What to expect at the Summer Gathering

Nev­er been to an Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing before? Want to know a bit more about what to expect before you decide to come? You’re prob­a­bly not the only one!

Every year, dozens of peo­ple come for the first time, and usu­al­ly like it and have a love­ly time. Still its always daunt­ing to turn up to some­thing not know­ing what it’ll be like. We’ve com­piled these key points from our longer access state­ment (which will be released short­ly), to give you a rough idea of how dif­fer­ent things will work!

Oth­er use­ful arti­cles:
Save the date
Trav­el Guide

What is an EF! gathering?

Earth First! Gath­er­ings are a place for our move­ments and peo­ple to come togeth­er, meet one anoth­er, learn from one anoth­er, eat togeth­er, dance togeth­er, share ideas, knowl­edge and resources, and prac­tice build­ing the world we’d like to bring forth. They hap­pen twice a year, although the Win­ter Moot tends to be calmer and more inti­mate.

We oper­ate under an umbrel­la of shared val­ues and under­stand­ings relat­ed to green anar­chism. Large­ly, this means that we work to dis­rupt and over­turn hier­ar­chies of pow­er, envi­sion­ing and build­ing ways that we can exist togeth­er beyond hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures, and that we are com­mit­ted to an eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion. We are anti-cap­i­tal­ist, against all forms of oppres­sion, and believe that the earth and all its beings exist in their own right, out­side of their val­ue to us as humans.

This year, the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Gath­er­ing will be hap­pen­ing along­side Earth First!, bring­ing anti-speciesism direct­ly into con­ver­sa­tions at EF!. We will share the site and learn togeth­er how to bring into prac­tice a new world in which we are all free.

We are all Crew

Earth First! and its gath­er­ings belong to all those of us who feel aligned to its prin­ci­ples. No one is paid to be here; no one is ‘in charge’. All of the work which goes into the gath­er­ings are done by peo­ple just like you!

Dur­ing the gath­er­ing itself, there are many jobs to be done! Whether that’s help­ing out in the kitchen, clean­ing or tidy­ing the site or facil­i­ties, time­keep­ing, fix­ing some­thing or just gen­er­al­ly help­ing things run smooth­ly; every­one is need­ed to help the gath­er­ings come togeth­er. If you see a job that needs doing, do it! If you’re not sure how, grab a friend or chat to some­one who might know (such as some­one on the Wel­come Desk).

There will be a board with a list of tasks that need doing that you can sign up to at the wel­come desk too. We know some folks find it eas­i­er to socialise and set­tle in if theres a task to do!

How do sign-up? What do I do when I arrive?

There’s no need to pre-reg­is­ter or tell us that you’re com­ing — just show up!

Upon your arrival, please head to the wel­come desk where you’ll be greet­ed by the love­ly peo­ple who’ll give you key infor­ma­tion like where to camp, where the toi­lets are, what time you’ll be fed and also answer any ques­tions you might have. Impor­tant­ly, it’s the wel­come desk who count num­bers for food, so if you don’t go via the wel­come desk and let them know how long you’re stay­ing, you won’t be count­ed into num­bers for meals!

There will be print­ed pro­grammes con­tain­ing lots of the infor­ma­tion in this doc­u­ment as well as oth­er impor­tant things like the anti-oppres­sion state­ment and a blank timetable. Because the sched­ule of work­shops is sub­ject to change, these will be writ­ten up on a board, so you can fill in your own sched­ule in your pro­gramme.

Earth First! runs on dona­tions and we ask those who can to give towards run­ning costs. We’d love to be liv­ing in a post-mon­ey soci­ety, but at the moment we rely on these dona­tions to cov­er food at the gath­er­ing, and oth­er costs such as buy­ing and trans­port­ing kit. There is a sug­gest­ed dona­tion of £5/day for food, plus a slid­ing scale of £10–50 to go towards site costs. Hav­ing said that, no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

What will be site be like?

The gath­er­ing will be held across two large adjoin­ing fields. Both fields are gen­tly sloped, with some flat­ter ground towards one end. One of the fields is quite uneven / bumpy. There will large mar­quees in the fields, which is where we’ll hold the work­shops. We will be camp­ing and you will need to bring a tent, sleep­ing bag, roll mat and what­ev­er else you may need to be com­fy.

The site’s water is spring-fed, and there are two plumbed-in sinks with taps on site. We will be bring some com­post toi­lets and an acces­si­ble toi­let of our own. All facil­i­ties are gen­der neu­tral and we are all respon­si­ble for keep­ing them clean and tidy.

What about meals?

There’ll be a camp kitchen which will make 3 veg­an meals a day, with at least lunch and din­ner being hot. There will be coor­di­na­tors look­ing after them, but any attendee can vol­un­teer to help with meal prep. You can bring your own snacks and meals if you want, but please no nuts, and all food eat­en in com­mu­nal areas should be veg­an. Make sure to wash your hands before eat­ing and tell the wel­come desk if you have any aller­gies so we can make sure you have some­thing you can eat

Because we won’t know how many peo­ple are attend­ing the gath­er­ing, meal­times might vary, but the aim is to serve break­fast between 8am and 9am (morn­ing meet­ing will be at 9am), lunch between 1pm and 2pm, and din­ner between 6pm and 8pm.

There will be a veg­an tuck shop run by Veg­gies and there will be teas and cof­fees avail­able through­out the gath­er­ing. There will be alco­holic drinks avail­able for cheap some evenings, and the mon­ey will go towards sup­port­ing the gath­er­ing. Please bring cash to pay for snacks and drinks!

But will it be a nice and caring space?

We hope so! Peo­ple hav­ing a good time is real­ly impor­tant, so we encour­age every­one to look out for each oth­er and be friend­ly & wel­com­ing, espe­cial­ly if some­one has­n’t come with peo­ple they know.

We will have a des­ig­nat­ed qui­et tent on site, which every­one is wel­come to use for qui­et reflec­tion, prayer or to take some time away from the parts of the gath­er­ing which can be loud or over­whelm­ing.

There will be a tent or mar­quee space held by the well­be­ing col­lec­tive. Any­one is wel­come to use this space if they are feel­ing over­whelmed, strug­gling, or just need a qui­et space to talk. The well­be­ing team can help you if you are feel­ing unwell, strug­gling to make friends, or need some­one to talk to. They can sup­port peo­ple to set bound­aries or com­mu­ni­cate needs to each oth­er. If you would like to con­tact the well­be­ing col­lec­tive before the gath­er­ing then please email us on earthfirstuk@riseup.net to be put in touch.

There will be a kid’s space at the gath­er­ing with activ­i­ties for kids includ­ing fire start­ing, wide games, singing, crafts, (though young peo­ple are wel­come at most oth­er work­shops!) The kids’ space is not a creche and we encour­age par­ents and care­givers to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their kids and check in with them reg­u­lar­ly. The kids space is facil­i­tat­ed by a mixed gen­der group and is run by teach­ers, par­ents and non-par­ents. If you want to hang out with kids at the gath­er­ing, please email us or go to the kids space to sign up on the rota.

Earth First! has an anti-oppres­sion state­ment which we ask every­one com­ing to the gath­er­ing to read and fol­low. You can read the anti-oppres­sion state­ment here: earthfirst.uk/solidarity-statement/

Can I bring my phone?

There is no WiFi at the gath­er­ing, and we encour­age every­one to leave their phone switched off and in their tent dur­ing work­shops. We also ask peo­ple not to take pho­tos or film. This is for pri­va­cy & secu­ri­ty rea­sons, as well as to enable us to con­nect more direct­ly with oth­ers at the gath­er­ing. We won’t have mains pow­er and there­fore will not be able to offer charg­ing facil­i­ties except for nec­es­sary devices (e.g. assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy, elec­tric wheel­chairs).

Okay, so what should I bring?

• Tent, sleep­ing bag, roll mat
• A cup
• Toi­letries and med­ica­tion
• Eye mask and earplugs
• Spare jumpers and blan­kets for cool­er evenings
• Spare clothes for how­ev­er long you’re stay­ing
• Water­proofs
• Sun cream and insect repel­lant (e.g. cin­tronel­la essen­tial oils)
• Cash for snacks, dona­tions, teas/coffees, food, booze, merch & zines
• Charged bat­tery pack
• Note­book & pen for work­shop notes
• Fire­wood
• Crafts
• Musi­cal instru­ments
• Water bot­tle

This list is incom­plete, everyone’s needs and car­ry­ing capac­i­ty are dif­fer­ent, hope­ful­ly it’s help­ful…

See you soon!! <3