The Outdoor Skillshare a success

23rd June 2010
Over a hun­dred peo­ple came togeth­er last week­end for the Out­door Skill­share. Held at Talamh Hous­ing Coop in South Lanark­shire, the week­end aimed to bring peo­ple togeth­er to share the skills need­ed to occu­py land and defend it from evic­tion. Work­shops cov­ered var­ied top­ics includ­ing cook­ing for the mass­es, dig­ging tun­nels, radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion and climb­ing trees.

23rd June 2010
Over a hun­dred peo­ple came togeth­er last week­end for the Out­door Skill­share. Held at Talamh Hous­ing Coop in South Lanark­shire, the week­end aimed to bring peo­ple togeth­er to share the skills need­ed to occu­py land and defend it from evic­tion. Work­shops cov­ered var­ied top­ics includ­ing cook­ing for the mass­es, dig­ging tun­nels, radio com­mu­ni­ca­tion and climb­ing trees.

The week­end also had ses­sions on skill-shar­ing and run­ning work­shops to share the skills to facil­i­tate par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shops. It is hopped that more skill-shar­ing and events of this type will hap­pen across the UK in the future.

Lewis from Leeds who trav­elled up for the week­end said: “It was a real­ly amaz­ing event and I real­ly learned a lot. I’d nev­er put on a har­ness or cooked on a giant gas burn­er before so it was a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to prac­tise these things. I real­ly feel like all of us who came to this week­end will be able to go to a protest camp and actu­al­ly chip in.”

Lau­ra, part of the group that organ­ised the event said: “We were sur­prised at the num­ber of peo­ple who came and the atmos­phere and peo­ples atti­tude was amaz­ing. Peo­ple organ­ised spon­ta­neous ses­sions and those of us giv­ing work­shops learned new ways of doing things. It was such a great week­end and I hope we get a chance to do it again.”

The tem­po­rary camp over looked the for­mer site of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, now a func­tion­ing open cast mine, and was sur­round­ed by Bro­ken Cross and Poniel open cast coal mines. South Lanark­shire has been blight­ed by open cast coal mines for decades and has also been a hive of resis­tance by the com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal­ists. Over the week­end peo­ple from the local com­mu­ni­ties vis­it­ed the event, includ­ing some local young peo­ple who took part in the kids climb­ing work­shop.

out­doorskill­share [at] riseup.net
http://outdoorskillshare.noflag.org.uk