Category: Squatting / Free Spaces / Protest Sites

EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT: 5th — 7th Feb 2010, County Durham — exact location released, & other info (incl. for cyclists)

EARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT
6pm Fri 5th — Sun 7th Feb 2010
North-east Eng­land

“A week­end of net­work­ing, reflec­tion, strate­gic dis­cus­sions & cam­paign plan­ning for any­one involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action who believes in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and direct­ly con­fronting the forces respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants”

EF! earth fist logoEARTH FIRST! WINTER MOOT
6pm Fri 5th — Sun 7th Feb 2010
North-east Eng­land

“A week­end of net­work­ing, reflec­tion, strate­gic dis­cus­sions & cam­paign plan­ning for any­one involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action who believes in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­i­sa­tion and direct­ly con­fronting the forces respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants”

Venue:
The Win­ter Moot will be tak­ing place at the Dip­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Front Street (A692), Dip­ton, Stan­ley, Coun­ty Durham, DH9 9DR. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on get­ting there can be found via the How to get there link (now includ­ing cycling direc­tions).

New poster to down­load
New fly­er to down­load

Details of EF! Win­ter Moot announced:

The Earth First! Win­ter moot is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple who feel affil­i­a­tion with the ideas behind Earth First! to net­work, dis­cuss and reflect on the UK eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment and to plan for the future. Earth First! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. We believe we can make a real dif­fer­ence by doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.

This years Earth First! Win­ter Moot will be tak­ing place in Co. Durham on the week­end of 6/7th Feb­ru­ary. As well as eval­u­a­tions and updates from a num­ber of eco­log­i­cal cam­paigns from around the coun­try, this year we will have a themed event — The Cri­sis: eval­u­a­tion, analy­sis and pos­si­ble respons­es. We will be explor­ing the inter­ac­tions between the var­i­ous eco­log­i­cal, finan­cial and resource crises, exam­in­ing our own con­cep­tions and expe­ri­ences of cri­sis, then tying it alto­geth­er to find a way for­ward using non-hier­ar­chi­cal approach­es.

We will also be host­ing a dis­cus­sion on how Earth First and the Camp for Cli­mate Action inter­sect, to deal with quite a num­ber of issues that emerged at the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, includ­ing issues of gen­er­a­tional under­stand­ing, anar­chism vs. lib­er­al­ism, are we seper­ate net­works, and how can we go for­ward togeth­er in the future. This debate will be tak­ing from 6.15–7.30pm on the Sat­ur­day evening of the Moot, and is open to all.

Every­one wel­come

If your cam­paign (local or nation­al) is inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the feed­back please get in touch.

The venue will be acces­si­ble, and par­ent-friend­ly. Veg­an food pro­vid­ed. Sug­gest­ed dona­tion for the week­end is £20. The venue will be announced one week before­hand so keep an eye on the web­site for details; how­ev­er, for those who want to pur­chase advance tick­ets, the near­est sta­tion will be New­cas­tle-upon-Tyne.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it http://earthfirst.org.uk/ & http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2010moot/front.html
Tel: 0777 114 2131

1. It is in doors with com­mu­nal sleep­ing areas (no camp­ing — we’re not that mad 🙂 )

2. The actu­al venue will be announced a week before hand, so please check the web­site then, or email us.

For enquiries, offers of facil­i­ta­tion & help, ideas for work­shops and TO LET US KNOW YOU ARE COMING! email : wintermoot@earthfirst.org.uk

More about the Moot
The EF! Win­ter Moot is an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple who feel affil­i­a­tion with the ideas behind Earth First! to net­work, dis­cuss and reflect on the UK eco­log­i­cal direct action move­ment and to plan for the future.

Fol­low­ing a pop­u­lar dis­cus­sion at 2009’s EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing 2010’s Moot also aims to hold dis­cus­sions on the theme of “ready­ing our­selves for unpre­dictabil­i­ty and insta­bil­i­ty in the UK and glob­al­ly”. The cur­rent & impend­ing crises of eco­nom­ics, ecol­o­gy, ener­gy & soci­ety fun­da­men­tal­ly alter the ter­rain of strug­gle; this in turn impacts both the prac­tice and pos­si­bil­i­ties for a rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment.

2010’s Win­ter Moot is to be held in Coun­ty Durham, an area with a large num­ber of open­cast coal mines, both active and at the appli­ca­tion stage. The week­end will include oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet with activists involved local­ly in cam­paigns against these.

Cost includ­ing veg­an food & crash-pad accom­mo­da­tion £20-£30 (depend­ing what you can afford-but please don’t blag-even the organ­is­ers will pay).

If you have par­tic­u­lar accom­mo­da­tion, access or dietary needs or are bring­ing chil­dren it would help us to know as soon as pos­si­ble so we can plan suit­able facil­i­ties; who­ev­er you are please do try & drop us an email at least a week in advance so we can gauge how many to cater for.

www.earthfirst.org.uk

More Sabotage at Mainshill: Drilling and Harvesting Equipment Targeted

Two reports of sab­o­tage at Main­shill Wood have been post­ed on Indy­media – one involv­ing the drilling rig on site and anoth­er involv­ing har­vest­ing equip­ment which has been relent­less­ly tar­get­ed over the past month, both with sab­o­tage and ear­ly morn­ing actions. Things are heat­ing up at Main­shill as the defi­ance of the com­mu­ni­ty takes on Scot­tish Coal’s deter­mi­na­tion to prof­it at any cost.

Two reports of sab­o­tage at Main­shill Wood have been post­ed on Indy­media – one involv­ing the drilling rig on site and anoth­er involv­ing har­vest­ing equip­ment which has been relent­less­ly tar­get­ed over the past month, both with sab­o­tage and ear­ly morn­ing actions. Things are heat­ing up at Main­shill as the defi­ance of the com­mu­ni­ty takes on Scot­tish Coal’s deter­mi­na­tion to prof­it at any cost. It’s crunch time for new coal in South Lanark­shire.

From Indy­media Scot­land:

An anony­mous com­mu­nique was received after two machines used for drilling and test­ing for coal on site were sab­o­taged in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing… The com­mu­nique reads:

“On the morn­ing of Tues­day the 20th of Octo­ber two heavy vehi­cles had their Fuel lines, wiers, gears and fuel tanks destroyed. Their win­dows and bodys where also sprey­paint­ed.

The vehi­cles dam­aged have been work­ing to pre­pare the Main­shill Wood area for coal extrac­tion. If it is open cast­ed then it will join sev­er­al oth­er mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, two of which are cur­rent­ly expand­ing.

Scot­tish Coal, the land own­er Lord Home and the gov­ern­ment and more than pre­pared to sac­ri­fice the health of local com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment, as well as con­tribute to cli­mate change and near­ly uni­ver­sal envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion for wages, bonus­es, tar­gets and prof­its.

This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.”

Anoth­er anony­mous com­mu­nique has been received,

“On the morn­ing of Tues­day the 20th of Octo­ber three tree felling vehi­cles had wiers cut, lights and oth­er fix­tures bro­ken. Their win­dows where also sprey­paint­ed and a free stand­ing flood light was tipped and smashed.

The vehi­cles dam­aged have been work­ing to pre­pare the Main­shill Wood area for coal extrac­tion. If it is open cast­ed then it will join sev­er­al oth­er mines in the Dou­glas Val­ley, two of which are cur­rent­ly expand­ing.

Scot­tish Coal, the land own­er Lord Home and the gov­ern­ment and more than pre­pared to sac­ri­fice the health of local com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ment, as well as con­tribute to cli­mate change and near­ly uni­ver­sal envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion for wages, bonus­es, tar­gets and prof­its.

This action was tak­en by a group of autonomous peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all those who oppose the devel­op­ment of Main­shill Wood into an open cast coal mine.”

For more infor­ma­tion about the cam­paign see http://mainshill.noflag.org.uk/

Reclaim the Earth Centre — conisbrough

There will be a walk­a­bout the Earth Cen­tre at Con­is­brough (Don­cast­er, S. Yorks)on Fri­day, 23rd Octo­ber at 1pm.

This meet­ing is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet each oth­er an dis­cuss plans to reclaim the earth cen­tre for the peo­ple.

earth centreearth centre2There will be a walk­a­bout the Earth Cen­tre at Con­is­brough (Don­cast­er, S. Yorks)on Fri­day, 23rd Octo­ber at 1pm.

This meet­ing is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet each oth­er an dis­cuss plans to reclaim the earth cen­tre for the peo­ple.

The Earth Cen­tre was a mil­le­ni­um com­mis­sion fund­ed project, it is a edu­ca­tion­al cen­tre for sus­tain­able liv­ing and after mil­lions of pounds were pumped into it the site has been left derelict and closed to the pub­lic for 5 years. Unfor­tu­nate­ly now in the hands of the coun­cil it is under imme­di­ate threat of devel­op­ment.

Imag­ine an island of low impact liv­ing struc­tures, for­est gar­dens, lush allot­ments, and the tech­nol­o­gy to be com­plete­ly self sus­tain­able this is the Earth Cen­tre. Please help us save it!

Hot off the press and packed with Direct Action — the new Earth First! Action Update is out!

Rebel­lion, a spark in search of a pow­der keg — the new Action Update is out, the quar­ter­ly round-up of eco­log­i­cal direct action from the UK and beyond.

What’s in this issue?

EF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)Rebel­lion, a spark in search of a pow­der keg — the new Action Update is out, the quar­ter­ly round-up of eco­log­i­cal direct action from the UK and beyond.

What’s in this issue?
Old King Coal meets his Match, but the Nuclear Empire Strikes Back! Read tales of flotil­las, bish­op-bash­ing, block­ades and occu­pa­tions as the Rebel Alliance takes on the Empire. The rebels have also been hang­ing around in nets and on plat­forms, occu­py­ing and lock­ing-on at coal ter­mi­nals, and pas­sion­ate­ly attack­ing pow­er sta­tion fences around the world, try­ing to shut ’em down. Main­shill protest camp con­tin­ues to pro-active­ly resist open-cast min­ing — they climb, occu­py, and by night, anony­mous pix­ies sab­o­tage. Who knows when they sleep — with a strong alliance with local vil­lagers, they wel­come YOU to come and play any­time, with a gath­er­ing at the end of Octo­ber.

Want more? Radio-tow­ers top­pled, dams and trucks seized, naked oil streaks and green smears in defence of the wild, a shit dumped with shit…resistance to peat min­ing, genet­ic engi­neer­ing, log­ging and Shell in Ire­land, and for Ves­tas wind tur­bine fac­to­ry and work­ers on the Isle of Wight.

Still not enough? Stop­ping Tesco, cli­mate cam­paign­ing suc­cess­es, run­way inva­sions, more eco­tage, and the EF! Win­ter Moot, plus con­tacts and upcom­ing dates.

To down­load your copy go to this web­site:

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_oct09.pdf

If you want paper copies to dis­trib­ute, con­tact us at: actionupdate@earthfirst.org.uk or pick up a bunch from our stall at the Anar­chist Book­fair in Lon­don. To print your own, down­load from http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_oct09print.pdf

Want­ed: We are very skint! Please send us some dosh to help us pay for the print­ing.
Cheques can be made out to Earth First! Action Update, and post­ed to The Base­ment, 78a Pen­ny St, Lan­cast­er LA1 1XN

Love and Rage
Your Action Update col­lec­tive

Mainshill Solidarity Camp Gathering – Saturday 31st October & Sunday 1st November + video

Build­ing – Work­shops – Action

Join us at Main­shill Wood for the week­end of the 31st Octo­ber & 1st Novem­ber or longer if you can.

Mainshill gathering flyerBuild­ing – Work­shops – Action

Join us at Main­shill Wood for the week­end of the 31st Octo­ber & 1st Novem­ber or longer if you can.

Work has start­ed at Main­shill, where Scot­tish Coal want a new coal mine but the com­mu­ni­ty does not. Huge areas of plan­ta­tion are being felled and JCBs have moved in. This gath­er­ing will strength­en the cam­paign and give new ener­gy to the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp.

Events over the Week­end:

* Sat­ur­day 31st Octo­ber, 13:00: A walk of the area with peo­ple from sur­round­ing and affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, vis­it­ing areas that have been destroyed by Scot­tish Coal and areas that we can still save. A dis­cus­sion on the cam­paign so far and where we can take it will fol­low.
* Climb­ing, tree-house build­ing and tun­nelling work­shops
* A “work day” to build the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp some new defences
* Evening camp-fire enter­tain­ment
* Plen­ty of chances to stop a beau­ti­ful area of Scotland’s coun­try­side from being turned into an open­cast coal mine

What to bring:

* Warm clothes and water-proofs, a tent, sleep­ing bag and mat
* Any food, build­ing mate­ri­als and tools you can
* Most impor­tant­ly, bring your­self and your friends

Con­tact us on: mainshill@riseup.net / 07806926040

The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp has been doing its best to stop work on the site, but now we need your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty to win this fight against Scot­tish Coal, Lord Home and South Lanark­shire Coun­cil!

Stop­ping Work at Main­shill — Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing 31st Oct & 1st Nov video

http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/

Rampart Eviction — The Priest and the Chainsaw

The ram­pART Social Cen­tre was evict­ed at 5:30am this morn­ing by 45 police, bailiffs and a priest.

The ram­pART Social Cen­tre was evict­ed at 5:30am this morn­ing by 45 police, bailiffs and a priest.

After over 5 years and many evic­tion scares it has final­ly hap­pened… 3 peo­ple and a dog were inside when police attempt­ed to cha­ni­saw the door. They also had climbers going up to the roof con­jur­ing up mem­o­ries of the raid dur­ing the G20 in April. Police are block­ing the entrance to all three roads lead­ing to the social cen­tre with vans and their bod­ies. They are hand­ing out a piece of paper with a tele­phone num­ber to call to get belong­ings out of the build­ing. If you are able to help move or store stuff please con­tact the ram­pART col­lec­tive — rampart@mutualaid.org.

Northumberland Road Eviction, Sheffield

14th Octo­ber 2009
The sec­ond site of the Sheffield Social Cen­tre on Northum­ber­land Road was evict­ed today.

Today at 11:45 the NHS Trust had a pos­ses­sion order grant­ed, with per­mis­sion to pur­sue evic­tion through the High Court.

14th Octo­ber 2009
The sec­ond site of the Sheffield Social Cen­tre on Northum­ber­land Road was evict­ed today.

Today at 11:45 the NHS Trust had a pos­ses­sion order grant­ed, with per­mis­sion to pur­sue evic­tion through the High Court.

Two hours lat­er bailiffs were at the door demand­ing we leave, and gave us two hours to remove every­thing before they began seal­ing the build­ing. Sev­er­al oth­er build­ings on the road were also in the process of being sealed as we were pack­ing the stuff into vans, pre­sum­ably for fear that we may move to one of the oth­er emp­ty build­ings oppo­site us.

Those involved in occu­py­ing the social cen­tres at Pis­gah House and Northum­ber­land Road in the last two weeks came to the deci­sion that a break is need­ed, to recov­er and con­sol­i­date our thoughts on the expe­ri­ences we’ve had. We remain pos­i­tive and believe that an autonomous social cen­tre is still pos­si­ble in Sheffield, and will be recon­ven­ing again soon to con­sid­er the options for the future.

Watch this space.

http://www.sheffieldsocialcentre.org.uk

Work stopped again at Mainshill as loggers are blockaded out of the Wood

Ear­ly yes­ter­day res­i­dents of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire stopped log­ging for the day by putting their bod­ies and inge­nu­ity between machin­ery and the trees, rig­ging up a sky raft across a log­ging path used by heavy machin­ery to rip up unoc­cu­pied parts of the site.

Sky raft blocks access
No tree felling todayEar­ly yes­ter­day res­i­dents of the Main­shill Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp in South Lanark­shire stopped log­ging for the day by putting their bod­ies and inge­nu­ity between machin­ery and the trees, rig­ging up a sky raft across a log­ging path used by heavy machin­ery to rip up unoc­cu­pied parts of the site.

In the past week Scot­tish Wood­lands Ltd have been remov­ing trees from the site of the camp. The clear felling is facil­i­tat­ing the cre­ation of a new open cast coal mine on the site by Scot­tish Coal Ltd. Despite local out­rage at the devel­op­ment plan and over 700 let­ters of objec­tion sent to the coun­cil in protest, plans are going ahead to cre­ate what could become the 5th mine in this already heav­i­ly pol­lut­ed area of Scot­land.

But peo­ple from all over the world and all walks of life are deter­mined to stop them! Res­i­dents of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp sus­pend­ed a sky raft above the access road with one per­son in it, effec­tive­ly pre­vent­ing the tree har­vester from gain­ing access to part of the wood where felling was to resume. The block­ade last­ed for 8 hours, after which one arrest was made at 12:30pm.

Res­i­dents of the camp con­demn the behav­ior of Scot­tish Wood­lands Ltd in the last few weeks, who have endan­gered peo­ples’ lives by work­ing dan­ger­ous­ly close to tree hous­es and con­tin­u­ing work despite being with­in a dis­tance deemed inap­pro­pri­ate by health and safe­ty stan­dards.

Despite dan­ger­ous con­di­tions and wors­en­ing weath­er, campers remain deter­mined to con­tin­ue fight­ing against the injus­tice of this devel­op­ment and to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local res­i­dents of Dou­glas who have been ignored at every lev­el of the plan­ning sys­tem.

As one inhab­i­tant of Main­shill camp site stat­ed ”We will not allow work to con­tin­ue on the Main­shill site as long as we are here. Plans for this new open cast coal mine are a bla­tant case of putting prof­it before the health of Dou­glas Val­ley res­i­dents and envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns, in par­tic­u­lar cli­mate change.”

The camp needs YOUR sup­port today. Go to http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/ for infor­ma­tion on what help is need­ed, and how to get to the site.

No more mines in the Dou­glas val­ley! No New Coal!

http://coalactionscotland.noflag.org.uk/?p=814

New social centre in Bath — come and help out

Bath Activist Net­work are proud to announce the open­ing of a new, and yet unnamed occu­pied social cen­tre in the heart of Bath.
The build­ing is mas­sive, and in pret­ty good nick, but we need help before we open the doors, so come and get involved at the begin­ning of an exit­ing new social cen­tre with loads of poten­tial.

Bath Activist Net­work are proud to announce the open­ing of a new, and yet unnamed occu­pied social cen­tre in the heart of Bath.
The build­ing is mas­sive, and in pret­ty good nick, but we need help before we open the doors, so come and get involved at the begin­ning of an exit­ing new social cen­tre with loads of poten­tial.
In par­tic­u­lar, we need peo­ple who are up for com­ing along and help­ing get the place ready for open­ing, and to run activ­i­ties once the place is open – clean­ers, painters, elec­tri­cians, artists, minor hole in roof menders, artists, musi­cians, rad­i­cals, dream­ers, schemers, your mates and assort­ed mal­con­tents are all wel­come!
We already have sev­er­al ini­tia­tives in the pipeline, such as a freeshop, infos­hop, rad­i­cal library, sal­sa, café, work­shops, activist self defence ses­sions, squat games and more – and we are up for any­one with ideas or skills to share to come and con­tribute to the space.
The social cen­tre is being run as a counter-cap­i­tal­ist ini­tia­tive, run by con­sen­sus, and giv­ing a liv­ing exam­ple of how we can cre­ate a world based on sol­i­dar­i­ty, mutu­al aid and co-oper­a­tion, not greed and author­i­ty. To get involved in any way, big or small, con­tact us at bathsocialcentre@gmail.com
(we are not freely giv­ing out the address at the moment, so email us for direc­tions)
We are slow­ly gath­er­ing the stuff we need to com­plete the space, but our wish list includes (but is not lim­it­ed to) –
*Chairs
*Tables
*Sofas
*Kitchen stuff
*Paint
*ban­ners
*dec­o­ra­tions
*Any unwant­ed stuff for the freeshop
*Any books, pam­phlets or leaflets for the library

This is a real­ly great space, and an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to build some­thing bril­liant in Bath, so come down and get involved from the begin­ning.

Cheers

Bath Activist Mas­sive x (A)

Sheffield Social Centre — New Location & another eviction hearing!

New loca­tion announced for the Anti-Cap­i­tal­ist, Non-Hier­achi­cal, Lib­er­at­ed Space.

Sheffield social cen­tre has moved, noth­ing else has changed.

Sheffield Social Centre 2New loca­tion announced for the Anti-Cap­i­tal­ist, Non-Hier­achi­cal, Lib­er­at­ed Space.

Sheffield social cen­tre has moved, noth­ing else has changed.

The new loca­tion is 10 Northum­ber­land Road, just off Glos­sop Road. The build­ing was vacant when we entered and no crim­i­nal laws were bro­ken.

We are keen to enter into dis­cus­sion with the build­ings own­er to avoid cost­ly legal pro­ceed­ings. In the mean­time the cafe and the full pro­gramme of events are run­ning as usu­al in this open and inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty space. Come down any time, all are wel­come.

http://sheffieldsocialcentre.org.uk/

—

9.10.09: yes­ter­day, at around 5pm, notices were served at 10 Northum­ber­land which state that a tres­pass hear­ing is due to take place at Sheffield Coun­ty Court at 10:30am on Wednes­day 14th Octo­ber.