Category: East Midlands

East Mid­lands

ID-DAY — National Day of Action against ID CARDS 26/3/07

DEFY ID CARDS & THE DATABASE STATE

TAKE BIG BROTHER DOWN

ID-DAY

Is a nation­al day of autonomous action against ID cards and the Data­base state.
Across the coun­try peo­ple will be protest­ing against the open­ing of the new ID ‘enrol­ment’ cen­tres.

DEFY ID CARDS & THE DATABASE STATE

TAKE BIG BROTHER DOWN

ID-DAY

Is a nation­al day of autonomous action against ID cards and the Data­base state.
Across the coun­try peo­ple will be protest­ing against the open­ing of the new ID ‘enrol­ment’ cen­tres.

Call for workshops at the Earth First! Summer Gathering 2007

This year’s gath­er­ing is from 18 — 22 July in Nor­folk, near a main­line rail­way sta­tion.

The focus is on prac­ti­cal skills, but there will also be many of the reg­u­lar diverse and inter­est­ing work­shops.

EF! summer gathering 2007 logoThis year’s gath­er­ing is from 18 — 22 July in Nor­folk, near a main­line rail­way sta­tion.

The focus is on prac­ti­cal skills, but there will also be many of the reg­u­lar diverse and inter­est­ing work­shops.

The idea is to have mul­ti­ple work­shop ses­sions, e.g. four two-hour slots spread over four days build­ing up skills in a par­tic­u­lar area, so peo­ple can learn the basic skills to actu­al­ly do the job at oth­er mobil­i­sa­tions, events like the cli­mate camp — or wher­ev­er. For exam­ple plumb­ing, elec­tri­cal skills, medics…and what­ev­er else peo­ple want to do… It’s not just about the prac­ti­cal skills but also about get­ting to know each oth­er and start­ing to work togeth­er.

If you would like to offer a work­shop please write to:
martinshaw64@riseup.net

Thanks — the EF! sum­mer gath­er­ing col­lect­ing
Gen­er­al con­tact details etc at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/

please for­ward to peo­ple you think would be inter­est­ed.

documentary: Reclaim Power — voices from the camp for climate action 2006

In the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. Cine Rebelde pro­duced a doc­u­men­tary film about the camp.

Cli­mate change is now a real­i­ty. Lead­ing sci­en­tists across the world agree that in a ’busi­ness as usu­al sce­nario’ we have no longer than 10 years to pre­vent 2–3 degrees of addi­tion­al glob­al arm­ing that will lead to irre­versible cli­mat­ic changes with dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our plan­et.

Climate camp view from gateIn the sum­mer of 2006, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK. Cine Rebelde pro­duced a doc­u­men­tary film about the camp.

Cli­mate change is now a real­i­ty. Lead­ing sci­en­tists across the world agree that in a ’busi­ness as usu­al sce­nario’ we have no longer than 10 years to pre­vent 2–3 degrees of addi­tion­al glob­al arm­ing that will lead to irre­versible cli­mat­ic changes with dra­mat­ic con­se­quences for our plan­et.

How­ev­er, in a world dri­ven by prof­it and com­mit­ted to unlim­it­ed eco­nom­ic growth, human­i­ty seems very unwill­ing to change the course of the fos­sil fuel econ­o­my.

In the sum­mer of 2006, the 5th hottest year ever record­ed in recent his­to­ry, 600 peo­ple con­vinced that there is no time to waste set up a Camp for Cli­mate Action in the shad­ow of one of the biggest C02 emit­ters in Europe: Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire / UK.

With over one hun­dred work­shops on a wide range of top­ics, the 10 day camp was a space of col­lec­tive learn­ing, sus­tain­able liv­ing and tak­ing direct action on the root caus­es of cli­mate change. The gath­er­ing that showed prac­ti­cal low ener­gy solu­tions in action, cul­mi­nat­ed in a day of protest and mass direct action in an attempt to shut down Drax.

DVD 62min + extras
Eng­lish with sub­ti­tles in Eng­lish, French, Ger­man and Span­ish
reports on indy­media UK: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Trail­er down­load: 2:58 min
http://www.cinerebelde.org/site.php3?id_article=356〈=en

a cine rebelde pro­duc­tion in coop­er­a­tion with http://risingtide.org.uk and http://climatecamp.org.uk

indy­media reports of the Camp 2006:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/

Pic­tures, infor­ma­tion and film orders:
orders@cinerebelde.org
http://www.cinerebelde.org

DVDs will also soon be avail­able from ris­ing tide, cli­mate camp groups and at the meet­ing in Bris­tol.

* * * * * *
Prepa­ra­tions for the Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 are in full swing. The upcom­ing meet­ing will be in Bris­tol on March 17th /18th.

Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca is cur­rent­ly doing a Road Show. Check out:
http://risingtidenorthamerica.org

The Campaign Against Prison Slavery

The Cam­paign Against Prison Slav­ery is a group set up to try to expose the real­i­ty of prison labour, how lit­tle of it teach­es skills that can be used after release and which could help reduce the chances of re-offend­ing.

The Cam­paign Against Prison Slav­ery is a group set up to try to expose the real­i­ty of prison labour, how lit­tle of it teach­es skills that can be used after release and which could help reduce the chances of re-offend­ing.

We also seek to expose the pri­vate com­pa­nies that have con­tracts with pris­ons that are mak­ing huge prof­its using pris­on­er labour while the pris­on­ers are paid pen­nies an hour, any los­es incurred by the prison indus­tries con­tracts are cov­ered by the tax pay­er.

CAPS now has a new web­site www.againstprisonslavery.org and the con­tact details are:

Cam­paign Against Prison Slav­ery
P.O. Box 74
Brighton
BN1 4ZQ
E‑mail: againstprisonslavery@riseup.net

McLibel: Human Rights Victory Anniversary Demo, Nottingham

To cel­e­brate the McLi­bel Human Rights Vic­to­ry Anniver­sary, there was a small demo on Thurs­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 5pm — 6pm at Exchange Walk, Not­ting­ham

To cel­e­brate the McLi­bel Human Rights Vic­to­ry Anniver­sary, there was a small demo on Thurs­day 15th Feb­ru­ary, 5pm — 6pm at Exchange Walk, Not­ting­ham

The Euro­pean Court of Human Rights in Stras­bourg declared that the noto­ri­ous and long run­ning McLi­bel case was in breach of the right to a fair tri­al and right to free­dom of expres­sion, there­by void­ing any solace that McNasty may have enjoyed from the tri­al.

The Court ruled that UK laws had failed to pro­tect the public’s right to crit­i­cise mas­sive cor­po­ra­tions whose busi­ness prac­tices can affect people’s lives, health and the envi­ron­ment.

Mean­while after spend­ing £10 mil­lion to sup­press free speach, McDon­alds find that the most wide­ly dis­trib­uted protest leaflet ever, con­tin­ues to be dis­trib­uted world­wide… I include a copy, for your inter­est!

As ever, when a protest is involved, there is a uni­form near­by that has to get involved. Bless, they can’t help it, can they. This being a Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Offi­cer [half-a-con­sta­ble] .… he had tak­en it upon him­self to tell a stu­dent jour­nal­ist that he could­n’t take pic­tures that includ­ed him! The stu­dent was attract­ed by the fact that some­one had giv­en the offi­cer a leaflet and he was read­ing it.

Yet again, an offi­cer abus­ing and exceed­ing his author­i­ty in intim­i­dat­ing peo­ple from doing some­thing they are legal­ly enti­tled to do, name­ly to take a pho­to­graph in a pub­lic place. I inter­ced­ed point­ing out that it was so allowed, and that he should leave him alone.

Mean­while, it was a pro­duc­tive event, with many leaflets giv­en out, and many folks inter­est­ed in the issues being high­light­ed. Cheers to those that turned out on a cold and windy evening. Nice one!

Much more info at: http://www.veggies.org.uk/event.php?ref=50

and if you want to know yet more about the alter­na­tives .…. please con­tact:

Veg­gies: http://www.veggies.org.uk

McLi­bel Sup­port Cam­paign. 5 Cale­don­ian Rd, Lon­don N1
Ph: 020 7713 1269
email: mclibel@globalnet.co.uk
Web­site: http://www.mcspotlight.org

Notts Critical Mass Relaunch for 23rd February 2007 with NEW Meeting Point

Let’s get this ride on the road!!!
Fri­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary is Not­ting­ham’s next Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride with a NEW Meet­ing Point in Mar­ket Square. This change is for every­one who rides a bike in Not­ting­ham and wants to take part.

Nottingham Critical Mass Feb 07 flierLet’s get this ride on the road!!!
Fri­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary is Not­ting­ham’s next Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride with a NEW Meet­ing Point in Mar­ket Square. This change is for every­one who rides a bike in Not­ting­ham and wants to take part.

Crit­i­cal Mass is a month­ly bike ride to cel­e­brate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road. With no set routes and no lead­ers, it’s sim­ply a bunch of peo­ple enjoy­ing clean healthy trans­port.

Check out the web­site at  http://www.criticalmassrides.info/nottingham
Join the dis­cus­sion group at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/nottcriticalmass

In addi­tion to all of the worth­while issues that Crit­i­cal Mass high­lights, it’s a great way to meet peo­ple and per­haps do a bit of net­work­ing to pro­mote oth­er cam­paigns.

So why start from the Mar­ket Square? Well Crit­i­cal Mass should appeal to any­one that rides a bike so it should start from the most cen­tral loca­tion for every­one’s ben­e­fit. Plus, prac­ti­cal­ly every oth­er Crit­i­cal Mass around the globe starts from a cen­tral, well-known loca­tion which makes it easy to remem­ber and easy to find.

It’s nev­er more than a cou­ple of hours. Bring bright cloth­ing, lights, horns, bells, NOISE and FRIENDS.
The next one is Fri­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary from Mar­ket Square, Not­ting­ham (Last Fri­day of every month). Gath­er at 5.30pm to depart at 5.45pm. Let’s get on our bikes and make this, the sim­plest of actions, hap­pen.

Spring Into Action — A week of events on Climate Change, happening in Nottingham

A week of work­shops, events, music and action on cli­mate change hap­pen­ing at dif­fer­ent venues across Not­ting­ham, from Thurs­day 5th – Wednes­day 11th April 2007.

A week of work­shops, events, music and action on cli­mate change hap­pen­ing at dif­fer­ent venues across Not­ting­ham, from Thurs­day 5th – Wednes­day 11th April 2007.

Cli­mate change is real and it’s hap­pen­ing now. Gov­ern­ments and cor­po­ra­tions dream of con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic growth — eco­nom­ic growth can’t solve this cri­sis, but we can. A mas­sive and con­cert­ed effort is need­ed on the scale of ‘Dig for Vic­to­ry’ or the ‘Home Front’: A war on cli­mate change.

We can’t con­tin­ue our cur­rent way of life — the oil on which it all depends is run­ning out too fast. A shift to a local­ly based econ­o­my will have to hap­pen, with food and ener­gy being pro­duced by the peo­ple that use it. The only ques­tion is when? We could start now, or we could wait for a future of war, famine, hur­ri­canes, droughts and floods. We need to gain the courage and change fast enough to cul­ti­vate a new world, before it’s too late.
‘Spring into Action’  http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk/ is part of an emerg­ing grass­roots move­ment against cli­mate change. Born out of the Camp for Cli­mate Action  http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/ ‘Spring into Action’ unites peo­ple across the east of Eng­land into mak­ing changes in our own lives, cre­at­ing small scale solu­tions in our com­mu­ni­ties and resist­ing those who still seek their own short term gain over a safe future for us all.

So get involved, come join a work­shop or run one your­self, come and help organ­ise the change that you want to expe­ri­ence in our world.

Tel: 07765 217118
Email: info [at] east­side­cli­mate­ac­tion [dot] org [dot] uk

Pub­lic Meet­ings:
Mon­day 5th Feb­ru­ary 2007, 7:30pm, Leices­ter, Friends Meet­ing House, Queens Road.
Thurs­day 8th Feb­ru­ary 2007, 7:30pm, Not­ting­ham, Inter­na­tion­al Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Mans­field Road.
Next Plan­ning Meet­ing:
Thurs­day 15th Feb­ru­ary 2007, 7pm, Not­ting­ham, Sumac Cen­tre, Glad­stone Street.

East­side Col­lec­tive
info@eastsideclimateaction.org.uk
http://www.eastsideclimateaction.org.uk/

Next national climate camp organsing gathering Feb 17/18 in Leeds

The next nation­al organs­ing gath­er­ing will be in Leeds on Sat and Sun Feb 17th/18th. It will be at The Com­mon Place in Leeds city cen­tre and veg­an food, accom­mo­da­tio­nand creche will be pro­vid­ed (please con­tact us with accom­mo­da­tion, creche or any oth­er needs though so we can plan ahead).

Climate camp logo 2 The next nation­al organs­ing gath­er­ing will be in Leeds on Sat and Sun Feb 17th/18th. It will be at The Com­mon Place in Leeds city cen­tre and veg­an food, accom­mo­da­tio­nand creche will be pro­vid­ed (please con­tact us with accom­mo­da­tion, creche or any oth­er needs though so we can plan ahead).

Cli­mate campers are at it again! More than sev­en­ty peo­ple from around the UK met in Leeds in Jan­u­ary and decid­ed to organ­ise anoth­er Camp for Cli­mate Action this sum­mer from 14th to 21st August. As many of you know, for ten days last August hun­dreds of peo­ple gath­ered in the shad­ow of Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire to share knowl­edge and inspi­ra­tion to tack­le the great­est threat to life on Earth, live an exam­ple of more just and sus­tain­able alter­na­tives, and con­front one of the UK’s biggest pol­luters in a day of mass direct action.

Fol­low­ing on from this suc­cess, Camp for Cli­mate Action 2007 will take place near to a tar­get relat­ing to avi­a­tion or the coal or oil indus­tries. The loca­tion will be cho­sen over the com­ing months. Organ­is­ing out­reach,
fundrais­ing, site prac­ti­cal­i­ties and work­shops is under­way. Self man­aged camp­ing, eat­ing and liv­ing neigh­bour­hoods around themes and geo­graph­i­cal areas are also being planned, con­tact details are on the web­site.

There is loads to do, and every­one is invit­ed to get involved — no expe­ri­ence nec­es­sary! The next nation­al plan­ning meet­ings will be held in Leeds at the Com­mon Place, on the 17th and 18th Feb­ru­ary, and then in
Bris­tol on the 17th and 18th March.

See www.climatecamp.org.uk for more info. There are lots of ways to get involved with­out com­ing to nation­al gath­er­ings, but com­ing to them is a great way of real­ly feel­ing part of the whole process, we work with con­sen­sus deci­sion mak­ing and col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty, every­one gets their say in how the whole thing goes.

For a 20min film of last years camp get
V For Video Activist — SchMOVIES DVD Col­lec­tion 2006 OUT Jan­u­ary 2007
— £6 (includ­ing P&P). Con­tact the SchNEWS Office 01273 685913 or  schnews@brighton.co.uk

leeds@climatecamp.org.uk
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk

Critical Masses This Friday (& others)

This is the first crit­i­cal mass of 2007. Lets start as we mean to go on and make it a big one!

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:
It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;

This is the first crit­i­cal mass of 2007. Lets start as we mean to go on and make it a big one!

We cycle round the city to cel­e­brate the bicy­cle:
It’s for any­one that rides a bike;
Its a cel­e­bra­tion of get­ting round the city with­out pol­lut­ing it;
Its about every jour­ney being an adven­ture instead of just sit­ting on a bor­ing bus or in a stress­ful car;
Its about cyclists rid­ing togeth­er to demand more respect from oth­er road users;
Its a way to meet oth­er cyclis­tas;
At rough­ly the same time on Fri­day hun­dreds of cities around the world do the same thing…all get togeth­er for crit­i­cal mass. its beau­ti­ful to know that as you ride with your mates through your own city that all around the world thou­sands of peo­ple are doing the same thing…

Rides in the UK this Fri­day include:
* Brighton — Gath­er 18:00 at the Lev­el (BN2 3FX)
* Cam­bridge — Maybe gath­er 18:30 Cam­bridge Mar­ket Square
* Leeds (This mon­th’s call­out) — Gath­er 17:30–18:00 Mil­le­ni­um Square
* Lon­don — Gath­er 18:30 Water­loo Bridge, by the Nation­al Film The­atre
* Man­ches­ter (videos of pre­vi­ous rides) — Gath­er 18:00 Cen­tral Library
* Not­ting­ham — Gath­er 17:30 Savoy cin­e­ma on Der­by Road in Lenton
* Oxford — Gath­er 17:45–18:00 Corn­mar­ket end of Broad Street out­side The Oxford Sto­ry
* Read­ing — Gath­er 17:30, Read­ing Town Hall

Please leave a com­ment if your ride has been left off (or is incor­rect).
————————————————————————
York Crit­i­cal Mass

In order not to clash with oth­er rides in the vicin­i­ty, York Crit­i­cal Mass is on the first Fri­day of every month mean­ing that the next ride is next Fri­day on 2nd Feb­ru­ary. Assem­ble at 5pm out­side Cost­cut­ters at the Uni­ver­si­ty or 5:30pm out­side York Min­ster. See you there!

Birm­ing­ham Crit­i­cal Mass: Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 2nd

Brum’s crit­i­cal mass is also on the first fri­day of the month, Fri­day 2nd Feb­ru­ary.
We meet up at Pigeon Park (St. Philip’s Cathe­dral) at 5:30pm and set off at 6pm.
The rides are get­ting more pop­u­lar and more cre­ative. There’s now a mobile soundsys­tem and for win­ter crit­i­cal mass’ rid­ers bring along fairy lights to illu­mi­nate the ride.
Sub­scribe to the list below if you want to get more involved!
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/brumcriticalmass

Glas­gow CM

This Fri­day at 5:30, George Square.
http://www.citystrolls.com/strolls/pages/critical.htm
=============================================
For list of UK rides & links, see also http://criticalmass.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Critical_Mass_rides#United_Kingdom

Activist Mediation Network Launched!!!!!

Want to learn medi­a­tion skills?
Inter­est­ed in help­ing sup­port activist groups engage with inter­nal dis­agree­ments and con­flict, to make them more effec­tive?
Want to tack­le con­flicts in your per­son­al life that inter­fere with your activism?

Want to learn medi­a­tion skills?
Inter­est­ed in help­ing sup­port activist groups engage with inter­nal dis­agree­ments and con­flict, to make them more effec­tive?
Want to tack­le con­flicts in your per­son­al life that inter­fere with your activism?

Our launch events will be train­ing days:

North­ern Launch -
Leeds on 10th March 2007, from 11am — 5pm

South­ern Launch
— Lon­don on 17 March 2007, from 11am — 5pm.

The aims of these days are:

To train peo­ple in con­flict res­o­lu­tion skills that they can use in their own lives and activist work
For peo­ple inter­est­ed in vol­un­teer­ing with us to receive train­ing and to meet with us to dis­cuss tak­ing it fur­ther.

If you have a spe­cif­ic con­flict or sit­u­a­tion that you would like to dis­cuss with us, then please get in con­tact and we’ll see if we can help.

Activist Medi­a­tion to the res­cue! (not real­ly!)

Details of the train­ing days:

Book­ing essen­tial: Please email activist­medi­a­tion [at] aktivix [dot] org
Cost: We are ask­ing for a £10 dona­tion to fund expens­es and help set up a trav­el fund to help with our medi­a­tion work. If mon­ey would pre­vent you from attend­ing, then get in touch.
Creche: We are not pro­vid­ing creche facil­i­ties, but if child­care issues are pre­vent­ing you attend­ing, please get in touch and we’ll try and sort some­thing out.
Access: Both venues are wheel­chair acces­si­ble, and have acces­si­ble toi­lets. For oth­er access needs, please con­tact us.
Lunch: Not pro­vid­ed. Please bring your own.
Trans­port and Accom­mo­da­tion: Get in touch if you have any issues or can offer a lift.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion have a look at our web­site www.activistmediation.org.uk
or tele­phone us on 0845 223 5254, and get in touch.

Back­ground

For the last few years we have both been involved in main­stream medi­a­tion, and using these skills at var­i­ous activist camps and sit­u­a­tions (Cli­mate Camp, Earth First!, Rad­i­cal Routes, Tri­dent Ploughshares). We have also been asked to work with oth­er activist groups to help them resolve inter­nal con­flicts. There is obvi­ous­ly a need for this work to be done on an ongo­ing basis, and so we have decid­ed to set up an activist medi­a­tion net­work. The aim is not for us to solve con­flicts, but to skill share and offer impar­tial medi­a­tors in order to help groups and indi­vid­u­als resolve their own con­flicts.