Category: Summer Gathering 2008

Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise
27 Aug — 1 Sept 2008, Nor­folk
Join us for 5 days of work­shops and plan­ning actions

Trav­el direc­tions:
The gath­er­ing this year will be held at Woolsey­bridge Farm — a love­ly site in Nor­folk with lots of trees and a lit­tle stream. It’s approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 miles NNE of Diss. Diss has reg­u­lar train ser­vices and a whole­food shop. The Grid Ref­er­ence of the site is TM130819. The post code is IP22 5SY.

The site is eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by pub­lic trans­port, you can get the train either to Diss or Nor­wich and then catch the bus route no 1 (Sim­monds) from Diss to Nor­wich or vice ver­sa — this route goes right past the site and we’ll be ask­ing the local bus com­pa­ny if they will stop right out­side the site on request. Or you could walk or cycle — it’s only 1.5miles away from Diss train sta­tion. Please come by pub­lic trans­port if at all pos­si­ble! .
We will run pick-ups from the train sta­tion for any­body who can’t use the bus ser­vice or for larg­er groups of peo­ple. If you need a lift please let us know well in advance (and not in the mid­dle of the night, when you’re at a train sta­tion some­where!). Ring the Gath­er­ing mobile on 07789 331857

For a map and fur­ther details on trav­el includ­ing bus times and direc­tions for dri­vers check out http://earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html

Pro­gramme
This year’s pro­gramme focuss­es on info and plan­ning for actions, direct action skills as well as spaces to dis­cuss how we can respond to and deal with the widen­ing eco­log­i­cal, eco­nom­ic and soci­etal crises. We hope there’s some­thing for every­one.
We rec­om­mend that you arrive Tue evening, as work­shops will start on Wednes­day morn­ing and run until Sun­day evening

For more info about the gath­er­ing check out our web­site or email us (though we won’t be able to answer email after 21 Aug, as we’ll be on site set­ting up)

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk

The work­shops

Wednes­day

12:00
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the gath­er­ing
Deal­ing with the main­stream media — how to get your mes­sage across
Basic electrics — for squats and homes.
Cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change — how to make the links vis­i­ble in actions
Queer net­work­ing ses­sion

2:30
Self-defence — mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting FAQ — shar­ing tips and tricks
Action Recon­nais­sance for begin­ners
Intro­duc­tion to the root caus­es of eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and an explo­ration of alter­na­tives
Advanced Nav­i­ga­tion

4:30
Sav­ing Ice­land — Intro­duc­tion to the cam­paign
Nuclear waste and nuclear weapons
Con­sen­sus Deci­sion-mak­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy
Con­fronting Abu­sive Behav­iours with­in our Com­mu­ni­ties — with­out the police/prison.

6:00
Library Space: Nego­ti­at­ing Safer Sex: tips on putting the the­o­ry into prac­tice, and mak­ing your sex life more fun as well as safer!

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Talk with video on resist­ing rain­for­est destruc­tion in Tas­ma­nia

Thurs­day

10:30
Deal­ing with Pub­lic Order sit­u­a­tions — under­stand­ing police tac­tics and how we can deal with to them/turn them to our advan­tage (runs until lunch)
State and cor­po­rate oppres­sion of the Aus­tralian Abo­rig­ines
Action recon­nais­sance — advanced skill­share, share your most clever tips and tricks for get­ting info for actions
Prac­ti­cal plant iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (begin­ners)
Activist trau­ma and recov­ery

12:00
Sav­ing Ice­land — an eval­u­a­tion of the camp this sum­mer
Secu­ri­ty for Activists Part I: Do’s and don’ts of organ­is­ing action, from arrang­ing to meet, plan­ning and what hap­pens after
Arrest sup­port for actions — how to pro­vide sup­port for your affin­i­ty group, medi­um sized actions or mega camps and gath­er­ings.
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing

2:30
Wom­en’s self-defence — intro­duc­to­ry ses­sion
Food and Cli­mate Action: info for action
How to plan an action
Police liai­son for actions — what it is, its uses and lim­i­ta­tions and how to make it work.
Chang­ing light bulbs or smash­ing the sys­tem. Shar­ing +/- expe­ri­ences of work­ing within/outside the sys­tem

4:30
Oppos­ing nuclear expan­sion: plan­ning for action
How to plan and run a suc­cess­ful medi­um to long-term cam­paign
Night time skills Part I: intro­duc­tion (fol­lowed by prac­tise ses­sion at 8.30pm)
Legal and arrest work­shop
Intro­duc­tion to anar­chist history/potted anar­chist his­to­ries

6:00
Library space: open dis­cus­sion ?Direct action or pub­lic­i­ty stunt??
8:00

Cin­e­ma: Seashep­herd film and talk
8:30

Night time skills Part II — prac­tice your skills in the field.

Fri­day

10:30
Blockad­ing tac­tics
Cli­mate Camp debrief: a crit­i­cal look at the cli­mate camp, its achieve­ments and pol­i­tics
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Com­put­er Secu­ri­ty for the non-tech­ni­cal
Prison Abo­li­tion: what’s wrong with prison? what do we mean by abo­li­tion and how can we make it hap­pen?

12:00
Food and cli­mate change: action and cam­paign plan­ning
Self-defence mixed prac­tise ses­sion
Squat­ting to resist — occu­pa­tions to resist the pow­ers of dark­ness
His­to­ry of Earth First!

2:30
The Earth First! Action Update and web­site: feed­back and get­ting involved
Resist­ing agro­fu­els — update on the sit­u­a­tion and action plan­ning
Sea Shep­herd — an intro to its cam­paigns and how to support/get involved.
Grow your own food — share you skills and expe­ri­ence
Queer Activist Forum: Rad­i­cal queers organ­ise for the future!

4:30
Queer Self-Defence: an intro to basic self-defence skills (ver­bal and phys­i­cal)
Set­ting up new direct action groups
Sav­ing Ice­land ? plan­ning actions for the com­ing year
Tech­no-fix­es and cli­mate change ? report by Cor­po­rate Watch
Urban self-reliance and self-suf­fi­cien­cy

7:30
Library: Pris­on­er Sup­port — An infor­mal get togeth­er to dis­cuss the state of pris­on­er sup­port in our move­ments, find out news and get advice on writ­ing to pris­on­ers, as well as mak­ing and writ­ing cards to send to pris­on­ers.

8:00
Cin­e­ma: A talk and film by a trib­al activist from Oris­sa oppos­ing min­ing

Sat­ur­day

10:30
Cam­paigns and Actions Round-up: UK and inter­na­tion­al news (no oth­er work­shops)

12:00
Wom­en’s self-defence prac­tise ses­sion plus run­ning along­side — intro­duc­tion to wom­en’s self-defence
Stop­ping GM test fields — dis­cus­sion on future campaign/actions
Research and destroy — how to research cor­po­ra­tions
Future mod­els of soci­ety — find­ing a path to sus­tain­able liv­ing
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! and the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Using tripods for blockad­ing

2:30
Leave it in the ground — build­ing resis­tance to new coal min­ing and pow­er sta­tions
Facil­i­ta­tion of meet­ings
Activist Secu­ri­ty Part III: doing actions with­out leav­ing traces
Restora­tion Ecol­o­gy
Cre­at­ing safer spaces
Vis­it to Burston Strike School

4:30
Region­al meet­ings and action plan­ning (no oth­er work­shops)

6:00
Library Space: Work­ing with­out lead­ers — dis­cus­sion about core val­ues of anar­chism

8:00
Cin­e­ma: Smash Edo film and talk

Sun­day
11:00
Self defence mixed prac­tice ses­sion
Sort­ing out ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in EF!
Using radios on actions
Intro­duc­tion to Earth First! And the sum­mer gath­er­ing
Fences: get­ting over them/taking them down

12:15
The sum­mer gath­er­ing: feed­back on this year’s and get­ting involved in organ­is­ing the next one

2:30
Con­doms, cap­i­tal­ism and cli­mate change
Smash Edo
Intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion
What’s new in the world of law?
Fem­i­nist Health
Climb­ing trees, lamp posts and any­thing else

4:30
Rad­i­cal pol­i­tics in the age of col­lapse
The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land and Fos­sil Fuel Financ­ing
Get­ting your elec­tric­i­ty from solar pow­er and wind
Rad­i­cal Par­ent­ing
Look­ing after our men­tal health — shar­ing ideas and expe­ri­ences

8:00
Cin­e­ma: films — cli­mate camp footage, ready steady skip etc

Mon­day
Take-down: please stay for a day or two to help take down the site. If you’ve got access to a vehicle/van, it’d be great if you could help trans­port­ing mar­quees, recy­cling etc to the places they need to go. Cheers!

More info about the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing
EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try.
Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.
We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.
Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ AT _ earthfirst.org.uk