Final update: Climate Camp in London’s Square Mile, April 1 2009.

Final update at bot­tom of sto­ry — Because nature does­n’t do bailouts.

April 1 in the evening… the sun has gone down, the sky is clear and stars are on view… instead of going home we get fire­wood from our back­packs, make tea and cof­fee on rock­et stoves and then, just as the hunger pangs start, jack­et pota­toes!

Yes, we are actu­al­ly going to camp in the city…

The G20 meet­ing is com­ing up fast, as are our plans to shut down car­bon mar­kets and be camp­ing in Lon­don’s Square Mile as the 20 heads of state arrive. Below we’ve includ­ed more infor­ma­tion and the lat­est update.

You can check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20 as we get clos­er to Finan­cial and Fos­sil Fools Day — April 1st.

In the mean­time, we all need to get the word out. Basi­cal­ly the suc­cess of the Camp in the City is a game of get­ting as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble to the City on April 1.

**The call­out can be for­ward­ed to your friends and email lists- it is here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

**Invite your friends to the face­book event:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=49600653225

**For­ward this update to your mates, any rel­e­vant lists you are on, and post it on web­sites.

**Hold a local group meet­ing to dis­cuss the G20

**Down­load the post­card ver­sion for pho­to­copy­ing and get it out:
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/files/G20PostcardB_4onA4.pdf

**Stick­ers and colour post­cards are avail­able — email g20 at climatecamp.org.uk to get them.

Below you’ll find:

1) THE CLIMATE CAMP IN 2009
2) PRACTICAL INFORMATION
3) INFORMATION FOR NEIGHBOURHOODS AND AUTONOMOUS GROUPS
4) CALL OUT FOR WORKSHOPS
5) CALL FOR LEGAL OBSERVERS
6) FOOD AT THE G20 CAMP, MESSAGE FROM THE FOOD GROUP
7) DETAILS OF NEXT MEETING — NOTTINGAM MARCH 7/8

This infor­ma­tion is also avail­able at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20-practicalities.

1) THE CLIMATE CAMP IN 2009

The Cli­mate Camp new year nation­al gath­er­ing made huge progress, con­ceiv­ing a strate­gic deci­sion to focus on the failed eco­nom­ic sys­tem, and devel­op­ing four ambi­tious and excit­ing projects stem­ming from this. If you weren’t at the gath­er­ing, or haven’t yet had a chance to look over the deci­sions made, check them out: http://climatecamp.org.uk/?q=node/501

The most urgent project going ahead is “Cli­mate Camp hits the City”, a one day and night camp in the square mile of Lon­don tak­ing place on April 1st, the eve of the G20. Cli­mate Camp has nev­er organ­ised an action at such a fast pace, and so every­one is encour­aged to get net­work­ing local­ly across the UK to make Cli­mate Camp first event of 2009 an enor­mous suc­cess! To find out more about the details of the G20, go to http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20

2) PRACTICAL INFORMATION

CONVERGE. There will be a con­ver­gence cen­tre from Sat­ur­day the 28th April, so you can go to the ‘Put Peo­ple First’ march by the big NGO’s and Unions, and stay in Lon­don until the Wednes­day 1st April, and camp­ing in the City.
There will be plen­ty of work to do over those last days! See www.climatecamp.org.uk near­er the time for the exact loca­tion.

ARRIVE. Come for the day, or if pos­si­ble come for the day and night! The adven­ture will begin at noon, April 1st, Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange, Hasil­wood House, 62 Bish­ops­gate, EC2N 4AW. More details near­er the time. For some back­ground on car­bon mar­kets, and why we’re shut­ting down the exchange, vis­it http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20-why

LOOK AFTER EVERYONE. Although we hope to pro­vide some food, and shel­ter for those who want to sleep, please try to arrive as self-suf­fi­cient as pos­si­ble — when you are camp­ing in the heart of the finan­cial dis­trict, there are no guar­an­tees that we’ll be able to have much infra­struc­ture!
Bring water, warm clothes, a pop-up tent if you’ve got one, sleep­ing bag, and if you can, some blan­kets and tarp. Car­ry­ing your own food to share and water will also put less strain on our kitchen, and please arrive well fed.

TRANSFORM. We also want to trans­form the finan­cial dis­trict, both sym­bol­i­cal­ly and visu­al­ly into a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of our desired worlds. Doing that is up to all of us. We want our space to look beau­ti­ful. So come with your own plans, cos­tumes, the­ater, enter­tain­ment and spec­ta­cle. Wind tur­bines, mobile cin­e­mas, action plans — what­ev­er you think you can pull off.

Let’s imag­ine anoth­er world or two or three.…

3) INFORMATION FOR NEIGHBOURHOODS AND AUTONOMOUS GROUPS

If you are part of a Cli­mate Camp neigh­bour­hood, or would like to be part of one, con­tact your local group: http://climatecamp.org.uk/node/40.

If you are in a local group, give the Process Group (process@climatecamp.org.uk) your details for the Cli­mate Camp web­site.

With an excit­ing process up and run­ning again, peo­ple are hope­ful­ly look­ing to get involved. How­ev­er, our Local Group page is out of date.

There­fore, if you are a local Cli­mate Camp group (whether or not you were a neigh­bour­hood at the Camp ’08), give us some text about the basic details (when and where you meet, con­tact details, a bit about your­selves) and we’ll get it on the web­site. We can also arrange for your local group to have an @climatecamp.org.uk email address.

If groups arrive sort­ed, that will put less strain on every­one. Think about how you would like to trans­form our space, and come with the mate­ri­als you need to do so. We are also urg­ing all groups to have back up plans and actions. There is no Plan­et B, but every­one should have a Plan B…

4) WORKSHOPS AT CLIMATE CAMP PART 1

The camp is look­ing for work­shops for the day. We would love to hear from you if you can offer a work­shop, espe­cial­ly (but not lim­it­ed to) work­shops on car­bon trad­ing, mar­ket solu­tions to cli­mate change, and the eco­nom­ic cri­sis. We are also real­ly keen to hear from you if you can offer music, street the­atre or any­thing else which will make the day inspir­ing and edu­ca­tion­al!

Please let us know if you would be able to offer a work­shop. Con­tact: at g20workshops at riseup.net

5) LEGAL OBSERVERS FOR CLIMATE CAMP PART 1

Want to be a trained legal observ­er? If so we real­ly want lots of legal obser­va­tion for the G20 camp on the 1st April. There will be a train­ing event on 31st March. Remem­ber we need peo­ple for both the 1st and 2nd of April. Email: legal at climatecamp.org.uk.

6) FOOD AT THE G20 CAMP, MESSAGE FROM THE FOOD GROUP

First. Bring plen­ty of fresh WATER; Bring Food; Bring a bog roll!; Bring bin lin­ers to take away rub­bish; bring a bowl, cup and fork.

Sec­ond. Do NOT bring propane bot­tles or sharp knives.

Third. If you can bring a Rock­et Stove — it would be won­der­ful — it’s prop­er camp­ing and visu­al­ly cool.

Fourth. There is a food and kitchens group who will work hard in col­lab­o­ra­tion with local groups to pre-pre­pare SUPPLEMENTARY veg­an food through­out the 24 hours of action — some in the loca­tion and in oth­er places. This could include a light din­ner on the 1st April and pos­si­bly hot break­fast on April 2nd. Dona­tions of £2–3 per head will be request­ed to fund this pro­vi­sion.

Fifth. Join the food group and help to make and dis­trib­ute food. Email tum­my­filler at riseup.net

7) NEXT MEETING — NOTTINGAM MARCH 7/8

The next nation­al Camp for Cli­mate Action gath­er­ing is going to be in Not­ting­ham, from the 7th to 8th of March. The Venue is the won­der­ful Sumac Cen­tre, details of which can be found on their web­site at:
http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/welcome.html

The Gath­er­ing will run from 10.30am on the Sat­ur­day till 5pm on the Sun­day, so get book­ing your trains and coach­es. We’ll not only be dis­cus­sion the G20, but also, oth­er cli­mate camp projects.

——

Update (25th March):

The G20 Swoop & cru­cial infor­ma­tion for the Cli­mate Camp in the City of Lon­don!

April 1st is only a week away! Below is the cru­cial infor­ma­tion you will need for camp­ing in the square mile dur­ing the G20.

Please for­ward this to your friends, any groups you are a part of, and post it on web­sites. Check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20 for updates. Once again, our list goes to 11.

(1) THE SWOOP & OVER-POLICING
(2) TEXT ALERTS & COMMUNICATION
(3) THE MAP
(4) INFOPOINTS & BRIEFINGS
(5) SLEEPING SPACE
(6) THINGS TO BRING
(7) AUTONOMOUS ACTIONS & MEDIA
(8) LEGAL
(9) WORKSHOPS & CEILIDH
(10) PUT PEOPLE FIRST MARCH
(11) IT’S A NUMBERS GAME

(1) THE SWOOP & OVER-POLICING

To be suc­cess­ful, we must all arrive at the Cli­mate Exchange at the same time. We must swoop in from dif­fer­ent direc­tions, using dif­fer­ent means to arrive with­in a minute or two of each oth­er. Its a good idea to meet up with your friends ear­ly, and some­where with­in easy reach of the Cli­mate Exchange. Then, at the appro­pri­ate moment, leave quick­ly, to arrive at exact­ly 12:30. You may even want to prac­tice before­hand.

Be aware that in light of cur­rent over-polic­ing tac­tics, if you miss the swoop, you may be unable to join the camp. In places where our num­bers are too low, the police may attempt to stop and search indi­vid­u­als, and con­fis­cate items to pre­vent us from set­ting up the camp safe­ly. We can avoid this by mov­ing con­fi­dent­ly and togeth­er. The police may also attempt to sur­round peo­ple to pre­vent us from mov­ing (some­times called a “ket­tle”). Near­by tube sta­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly Liv­er­pool Sta­tion, as well as the Bank (where the G20-melt­down protest is occur­ring at noon), are pos­si­ble loca­tions where the police may try to ket­tle peo­ple. If you see a ket­tle form­ing and don’t want to be stuck for the day in one, move and help oth­ers move out of it before it clos­es.

You are like­ly to have greater free­dom of move­ment if you’ve planned your swoop and know the area. Because things may change on the day, please take copies of our map with grid ref­er­ence points, and have a per­son in your group sub­scribed to the text alerts.

(2) TEXT ALERTS & COMMUNICATION

Things may change on the day, per­haps sig­nif­i­cant­ly. There is a text mes­sage news ser­vice which will be avail­able in advance and dur­ing the G20 Lead­ers meet­ing. We strong­ly rec­om­mend that peo­ple sub­scribe to it. It is pos­si­ble, even like­ly, that the place that we final­ly set up camp will not be the Cli­mate Exchange.

http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/text-updates

We also use Twit­ter http://twitter.co /ClimateCamp but please note that twit­ter does not reach mobile phone num­bers and is now a web-ser­vice, so on the day this will only be use­ful for those with web-enabled phones or those with friends at home ready to call.

You may want to also exchange phone num­bers with your friends and peo­ple in oth­er groups so that our com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work is as decen­tralised as pos­si­ble.

(3) THE MAP

A map of the city, with grid ref­er­ence points will be released at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/map in the com­ing days. Please print copies for you and your friends. It will be used on the day when the text alert gives the loca­tion of the camp, or any oth­er infor­ma­tion through­out the day.

Var­i­ous car­bon off-set com­pa­nies, car­bon trad­ing firms, green­wash­ing firms, and oth­er cli­mate-crim­i­nals will also be high­light­ed on the map. If the police pre­vent us from safe­ly set­ting up the camp, groups are espe­cial­ly encour­aged to do an action at one of these loca­tions, or any oth­er loca­tion they have researched. It can also aid com­mu­ni­ca­tion between you and your mates. Los­ing your friends in a crowd real­ly sucks!

(4) INFOPOINTS & BRIEFINGS

From Thurs­day March 26th until Thurs­day April 2nd ram­pARTS will be a G20 info­point, open to drop by from 2–10 pm. The Camp for Cli­mate Action will have infor­ma­tion there dur­ing this peri­od.

On Sat­ur­day March 28th at 5 pm, and on Sun­day March 29th at 2 pm, the camp will be serv­ing tea and cake for those who want to meet up and share infor­ma­tion, or make some ban­ners and props.

On Tues­day March 31st at 7 pm, there will be a brief­ing at ram­pART, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on new peo­ple who need infor­ma­tion about the April 1st camp.

ram­pART is locat­ed at 15 ‑17 Ram­part Street, Lon­don E1 2LA (near Whitechapel, off Com­mer­cial Rd). rampart[at]mutualaid.org, 07050 618445
http://therampart.wordpress.com/location-contact/

(5) SLEEPING SPACE

If you are com­ing from out of town, places are avail­able to stay! Please con­tact us ear­ly so that we can reserve you a place. Email iwanttocrashinasquatfortheg20@hushmail.com to let them know how many peo­ple will be stay­ing, and the dates you need.

(6) THINGS TO BRING

If you’re stay­ing for the full 24 hours, please check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/what-to-bring for what to bring.

(7) AUTONOMOUS ACTIONS AND MEDIA

Are you plan­ning an autonomous action and would you like to try and get media there as soon as it hap­pens? You can chat to the cli­mate camp media crew about it before­hand who can point the media your way, or can help you get your press release out. You don’t have to give them the details before­hand, but do get in touch with press@climatecamp.org.uk or call 07040 900905 to arrange some­thing.

(8) LEGAL

Our legal team have pre­pared a handy crib sheet of infor­ma­tion about your legal rights and what to do if some­thing goes wrong. These will be hand­ed out on the day, but there’s no guar­an­tee you’ll get one before encoun­ter­ing the police, so we advise you to print a copy to bring along.
Check it out at http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/legal

(9) WORKSHOPS & CEILIDH

Work­shops and music are on! Work­shops will include: Trad­ing our way into trou­ble, the Fos­sil Fuel Econ­o­my, A his­to­ry of Direct Action, Tech­no fix­es, Tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my, the lat­est cli­mate sci­ence from Copen­hagen, Mobil­is­ing for Copen­hagen, Debt and Cli­mate Change, Car­bon Trad­ing and Copen­hagen, Sus­tain­able Activism, Sam­ba, Poet­ry vs Cli­mate Change … and more!

Check out http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/events for the lat­est sched­ule

We also need more musi­cians to play at the ceilidh. More musi­cians and sound sys­tems are wel­come!

(10) PUT PEOPLE FIRST MARCH AND LEAFLETING

A Camp for Cli­mate Action block for the Put Peo­ple First March on Sat­ur­day the 28th of March will be meet­ing at 11 am out­side Char­ing Cross Nation­al Rail Sta­tion, on the strand. We need help hand­ing out leaflets dur­ing the march. 07534 598733 for more info.

(11) IT’S A NUMBERS GAME

The only way we can win this is through a mass mobil­i­sa­tion of peo­ple. With a week to go we can still get peo­ple to join us for the camp. Talk to your friends and bring them along; change your sta­tus and pro­file pic­ture on social net­works, and invite your con­tacts to our face­book event http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=49600653225 . On the day, make sure you let the peo­ple back home know how the camp is going, and how they can dis­sem­i­nate our mes­sage. If each of us brings some­one along, we dou­ble our num­bers and our strength.

——

Final update (31st March):

Hi campers, not long to go before we join each to set up camp in the city on April 1st! This is the final update, please read it care­ful­ly and for­ward it to all your friends who are com­ing…

WHAT TO BRING:

We hope many of us will be stay­ing overnight, please bring a pop­up tent, food, 4 litres of water, warm clothes, hand clean­ing gel (for hygiene, we might not get water) and what­ev­er you might need for 24 hours of rebel camp­ing adven­ture. (a full list is here http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/what-to-bring)

HOW TO DO IT:

1) SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCHES: It is impor­tant that we swoop at exact­ly the same time, and those arriv­ing too late or too ear­ly might not make it in. You can use the speak­ing clock or this: http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com

2) PLUG IN: Sign up to text mes­sages here: http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/text-updates You will only get text mes­sages if there is a change of plan.

3) PREPARE: Print out the map from http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/map and if you still need some­where to sleep the night before check http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/g20/sleepspace Remem­ber that there may be lim­it­ed toi­let facil­i­ties so don’t arrive with burst­ing bow­els !!!

3) SWOOP DOWN: Arrive at 62 Bish­op’s Gate, the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange at 12:30 on the dot. Swoop swift­ly and stealth­ily from a loca­tion of your choice. It might be good to avoid Bank and Liv­er­pool Street sta­tions where oth­er protest groups are meet­ing at 11.00am as you may be unable to leave due to police Ket­tles (when police sur­round a crowd). Avoid ket­tles at all costs and if when you get to the Cli­mate Exchange the police invite you into a protest pen, say “no thanks, we’ll camp else­where”, keep mov­ing and wait for text mes­sages.

4) SPREAD INSPIRATION: You can use your phone to send reports, pic­tures, audio etc from the streets to Indy­media. Its very easy – see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/03/425262.html for num­bers and details.

If you are cov­er­ing the action using twit­ter, please include the hash­tags #g20cc or both #g20 and #protest so we can pull tweets into one sin­gle feed of the event.

5) AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST — ENJOY: The next few days will be extra­or­di­nary days for extra­or­di­nary times…