were numerous arrests in Melbourne, with protests focusing on the BHP Headquarters in Collins Street.

The movement is undoubtedly controversial in some quarters - one London-based centre-right thinktank labelled it extremist - but it is also expanding rapidly.

Ms Robinson reports that since she began focusing on promoting the movement in Victoria, around 10,000 people have signed up to the group's updates from a standing start.

The motif of the movement is a circled hourglass, referred to as the extinction symbol. There are now more than 370,000 followers on its Facebook page.

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