Category: London

Lon­don

Land & Freedom camp, London

This is an update on the Land & Free­dom Camp: a 7 day open exhi­bi­tion and demon­stra­tion tak­ing place on Clapham Com­mon from Sat 17th Sept till Sun 25th Sept.

Land & Free­dom

This is an update on the Land & Free­dom Camp: a 7 day open exhi­bi­tion and demon­stra­tion tak­ing place on Clapham Com­mon from Sat 17th Sept till Sun 25th Sept.

Land & Free­dom

Greet­ings,

This is an update on the Land & Free­dom Camp: a 7 day open exhi­bi­tion and demon­stra­tion tak­ing place on Clapham Com­mon from Sat 17th Sept till Sun 25th Sept.

The aim of the camp is to high­light the issue of the eco­nom­ics of land own­er­ship and the pol­i­tics and laws regard­ing the use of the land local­ly and glob­al­ly.  We want to com­mu­ni­cate the myr­i­ad of effects that the cur­rent sys­tem has includ­ing:

  •  the almost com­plete restric­tion of access to land to live (and grow) autonomous­ly and sus­tain­ably by com­mon peo­ple in the UK and around the world due to laws gov­ern­ing use of the land and/or eco­nom­ic dom­i­na­tion of it by the few (despite there being over 5 acres of land for every human being on earth) *
  •  the ensu­ing effect of arti­fi­cial scarci­ty of avail­able land that the restric­tion of access cre­ates: dri­ving up the cost of hous­ing and reduc­ing it’s avail­abil­i­ty in both cities and the rur­al areas.  This cre­ates a slave cul­ture where peo­ple strug­gle to make end’s meet in crammed urban envi­ron­ments or as for the most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion even to put food in their mouths. 
  • the mod­ern lega­cy of polit­i­cal struc­tures that serve the inter­ests of the land own­ing estab­lish­ment which have been pre­vi­ous­ly con­struct­ed through his­to­ry by the same priv­eleged group. 
  • the laws and land grabs which these struc­tures con­tin­ue to push for­ward  dis­pos­sess­ing peo­ple local­ly and glob­al­ly: whether it be the UK Gov­’s agen­da to ban squat­ting, evict­ing peo­ple from their land (Dale Farm) or as in Africa with the forced dis­pos­ses­sion of peo­ple from the land they depend on for their sur­vival.
  • the com­plete­ly unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic, unsus­tain­able and dan­ger­ous con­trol of the nat­ur­al resources by pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions for prof­it, monop­o­lis­ing pro­duc­tion of human­i­ties bare neces­si­ties: food, fuel, water and so on. The result: food scarci­ty, destruc­tion of eco-sys­tems, cli­mate change, peak oil etc…

We go peace­ful­ly to Clapham Com­mon call­ing for a rad­i­cal change in the eco­nom­ics of land own­er­ship: a redis­tri­b­u­tion of land local­ly and glob­al­ly and a reform of the laws which cur­rent­ly pre­vent rea­son­able access to the land by the com­mon peo­ple. 
We are com­mon peo­ple!

Land & Free­dom Camp open­ing cer­e­mo­ny

On Sat­ur­day 17th Sep­tem­ber, we will be meet­ing at the Band­stand on Clapham Com­mon from 12 o’clock onwards for the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Land & Free­dom Camp.  Join us, whether you intend to stay the night or not.  There will be some music, pre­sen­ta­tions, a peo­ple’s assem­bly, games and a pic­nic.  If you want to, bring an instru­ment, some food and/or a game that groups can play. 

Event: Land & Free­dom Camp open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.
Time: 12 Noon onwards.
Loca­tion: Band­stand, Clapham Com­mon.
Map link: http://tinyurl.com/6l66xw4
Trans­port: Clapham Com­mon tube or Clapham South. Bus­es from Clapham Junc­tion.
Con­tact: 07963 475 195 for any ques­tions.

Ban­ner Mak­ing Ses­sion @ Pass­ing Clouds in Dal­ston this Mon­day

If you fan­cy mak­ing some beau­ti­ful ban­ners, this Mon­day (12th Sept), there will be an oppur­tu­ni­ty to paint ban­ners for the Land & Free­dom Camp at Pass­ing Clouds from 6–8 p.m   If you are able to please bring along paint and or ban­ner material/brushes. 

Event: L&F ban­ner mak­ing ses­sion
Time: 6–8 p.m
Loca­tion: Pass­ing Clouds, Dal­ston, E8,
Map Link: http://tinyurl.com/5rwam74
Trans­port: Haggerston/ Dal­ston Kings­land.
Con­tact: 07963 475 195.

Final plan­ning meet­ing @ the Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall on Wednes­day.

The final open plan­ning meet­ing for the Land & Free­dom Camp will be this Wednes­day (14th Sept) in the Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, South­bank, Lon­don from 6 p.m onwards. The pur­pose of the meet­ing will be logis­ti­cal prepa­ra­tion for Sat­ur­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and the rest of the camp, PR strat­e­gy organ­i­sa­tion and net­work­ing the event. 

Event: final L&F plan­ning meet­ing.
Time: 6 p.m
Loca­tion: Blue Zone, 4th Floor, Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, South­bank, Lon­don.
Map link: http://tinyurl.com/5voqotw
Trans­port: near­est tube: Water­loo
Con­tact: 07963475195

Call out for pre­sen­ta­tions, music and per­for­mance for Land & Free­dom Camp

Have you got some­thing you would like to present relat­ing to the core issues of the Land & Free­dom Camp?  Per­haps you’d like to express your­self through music, poet­ry, the­atre or anoth­er art form? Have you got an activ­i­ty or work­shop that will empow­er peo­ple?  If so, please send an email to landandfreedomcamp@aktivix.org with what it is that you want to do and we can organ­ise a time and day with you to do it on Clapham Com­mon between 17th Sept and the 25th.  If you’d pre­fer, just come along to the camp itself (exact details of the loca­tion to be post­ed on landandfreedomcamp.squat.net on the 17th Sept).

 
TAT CALLOUT.
We are cur­rent­ly short of: tarps, tents, ban­ner mate­r­i­al, cook­ing pots, food & water con­tain­ers.  If you can help with all or any of these, please email: landandfreedomcamp@aktivix.org, call or text: 07963 475 195.  Thx 8)

SKILLS WANTED
Videog­ra­phy, real jour­nal­ism, pho­tog­ra­phy, art, cook­ing, com­mu­ni­cat­ing, facil­i­tat­ing, skip­ping, tat­ting & fun­ning 8)

Join the Net­works and spread the word:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=281856581829845#

fol­low us on Twit­ter : @freetheland

www.landandfreedom.squat.net

Fliers and posters for shar­ing and print­ing.

 

 

Poster——–>https://we.riseup.net/land and­free­dom/­land-free­dom-ca mp-poster+105652

Fli­er———–>https://we.riseup.net/asse ts/65289/Reclaim%20the%20c ommons1.pdf

Con­tact: landandfreedom.squat.net
Tel: 07963 475 195.

 

“Pro­pri­ety and sin­gle inter­est divides the peo­ple of a land and the whole world into par­ties and is the cause of all wars and blood­shed and con­tention every­where”

 

Ger­rard Win­stan­ley & 14 oth­ers TheTrue Lev­ellers Stan­dard Advanced — April, 1649

Email Con­tact email: Land_and_freedom-medium
Lan & Free­dom

Greet­ings,

This is an update on the Land & Free­dom Camp: a 7 day open exhi­bi­tion and demon­stra­tion tak­ing place on Clapham Com­mon from Sat 17th Sept til Sun 25th Sept.

The aim of the camp is to high­light the issue of the eco­nom­ics of land own­er­ship and the pol­i­tics and laws regard­ing the use of the land local­ly and glob­al­ly.  We want to com­mu­ni­cate the myr­i­ad of effects that the cur­rent sys­tem has includ­ing:

  •  the almost com­plete restric­tion of access to land to live (and grow) autonomous­ly and sus­tain­ably by com­mon peo­ple in the UK and around the world due to laws gov­ern­ing use of the land and/or eco­nom­ic dom­i­na­tion of it by the few (despite there being over 5 acres of land for every human being on earth) *
  •  the ensu­ing effect of arti­fi­cial scarci­ty of avail­able land that the restric­tion of access cre­ates: dri­ving up the cost of hous­ing and reduc­ing it’s avail­abil­i­ty in both cities and the rur­al areas.  This cre­ates a slave cul­ture where peo­ple strug­gle to make end’s meet in crammed urban envi­ron­ments or as for the most of the world’s pop­u­la­tion even to put food in their mouths. 
  • the mod­ern lega­cy of polit­i­cal struc­tures that serve the inter­ests of the land own­ing estab­lish­ment which have been pre­vi­ous­ly con­struct­ed through his­to­ry by the same priv­eleged group. 
  • the laws and land grabs which these struc­tures con­tin­ue to push for­ward  dis­pos­sess­ing peo­ple local­ly and glob­al­ly: whether it be the UK Gov­’s agen­da to ban squat­ting, evict­ing peo­ple from their land (Dale Farm) or as in Africa with the forced dis­pos­ses­sion of peo­ple from the land they depend on for their sur­vival.
  • the com­plete­ly unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic, unsus­tain­able and dan­ger­ous con­trol of the nat­ur­al resources by pri­vate cor­po­ra­tions for prof­it, monop­o­lis­ing pro­duc­tion of human­i­ties bare neces­si­ties: food, fuel, water and so on. The result: food scarci­ty, destruc­tion of eco-sys­tems, cli­mate change, peak oil etc…

We go peace­ful­ly to Clapham Com­mon call­ing for a rad­i­cal change in the eco­nom­ics of land own­er­ship: a redis­tri­b­u­tion of land local­ly and glob­al­ly and a reform of the laws which cur­rent­ly pre­vent rea­son­able access to the land by the com­mon peo­ple. 
We are com­mon peo­ple!

Land & Free­dom Camp open­ing cer­e­mo­ny

On Sat­ur­day 17th Sep­tem­ber, we will be meet­ing at the Band­stand on Clapham Com­mon from 12 O’Clock onwards for the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Land & Free­dom Camp.  Join us, whether you intend to stay the night or not.  There will be some music, pre­sen­ta­tions, a peo­ple’s assem­bly, games and a pic­nic.  If you want to, bring an instru­ment, some food and/or a game that groups can play. 

Event: Land & Free­dom Camp open­ing cer­e­mo­ny.
Time: 12 Noon onwards.
Loca­tion: Band­stand, Clapham Com­mon.
Map link: http://tinyurl.com/6l66xw4
Trans­port: Clapham Com­mon tube or Clapham South. Bus­es from Clapham Junc­tion.
Con­tact: 07963 475 195 for any ques­tions.

Ban­ner Mak­ing Ses­sion @ Pass­ing Clouds in Dal­ston this Mon­day

If you fan­cy mak­ing some beau­ti­ful ban­ners, this Mon­day (12th Sept), there will be an oppur­tu­ni­ty to paint ban­ners for the Land & Free­dom Camp at Pass­ing Clouds from 6–8 p.m   If you are able to please bring along paint and or ban­ner material/brushes. 

Event: L&F ban­ner mak­ing ses­sion
Time: 6–8 p.m
Loca­tion: Pass­ing Clouds, Dal­ston, E8,
Map Link: http://tinyurl.com/5rwam74
Trans­port: Haggerston/ Dal­ston Kings­land.
Con­tact: 07963 475 195.

Final plan­ning meet­ing @ the Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall on Wednes­day.

The final open plan­ning meet­ing for the Land & Free­dom Camp will be this Wednes­day (14th Sept) in the Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, South­bank, Lon­don from 6 p.m onwards. The pur­pose of the meet­ing will be logis­ti­cal prepa­ra­tion for Sat­ur­day’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny and the rest of the camp, PR strat­e­gy organ­i­sa­tion and net­work­ing the event. 

Event: final L&F plan­ning meet­ing.
Time: 6 p.m
Loca­tion: Blue Zone, 4th Floor, Roy­al Fes­ti­val Hall, South­bank, Lon­don.
Map link: http://tinyurl.com/5voqotw
Trans­port: near­est tube: Water­loo
Con­tact: 07963475195

Call out for pre­sen­ta­tions, music and per­for­mance for Land & Free­dom Camp

Have you got some­thing you would like to present relat­ing to the core issues of the Land & Free­dom Camp?  Per­haps you’d like to express your­self through music, poet­ry, the­atre or anoth­er art form? Have you got an activ­i­ty or work­shop that will empow­er peo­ple?  If so, please send an email to landandfreedomcamp@aktivix.org with what it is that you want to do and we can organ­ise a time and day with you to do it on Clapham Com­mon between 17th Sept and the 25th.  If you’d pre­fer, just come along to the camp itself (exact details of the loca­tion to be post­ed on landandfreedomcamp.squat.net on the 17th Sept).

 
TAT CALLOUT.
We are cur­rent­ly short of: tarps, tents, ban­ner mate­r­i­al, cook­ing pots, food & water con­tain­ers.  If you can help with all or any of these, please email: landandfreedomcamp@aktivix.org, call or text: 07963 475 195.  Thx 8)

SKILLS WANTED
Videog­ra­phy, real jour­nal­ism, pho­tog­ra­phy, art, cook­ing, com­mu­ni­cat­ing, facil­i­tat­ing, skip­ping, tat­ting & fun­ning 8)

Join the Net­works and spread the word:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=281856581829845#

fol­low us on Twit­ter : @freetheland

www.landandfreedom.squat.net

Fliers and posters for shar­ing and print­ing.

 

 

Poster——–>https://we.riseup.net/land and­free­dom/­land-free­dom-ca mp-poster+105652

Fli­er———–>https://we.riseup.net/asse ts/65289/Reclaim%20the%20c ommons1.pdf

Con­tact: landandfreedom.squat.net
Tel: 07963 475 195.

 

“Pro­pri­ety and sin­gle inter­est divides the peo­ple of a land and the whole world into par­ties and is the cause of all wars and blood­shed and con­tention every­where”

 

Ger­rard Win­stan­ley & 14 oth­ers TheTrue Lev­ellers Stan­dard Advanced — April, 1649

Email Con­tact email: landandfreedomcamp@aktivix.org

“>landandfreedomcamp@aktivix.org

DSEI protest convergence space

Con­ver­gence space for DSEI protest now open — all wel­come.

St. Mar­garet’s House Set­tle­ment
21 Old Ford Road
Beth­nal Green
E2 9PL

We have tak­en the above space (a for­mer Veg­an restau­rant) and have opened it as a con­ver­gence space for next weeks DSEI protests. All wel­come.

Please bring sleep­ing bags and an open mind­ed atti­tude to how we can close DSEI this year.

Con­ver­gence space for DSEI protest now open — all wel­come.

St. Mar­garet’s House Set­tle­ment
21 Old Ford Road
Beth­nal Green
E2 9PL

We have tak­en the above space (a for­mer Veg­an restau­rant) and have opened it as a con­ver­gence space for next weeks DSEI protests. All wel­come.

Please bring sleep­ing bags and an open mind­ed atti­tude to how we can close DSEI this year.

There are cur­rent­ly 20 of us and we expect to have over 30 oth­ers arriv­ing Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, we are not work­ing with the ‘fluffy’ demos of Dis­arm DSEI and CAAT, we are about stop­ping DSEI.

ASS needs you!

The Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters releas­es its first newslet­ter… and wants your help!

The hard­work­ing bunch at the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters have just released their annu­al report in the form of a newslet­ter.

Its full of as much infor­ma­tion, juicy gos­sip and as many requests for help that you can fit on two sides of A4!

The Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters releas­es its first newslet­ter… and wants your help!

The hard­work­ing bunch at the Advi­so­ry Ser­vice for Squat­ters have just released their annu­al report in the form of a newslet­ter.

Its full of as much infor­ma­tion, juicy gos­sip and as many requests for help that you can fit on two sides of A4!

have a look here!: http://ompldr.org/vYTU5Zg/final-for-viewing.pdf

There are arti­cles on the con­sul­ta­tion papers, under­cov­er infil­tra­tors and the ASS’s opin­ion on an ex-mem­ber’s new anti-squat com­pa­ny.

They are also ask­ing for assis­tance! ASS cur­rent­ly need vol­un­teers for office shifts, vol­un­teers for tasks out­side the office and CASH!!!

If you can help with:

vol­un­teer­ing to do some time in the office
putting on a ben­e­fit gig/cafe/cinema etc
trans­la­tion (doc­u­ments to print or com­mu­ni­ca­tions)
print­ing
archiv­ing

…or in any oth­er way you can think of then drop us a line at friendsoftheass@gmail.com

Please dis­trib­ute!!

Final for print­ing (3MB): http://ompldr.org/vOXo0eA/final-for-printing.pdf

The Black Fish is looking for crew members

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew.

The marine pro­tec­tion organ­i­sa­tion The Black Fish is look­ing for peo­ple to join its direct action team and future ship’s crew. “In order to be effec­tive in our marine con­ser­va­tion cam­paigns, we need to be out at sea, oppos­ing the most destruc­tive fish­ing and hunt­ing activ­i­ties, where they hap­pen away from the pub­lic eye.” For this rea­son The Black Fish is work­ing towards the pur­chase of an ocean going ves­sel and is look­ing for crew mem­bers.

“There are pos­si­bil­i­ties open­ing up to us which might see us get­ting access to a ves­sel in the near future. We need a crew for the ini­tial over­haul of this ship and prepar­ing it for its first cam­paign.” accord­ing to Wietse van der Werf, spokesper­son for the organ­i­sa­tion.

The Black Fish has launched a crew appli­ca­tion page where peo­ple can apply for vol­un­tary crew posi­tions. “We are look­ing for peo­ple with sail­ing expe­ri­ence but this is not a neces­si­ty for the entire crew. Will­ing­ness and ded­i­ca­tion to com­mit time and hard work to make future cam­paigns of The Black Fish a suc­cess, that is a must.”

Any ques­tions relat­ed to crew­ing with The Black Fish, please see the crew­ing page on our web­site or con­tact the crew­ing coor­di­na­tor at crew@theblackfish.org

We look for­ward to your appli­ca­tion!

http://www.theblackfish.org/

‘Mystery Demo’ against a fat cat corporate funder of climate disinformation

Lon­don
Wednes­day 7th Sep­tem­ber

Ear­ly morn­ing action around 8.00 am.

There will also be a fol­low up action in the evening around 4.45 to 7.00 pm.

Inter­est­ed in tak­ing part? You will need to send us a mobile phone num­ber – the loca­tion to gath­er for the action will be texted to you near­er the time.

Lon­don
Wednes­day 7th Sep­tem­ber

Ear­ly morn­ing action around 8.00 am.

There will also be a fol­low up action in the evening around 4.45 to 7.00 pm.

Inter­est­ed in tak­ing part? You will need to send us a mobile phone num­ber – the loca­tion to gath­er for the action will be texted to you near­er the time.

http://www.campaigncc.org/mystery

Squashcampaign : Save our Rights to Protest and squat.

There is a Gov­ern­ment Con­sul­ta­tion on Till Oct 5th 2011.
Con­cern­ing crim­i­nal­is­ing squatting/trespass which will affect rights to protest and occu­py for tenants,workers,students eco,peace and cli­mate camps.
There are 5 options in the con­sul­ta­tion.
For more info check

www.squashcampaign.org
www.squattastic.blogspot.com — month­ly meet­ings.
www.squattersactiongroup.wordpress.com

There is a Gov­ern­ment Con­sul­ta­tion on Till Oct 5th 2011.
Con­cern­ing crim­i­nal­is­ing squatting/trespass which will affect rights to protest and occu­py for tenants,workers,students eco,peace and cli­mate camps.
There are 5 options in the con­sul­ta­tion.
For more info check

www.squashcampaign.org
www.squattastic.blogspot.com — month­ly meet­ings.
www.squattersactiongroup.wordpress.com
email: squattersactiongroup@gmail.com

Help neede with the campaign,networking,awareness events,printing fliers,banner making,supporting actions.
Keep net­work­ing

Earth First! Summer Gathering Update 2011

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

Loca­tion announced, work­shop sched­ule pub­lished, and how the kids space is going to work. All for the Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing which begins on the 10th of August and runs until the 15th.

Get in touch if you need more infor­ma­tion.

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.

If you can come down to help set up please do, we start on August the 5th, if you can stay a few days after the gath­er­ing to help bring it all do that’d also be grand.

Site phone num­ber 1 is 07551689365 or try num­ber 2 on 07866797016.

Here’s a detailed map

——————–

And here’s the work­shop sched­ule:

Wednes­day

11:30–1

Nation­al Bargee Trav­ellers Asso­ci­a­tion

Infor­ma­tion and dis­cus­sion ses­sion on the cur­rent strug­gle of trav­el­ling boat dwellers to keep their homes in the face of harass­ment and unlaw­ful enforce­ment by British Water­ways. Come along if you live on a boat, or if you want to know how you can help the boat­ing com­mu­ni­ty fight back!

Frack-Off! An intro­duc­tion to the threat of hydraulic frac­tur­ing.

Frack­ing is a night­mare! Tox­ic and radioac­tive water pol­lu­tion. Tap water you can set on fire. Run­away cli­mate change. To pro­duce expen­sive gas that will soon run out. So why are we doing it? This will be a detailed prac­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop aimed at bring­ing peo­ple up to speed on the issue, the specifics of which areas of the UK are direct­ly under threat and par­tic­u­lar­ly, where to find organ­ised resis­tance.

Squat Electrics

Deal­ing with our shit- Men against the Patri­archy. An open dis­cus­sion on the ways in which men can unlearn the arse­hole patri­ar­chal behav­iours they’ve picked up by being alive in this soci­ety, and rein­force with­in the rad­i­cal envi­ron­men­tal move­ment.

2–4

Pop­u­lar Edu­ca­tion & Train­ing

Skill-share for Train­ers! Inter­est­ed in pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion & train­ing? Come learn & share pop­u­lar edu­ca­tion exer­cis­es & games designed for group par­tic­i­pa­tion and hor­i­zon­tal learn­ing. Find what col­lec­tives are work­ing in the UK (& beyond!) and the work they are doing.

Oh Fuck it’s the Apoc­a­lypse

work­ing on the basis that the col­lapse of indus­tri­al soci­ety is fair­ly immi­nent, and that we need to plan for it. To this end we’re look­ing at sus­tain­able liv­ing, per­ma­cul­ture, etc, with a sur­vival­ist angle; at ways to sur­vive a col­lapse and build a more sane soci­ety from the ruins; and dis­cussing how this analy­sis affects our oth­er activism and pri­or­i­ties. We’re a bit like Tran­si­tion Towns with an Edge and a Clue.

Using Radios- A begin­ners guide to using radios dur­ing actions.

Set­ting up a Tri­pod- Nev­er put up a tri­pod before, want a use one on an action. Here’s your chance to find out how.

4–6

Squatting,Direct Action and New Laws

Film: ‘Gasland’

When a doc­u­men­tary film-mak­er is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-coun­try odyssey uncov­er­ing a trail of secrets, lies and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. A recent­ly drilled near­by Penn­syl­va­nia town reports that res­i­dents are able to light their drink­ing water on fire. This is a US doc­u­men­tary, how­ev­er shale extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ is now head­ing to the UK.

Tin­kers Bub­ble

——–

Thurs­day

10–1130

Intro to Con­sen­sus

Con­sen­sus is wide­ly regard­ed as one of the most empow­er­ing and cre­ative ways of mak­ing deci­sions in a non-hier­ar­chi­cal group, but it isn’t always easy. This par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop pro­vides an intro­duc­tion or refresh­er to what it’s all about and how to make it work.

Rec­c­ing

Struc­tured and facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion to share skills and tips for suc­cess­ful rec­cies for action. Includ­ing a check-list of what to find out, inter­net and phone search­es, site vis­its, tricks and dis­guis­es for get­ting info, secu­ri­ty tips etc.

Intro to EF!

Lon­don Olympics

Resist­ing the Lon­don 2012 Olympics (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Counter Olympics Net­work)
What can we do to resist the Olympics in Lon­don next year? Peo­ple are aware of the prob­lems with the games — sur­veil­lance, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion, pri­vati­sa­tion, job inse­cu­ri­ty etc and the ben­e­fits to cor­po­ra­tions. Come and dis­cuss these and how we can resist, tak­ing inspi­ra­tion from peo­ple who have resist­ed oth­er Olympics.

How to plan a kick ass action:

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

1130–1300

Bank­ing & finance

Lock­ing on

Prac­ti­cal work­shop for learn­ing dif­fer­ent lock-on tech­niques for block­ades and oth­er actions. Arm-tubes, d‑locks, chains, hand­cuffs, super­glue and more!

20 years of EF! Look­ing for­ward

Fight Frack­ing

Shale gas extrac­tion or ‘frack­ing’ has been pol­lut­ing drink­ing water and the cli­mate in the US, where it has caused numer­ous health prob­lems. It’s been blamed for mini-earth­quakes in Black­pool and there are plans for projects across the UK, includ­ing in South Wales, Lan­cashire, Som­er­set, Kent, Sur­rey and Scot­land. Join an open dis­cus­sion & plan­ning ses­sion on how we can resist these projects.

Infil­tra­tion- Activist Trau­ma

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Deal­ing with Con­flict

An intro­duc­tion to under­stand­ing and deal­ing effec­tive­ly with dis­agree­ment and con­flict in our groups. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Intro to Anar­chy

Smash Edo

Anti-cuts and Against Aus­ter­i­ty

An open dis­cus­sion on how we’re cur­rent­ly work­ing against the cuts, what are we learn­ing about the sit­u­a­tion, what is prov­ing to be effec­tive, do we need to unlearn cer­tain behav­iours that have dom­i­nat­ed activist cir­cles in order to broad­en and con­nect the resis­tances cur­rent­ly occur­ring.

Men­tal Health

4pm- 6pm

Action Plan­ning for a kick ass action

You’ve tak­en action before and now you’re ready to start plan­ning your own proac­tive and cre­ative Kick­ass Actions…

Self-Defence for Paci­fists

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

Shell to Sea

Trou­ble Shoot­ing in meet­ings

A work­shop on trou­bleshoot­ing and improv­ing your meet­ings.

Pup­pet show

Per­for­mance and dis­cus­sion of a pup­pet show cel­e­brat­ing the his­to­ry of envi­ron­men­tal direct action in the UK.

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Fri­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Affin­i­ty groups

Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry work­shop explor­ing how and why work with oth­ers for action, includ­ing inspir­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful autonomous actions.

Basic bike main­te­nance.

An infor­mal work­shop on brakes and gears, can also cov­er tru­ing wheels and look at oth­er repairs with no or few tools, by Bicy­col­o­gy.

Intro to EF!

Facil­i­tat­ing Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Work­shops

Have you got skills or infor­ma­tion you’d like to share? Or maybe you want to sup­port peo­ple to learn from each oth­er, or share expe­ri­ences? Devel­op skills, confidence& under­stand­ing to facil­i­tate fun, par­tic­i­pa­to­ry & dynam­ic work­shops.

Sol­i­dar­i­ty is a Weapon

1130–1pm

Intro to Direct Action

Direct action is about tak­ing things into our own hands instead of ask­ing the rich and pow­er­ful to do the right thing. Empow­er your­self to go out and make change hap­pen!

Intro to indus­tri­al Agri­cul­ture and GM

Anar­cho-Fem­i­nist

Black Fish

The Black Fish is a new­ly found­ed Euro­pean based con­ser­va­tion organ­i­sa­tion that takes action on the issues of whal­ing, indus­tri­al fish­ing and marine ani­mals in cap­tiv­i­ty. Using edu­ca­tion, inves­ti­ga­tion and non-vio­lent direct action, The Black Fish has set out on a mis­sion to change atti­tudes towards our pre­cious oceans and work to pro­tect the unique life with­in them.

2–4pm

Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance- A work­shop to explore how we can make our activism more sus­tain­able and effec­tive in the long term. Find­ing sources of per­son­al sup­port to help us stay inspired, nour­ished and cre­ative for the long haul and iden­ti­fy­ing how we can chal­lenge dam­ag­ing cul­tures of over­work and burnout in our activist groups.*

Doing Actions with­out get­ting caught

Prac­ti­cal work­shop cov­er­ing var­i­ous aspects of doing actions with­out get­ting caught, includ­ing get­ting to your tar­get with­out detec­tion both in the day and in the dark, foren­sics and dress sense, get­ting togeth­er mate­ri­als, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, get­ting away. Parts of the work­shop will involve phys­i­cal prac­tise, please wear suit­able clothes for crawl­ing through bush­es…

Women’s Self Defence

The lud­dites 200 year anniver­sary and tech­nol­o­gy pol­i­tics today

Cel­e­brat­ing the 200 Anniver­sary of the Lud­dite Upris­ings: Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­tics Then and Now (Cor­po­rate Watch and the Luddites200 Organ­is­ing Forum
In 1811-12 Arti­san cloth work­ers in the Mid­lands and North of Eng­land rose up against fac­to­ry own­ers who were impos­ing new machines and putting them out of work. Since the 1950s the Lud­dites have been paint­ed as fools opposed to all tech­nol­o­gy and progress, but in fact the Lud­dites were very selec­tive in their attacks, break­ing only machines they thought were ‘hurt­ful to Com­mon­al­i­ty’. What can the Lud­dites teach us about the ongo­ing use of tech­nol­o­gy to replace work­ers’ jobs, as well as issues like GM food and nuclear pow­er? Can we escape the myth that tech­nol­o­gy always brings progress?

Activist Trau­ma

4–6pm

Get­ting over Fences

Priv­i­lege and Oppres­sion

Pow­er and priv­i­lege play out con­tin­u­ous­ly in our group dynam­ics. This work­shop will explore the roles we each play as priv­i­leged and as oppressed in our move­ment and in wider soci­ety.

Dale Farm

this is the biggest unlaw­ful Trav­eller site in the UK. Res­i­dents own their land but have been repeat­ed­ly refused plan­ning
per­mis­sion and Basil­don Coun­cil have now gath­ered £18million in order to evict them. After years of fight­ing their evic­tion through the courts they have now been served their papers, and have until the 31st August to leave. this work­shop will out­line the his­to­ry of the cam­paign, dis­cuss plans for resist­ing the evic­tion and, if there is enough inter­est, organ­ise a work­ing par­ty to vis­it Dale Farm to help them pre­pare for evic­tion.

Coal Action Net­work

Intro to what’s hap­pened so far with CAN. Dis­cus­sions about what peo­ple would like from the network/website and where peo­ple think coal cam­paig­ing is going. How to get involved in CAN.

Tripods

Doing Actions with­out Get­ting caught part 2

We’ll be prac­tis­ing how to move in the dark with­out being spot­ted. Please wear dark clothes suit­able for crawl­ing through the bush­es and a torch if you can. Meet at 8.30 sharp at the gate tent. The prac­tise will fin­ish by 10pm.

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Sat­ur­day

10–1130

Facil­i­ta­tion

If you’ve nev­er facil­i­tat­ed a meet­ing before, or want to brush up your skills and gain con­fi­dence, this work­shop is for you.

Intro to EF!

Basic land nav­i­ga­tion

An intro­duc­tion to nav­i­ga­tion with map and a com­pass for total begin­ners or improvers. Please bring a com­pass if you have one . Also, an overview of very sim­ple route find­ing using the sun, stars and oth­er nat­ur­al signs.

Envi­ron­men­tal and Autonomous Edu­ca­tion for young peo­ple

A dis­cus­sion about var­i­ous alter­na­tive edu­ca­tion projects for young peo­ple, a space to share ideas, expe­ri­ences and rethink the ways in which we engage in these projects.

Coal Action Scot­land- What’s going on in the Val­leys at the moment and how can peo­ple get involved.

11.30am- 1.00pm

Build­ing Strong Groups- Share ideas and learn from oth­ers for mak­ing your group more acces­si­ble, inclu­sive and sus­tain­able.

Organ­is­ing the next win­ter moot and sum­mer gath­er­ing

Enjoyed this gath­er­ing? Thought this gath­er­ing was crap? Come along and start work­ing out how next years gath­er­ing could turn out.

Nutri­tion 101

May­day Indy­media

What is indy­media and how does it work? This work­shop, run by mem­bers of the col­lec­tive which looks after the indymedia.org.uk web­site, will attempt to answer your ques­tions about indy­media and will give you the infor­ma­tion you need to report your news effec­tive­ly on the uk site [and the local sites Birm­ing­ham, Sheffield and Oxford?], includ­ing writ­ing mid­dle col­umn fea­tures for the uk front page to give promi­nence to your cam­paigns and actions. Find out about the edi­to­r­i­al guide­lines and mod­er­a­tion, as well as how to raise queries and how to start up an indy­media col­lec­tive in your local area.

Rewil­d­ing

Facil­i­tat­ed dis­cus­sion.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Who Cares?

Open dis­cus­sion based around recent arti­cle pub­lished on Cease­fire enti­tled “Who Cares?” which talked about the fail­ures of the rad­i­cal move­ment with­in the UK to engage with child care in a way which relat­ed to anar­chist pol­i­tics.

Know your rights: Legal and arrest work­shop

Cov­ers basic law for activists and the arrest process. If you’ve
nev­er been nicked before or you want to brush up on your knowl­edge, this is for you. www.seedsforchange.org.uk

Anti-Nuclear- Cam­paign update and info ses­sion

Using Radios

Sav­ing Ice­land and Samaren­dra Das: The Glob­al Crimes of the Alu­mini­um Car­tel

Behind the shin­ing image of alu­mini­um is a dark side of envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phes, the arms indus­try and cul­tur­al geno­cide. A joint pre­sen­ta­tion by Sav­ing Ice­land and Indi­an author/activist Samaren­dra Das. It will include cur­rent threats to the Ice­landic high­lands, one of Europe’s last great wilder­ness­es, the his­to­ry and future of the cam­paign and the fal­lac­i­es of hydro and geot­her­mal ener­gy. Samaren­dra Das will speak about the present strug­gle of Adi­va­sis against com­pa­nies such as Vedan­ta and the real facts behind the alu­mini­um indus­try.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Self-Defence

Safe self-defence that does­n’t rely on strength and appro­pri­ate for any lev­el of expe­ri­ence. Can be applied in direct-action or every day sce­nar­ios. Bring your (emp­ty) plas­tic water-bot­tle and we’ll play with some ‘weapon/baton’ defence at the end. Num­bers capped at 20, only appropriate15yrs and over (apolo­gies for that arbi­trari­ness).”

‘The True Cost of Coal’

The Bee­hive Design Col­lec­tive (part of the Ris­ing Tide North Amer­i­ca Net­work) cre­ate portable murals of col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­duced illus­tra­tions with an amaz­ing­ly engag­ing cen­tral nar­ra­tive. ‘The True Cost of Coal’ will take you on an inter­ac­tive visu­al tour of the con­nec­tions between Coal Min­ing, Cli­mate Change, the Ever Expand­ing Cap­i­tal­ist Econ­o­my, and the Strug­gle for Jus­tice in Appalachia, North Amer­i­ca and through­out the world.

GM Cam­paign- Cam­paign update and info share.

Com­mu­ni­ty Defence: Build­ing our own Exarchia’s

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Sun­day

10.00am- 11.30am

Region­al Meet­ings

Dsei

DSEi is the worlds largest Arms Fair, as many EFers know. This year it’s from Sep­tem­ber 13–18. It’s not sim­ply about the arms trade. It’s about pub­lic ser­vices “cuts”: the envi­ron­ment: bank­ing and investors: the con­flicts in the Mid­dle East and North Africa. Not to men­tion the bor­ders that stop peo­ple flee­ing con­flict There’s a call for a mass block­ade of the DLR on the Tues­day. Pre­vi­ous Days of Action- and oth­er days in the week ‑have includ­ed street par­ties, Crit­i­cal Mass bike rides, die-ins, mock sales of “arms”, legs and even a tank; splash­ing fake blood across the entrances, engag­ing with arms deal­ers on the trains and plat­forms, invad­ing the car park and rail entrance, block­ing the roads, lock­ing on to the trains, even swim­ming in the dock! And vis­it­ing the investors offices of course. And in ther run-up- your local arms fac­to­ry. Will be talk­ing about all this — Not to men­tion that vis­it to your local arms fac­to­ry!

11.30am- 1.00pm

Action Update

Gath­er­ings Col­lec­tive

Basic Plant I‑d

Dis­cus­sion about Veg­an­ism

Direct Action Train­ing

Come and get active in this inter­ac­tive and hope­ful­ly fun work­shop where we’ll be look­ing at some fun­da­men­tal build­ing blocks for tak­ing non-vio­lent direct action to fight suf­fer­ing, and prac­tis­ing dif­fer­ent non-vio­lent ech­niques to hold occu­pa­tions, block­ade, break out of ket­tles, de-arrest peo­ple, and to deal with oth­er police tac­tics, like snatch squads, hors­es and dogs. We’ll also give lots of oth­er tips for deal­ing with pub­lic order sit­u­a­tions and for affin­i­ty group actions, includ­ing some key legal infor­ma­tion which you should know when you’re tak­ing action, and some tips about deal­ing with the media. And we’ll look at some of the val­ues and atti­tudes which are key to tak­ing NVDA, like non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing and con­sen­sus (and oth­ers). We’ll hope­ful­ly be able to adjust the work­shop to cov­er what you want, and to answer all your ques­tions.

2.00pm‑4.00pm

Gath­er­ing Feed­back Show

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Kids’ space and activ­i­ties

If you do not have a kid, we might still need your help, so read
on.……

The kids’ space is designed as a place where chil­dren and those car­ing for them can relax, play and eat. The space con­tains books, toys and craft mate­ri­als.

The kids’ space is NOT a creche and does­n’t have staff or facil­i­ties to care for chil­dren.

Par­ents and car­ers are respect­ful­ly remind­ed that they will need to col­lect chil­dren at meal times/breaks and that they much keep adults in the kids space informed of where they can be found; please also fill in the forms in the kids kitchen regard­ing food aller­gies etc.

If you do not have a child at the gath­er­ing, but would like to help in kids space, please talk to the col­lec­tive. Help with read­ing sto­ries, play­ing games, art and crafts always wel­come.

Kid’s kitchen

This pro­vides meals suit­able for and at appro­pri­ate times for chil­dren. Kids meal tick­ets cost £2 or £3 a day for 2 meals (the low­er rate is for tod­dlers); please buy these at the gate tent. This is the first time we have sold kids meal tick­ets and hope­ful­ly this will cov­er the cost of meals, but we may need to ask for help if this is not enough to cov­er our costs.

Even those with­out chil­dren can help by with cook­ing and wash­ing up in the kids space, please vol­un­teer if you can.

Games and activ­i­ties

Dur­ing the morn­ing (approx 10 am ‑noon) there will be activ­i­ties and work­shops for kids in one of the work­shop spaces.

In the after­noon (after lunch), there will be games in the top mead­ow for chil­dren and adults togeth­er. Again, any help with these very wel­come — just ask the collective/kids space crew.

——————–

Pub­lic Trans­port

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 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!). !

Wheel­chair users intend­ing to use Diss sta­tion will need to book assis­tance with the train oper­a­tor. There are no lifts so sta­tion staff have to assist mobil­i­ty impaired cus­tomers across the track. Appar­ent­ly the sta­tion is not manned 24 hours a day and the gate for the cross­ing is kept locked — so do phone and book to be sure .We have been told the bus ser­vice includes some low-floor bus­es with easy access for pushchairs, peo­ple with mobil­i­ty impair­ments etc.

Hitch to Nor­wich or Diss; from Nor­wich hitch south on the A140 to Dick­le­burgh. It is then a 3 ‑4 mile walk or hitch to the site; on the Dick­le­burgh bypass (don’t go into Dick­le­burgh vil­lage) is a right turn to Shim­pling and Burston; fol­low this road through Burston vil­lage, past the vil­lage green and out of the vil­lage. There is a sharp left turn, then down a hill to a sharp right turn. Site is on the right just over a lit­tle brick bridge.

From Diss either walk or bus, or car­ry on up the A140 to the turn­ing on the Dick­le­burgh junc­tion as above (only this time the junc­tion is on the left).

[some even more detailed info includ­ing post-code, from pre­vi­ous year, at http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/2008/where.html]

efsummergathering2011@riseup.net

Squattastic meeting, Sun 17th July, organise vs. new anti squat law

On Wednes­day, the gov­ern­ment launched its con­sul­ta­tion paper on crim­i­nal­is­ing tres­pass and squat­ting.

Its time to organ­ise the rebel alliance. Come to the next www.squattastic.blogspot.com meet­ing this Sun­day 17th July, 2–6pm at 11 the ‘well fur­nished squat’ 11 ter­race rd hack­ney e9.

On Wednes­day, the gov­ern­ment launched its con­sul­ta­tion paper on crim­i­nal­is­ing tres­pass and squat­ting.

Its time to organ­ise the rebel alliance. Come to the next www.squattastic.blogspot.com meet­ing this Sun­day 17th July, 2–6pm at 11 the ‘well fur­nished squat’ 11 ter­race rd hack­ney e9.

This pro­posed new law may affect our rights to protest and occ­cu­py spaces,as well as poss­si­bly affect­ing students,workers occupations,tenants,charities,housing groups and squat­ter home­less.

www.squattastic.blogspot.com (for squat­ters /underground net­work­ing)

www.squashcampaign.org (for public,media and over­ground out­reach)

Net­work it, defend the last of our rights while we still have them.

Countering the GM come back summer camp

Bring your stove and tent for an anti-GM week­end. Fri 22nd pm: Camp­ing avail­able. Sat 23rd: Deliv­er­ing a trail­er load of organ­ic spuds to the doors of the John Innes Cen­tre in protest at GM pota­to tri­als there. Sun 24th: a day-long plan­ning ses­sion: GM is com­ing back – we’ll be ready. See below for more infor­ma­tion.

Bring your stove and tent for an anti-GM week­end. Fri 22nd pm: Camp­ing avail­able. Sat 23rd: Deliv­er­ing a trail­er load of organ­ic spuds to the doors of the John Innes Cen­tre in protest at GM pota­to tri­als there. Sun 24th: a day-long plan­ning ses­sion: GM is com­ing back – we’ll be ready. See below for more infor­ma­tion.

The Spuds Don’t Work ral­ly, Sat­ur­day 23rd July

British tri­als of genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied blight resis­tant spuds have been fail­ing for the last ten years. But a con­ven­tion­al­ly bred vari­ety of blight resis­tant pota­to has been avail­able for 3 years. So why are we still pay­ing for this dan­ger­ous exper­i­ment?

Come ride with us on the back of a trail­er load of safe effec­tive spuds as we go to deliv­er them to the Sains­bury Lab­o­ra­to­ry out­side Nor­wich. It’s one of only two pos­si­ble open air tri­als for GM crops in Britain this year. Yet despite being pub­licly fund­ed, it’s so secre­tive no one will even say if it’s been plant­ed. Join us for tunes, chips and good cheer as we go and show them that we have already got the answers they say they’re look­ing for.

Prac­ti­cal details

Meet at the Forum in Nor­wich City Cen­tre at 12 noon for free chips and fun. We will set off from there to the John Innes Research Cen­tre by bike, trac­tor and coach at 1pm. Bring water­proofs and umbrel­las! If you would like to trav­el from town to the John Innes Cen­tre by coach or if you want help find­ing accom­mo­da­tion (camp­ing or oth­er­wise) get in touch as soon as you can, and by Fri­day 15th July at the lat­est. Con­tact info@stopgm.org.uk

Camp­ing

Camp­ing is avail­able at the Nor­folk Show­ground on the 22nd and 23rd July. Camp­ing will be in the Red Car Park (note the Coun­try Music Fes­ti­val is tak­ing part in the main show­ground). There will be access to toi­lets and drink­ing water. Arrive after 4pm on Fri­day 22nd. Red car park is to the east of the Park and Ride.
Bus: you can catch the Costessey Park and Ride to the Park and Ride itself (Mon-Fri). This ser­vice takes 20 mins and runs approx. every 20 mins from the bus sta­tion run­ning via the uni­ver­si­ty. Alter­na­tive­ly catch Kon­nect bus 4 from the bus sta­tion and ask for the Show­ground. This ser­vice runs approx. every 25 min­utes. Bus­es run reg­u­lar­ly between the train and bus sta­tion in Nor­wich.

Coun­ter­ing the GM come back sum­mer camp
Sun­day 24th July, 2011

A day long camp to get pro­duc­tive and plan the next stages of the cam­paign. Camp­ing spaces avail­able from Fri­day after­noon. Come equipped with a stove and food for self-cater­ing. The site is five min­utes from a reg­u­lar bus route to the city cen­tre. Con­tact info@stopgm.org.uk as soon as pos­si­ble and by Fri­day 15th July at the lat­est to let us know you want camp­ing spaces reserved for you.

What we need…
…for both events…

You, and the peo­ple you know, and any­one you think might be inter­est­ed.

This project is being worked on by Stop GM in con­junc­tion with the Genet­ic Engi­neer­ing Net­work. Sev­er­al expe­ri­enced grass­roots cam­paign­ers will be work­ing on the project from now until the event, but we need help get­ting the word out. If you think you could help by dis­trib­ut­ing email infor­ma­tion about the event, drop­ping it about in any social media you may be involved in, let­ting your local grow­ing projects or social jus­tice groups know, dis­trib­ut­ing our ‘Lit­tle Red Trac­tor and the Quest of the GM-free Spuds’ leaflet or even orga­niz­ing a coach to attend from your area, we’d love to hear from you.

For more infor­ma­tion phone 07595 506673 or email info@stopgm.org.uk. Vis­it www.stopgm.org.uk for more back­ground infor­ma­tion on GM and cam­paign­ing against it in gen­er­al.

A tale of two spuds…
For the last 10 years, researchers at the Sains­bury lab­o­ra­to­ry at the John Innes Cen­tre in Nor­wich have spent 1.7 mil­lion pounds of pub­lic mon­ey fail­ing to devel­op a genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied pota­to resis­tant to the fun­gal dis­ease blight. This project is so secre­tive and unac­count­able that the lab­o­ra­to­ry has refused to even con­firm if a tri­al has been plant­ed this sea­son, or if they’ve been forced to aban­don any hopes of mak­ing the tech­nol­o­gy work. Pub­lic rejec­tion of the risks asso­ci­at­ed with eat­ing genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied food means that even if the engi­neer­ing involved was suc­cess­ful, there would be no mar­ket for the crop.

Mean­while, 3 years ago a small Welsh research char­i­ty ded­i­cat­ed to con­ven­tion­al breed­ing tech­niques devel­oped a spud that is spec­tac­u­lar­ly resis­tant to blight. Not only does the crop pose no threat to health, the envi­ron­ment, or neigh­bour­ing farm­ers; it works. Over 6 dif­fer­ent vari­eties are now avail­able, and being grown on a com­mer­cial scale.

The ratio­nale

The cam­paign against GM crops ten years ago was so suc­cess­ful that GM almost com­plete­ly van­ished from our fields and super­mar­kets, and many peo­ple have for­got­ten the issues asso­ci­at­ed with the tech­nol­o­gy. But in many oth­er parts of the world peas­ant farm­ers have been des­per­ate­ly fight­ing its spread, and laws are chang­ing in Europe that would make it much eas­i­er for GM to be grown in Britain. Despite pre-elec­tion promis­es to the con­trary the coali­tion claims it intends to be ‘the most pro GM this coun­try has ever seen’.

Let’s call time on an out­mod­ed tech­nol­o­gy that con­tin­ues to waste mon­ey in fail­ing projects, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly threat­en­ing the very sci­ence that’s actu­al­ly pro­duc­ing work­ing alter­na­tives quick­ly and cheap­ly. For too long the biotech com­pa­nies have gone unchal­lenged in their claims that GM can
cre­ate gen­uine­ly use­ful crops when in fact all the sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments in the last decade have come through con­ven­tion­al breed­ing.

With the renewed threat of GM on the hori­zon cam­paign­ers need to get togeth­er again to show the rest of the coun­try (and each oth­er) that we’re still here, and we’ve got an even bet­ter case than ever. This is a chance to take the ini­tia­tive with the media, to tell a sto­ry which explains clear­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly why the pro GM lob­by is wrong. That it’s us, and not the cor­po­ra­tions that have the answers to the food cri­sis.

For more infor­ma­tion please check this brief­ing writ­ten to help peo­ple object to the pro­posed field tri­al of GM http://www.gmfreeze.org/publications/briefings/99/ and how to get hold of the solu­tion www.sarvari-trust.org.

Stop GM
info@stopgm.org.uk
www.stopgm.org.uk

Stop New Nuclear newsletter no 1, July 2011

Wel­come to Stop New Nuclear’s first newslet­ter. You receive this newslet­ter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newslet­ter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newslet­ter to all pledgers and newslet­ter sub­scribers about once a month, and pos­si­bly more fre­quent­ly in the weeks before the block­ade. Feel free to share and dis­trib­ute this newslet­ter.

Wel­come to Stop New Nuclear’s first newslet­ter. You receive this newslet­ter because you have signed one of the pledges, or you signed up to the newslet­ter. Thank you for this.

We plan to send a newslet­ter to all pledgers and newslet­ter sub­scribers about once a month, and pos­si­bly more fre­quent­ly in the weeks before the block­ade. Feel free to share and dis­trib­ute this newslet­ter.

Stop New Nuclear, an alliance of eight anti-nuclear groups com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing the fur­ther expan­sion of the nuclear pow­er indus­try in the UK was formed in May 2011. The plan for our first action, the blockad­ing of Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tion on 3 Octo­ber is pro­gress­ing well, and we already have a site for a camp (not far from Hink­ley Point), and peo­ple work­ing on trans­port and local accom­mo­da­tion for peo­ple who are unable or unwill­ing to camp. There is still a lot to do, but there is also a com­mit­ted team in place around Hink­ley Point work­ing on it.

Since the pub­li­ca­tion of our call-out in late May, we have received about 100 pledges in total, of which more than 30 are blockad­ing pledges. This is a good start, but we need many more. We need to grow. Our vision is to block­ade Hink­ley Point nuclear pow­er sta­tions with hun­dreds of peo­ple, and we think we can achieve this, if we all work togeth­er. We still have three months.

Please con­tact as many of your friends and rel­a­tives as pos­si­ble and invite them to take part.

News about Hink­ley Point
EDF (Elec­tric­i­ty de France), the own­ers of Hink­ley Point, did put in an appli­ca­tion for pre­lim­i­nary works for its new nuclear pow­er sta­tion in late Novem­ber 2010,involving pre-con­struc­tion activ­i­ty across an area of more than 420 acres stretch­ing from the Sev­ern Estu­ary to the vil­lage of Shur­ton, fill­ing in a beau­ti­ful val­ley and even start­ing exca­va­tion of the pow­er sta­tion foun­da­tions down to a depth of up to 11 metres. It is still pos­si­ble to object to this plan­ning appli­ca­tion. The dead­line for objec­tions has been extend­ed to 28 July 2011. For more infor­ma­tion, go to Stop Hink­ley’s web­site at http://stophinkley.org/Temporary/31Jan2011.htm.

After the gov­ern­ment pub­lished the set of Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments on Ener­gy, includ­ing the one on nuclear pow­er gen­er­a­tion (see http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/consents_planning/nps_en_infra/nps_en_infra.aspx), it is now up to par­lia­ment to approve them. It did not come as a sur­prise that the gov­ern­ment approved eight exist­ing nuclear sites for nuclear new build: Bradwell,Essex; Hartle­pool; Heysham, Lan­cashire; Hink­ley Point, Som­er­set; Old­bury, South Glouces­ter­shire; Sel­l­afield, Cum­bria; Sizewell, Suf­folk; and Wyl­fa in Angle­sey.

EDF announced that it aims to put in an appli­ca­tion for the nuclear pow­er sta­tion at Hink­ley Point to the Infra­struc­ture Plan­ning Com­mis­sion in Octo­ber. This shows how impor­tant it is that our block­ade on 3 Octo­ber is big enough to pro­vide a strong sig­nal to gov­ern­ment and EDF that we will not rest until they give up their plans for nuclear new build in this coun­try (and else­where).

Mobil­i­sa­tion
We need your help with the mobil­i­sa­tion for the block­ade. We have already dis­trib­uted near­ly 5,000 copies of the call-out (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/10). We have just ordered a sec­ond print-run of 10,000 copies, and we need your help to get them out. Please let us know if you can help dis­trib­ute some, or go to a fes­ti­val this sum­mer where this might be appro­pri­ate, and we will send you as many as you need. If you can con­tribute to the expens­es for postage, that would be great, but more impor­tant is your help in get­ting the mes­sage out.

You can also help us by talk­ing to your local Friends of the Earth, Green­peace, Tran­si­tion Town, Peo­ple & Plan­et or any oth­er group that you think might be open to sup­port the block­ade. Asks them to sign the organ­i­sa­tion­al pledge (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/pledges), or maybe even to organ­ise a group or minibus to go to par­tic­i­pate in the block­ade.

Train­ing
We have teamed up with Seeds for Change and Turn­ing the Tide to pro­vide train­ing for the block­ade. We are in the process of organ­is­ing train­ing days/afternoons/evenings in Bris­tol, York­shire, Wales, Lon­don, and Som­er­set, but this list is open-end­ed. You can help us by organ­is­ing a group and a venue for a train­ing in your area. If you have any ques­tions regard­ing train­ing, please get in touch.

Train­ing dates will be announced on the web­site. So please check back reg­u­lar­ly for updates.

What you can do
The cam­paign and the block­ade become pow­er­ful through your par­tic­i­pa­tion. You can help us by organ­is­ing an affin­i­ty group to take part in the block­ade (or to give sup­port), by mobil­is­ing in your com­mu­ni­ty, by organ­is­ing a train­ing, but also by reach­ing out to your local media about the dan­gers of nuclear pow­er and our cam­paign to stop new nuclear pow­er sta­tions in Britain.

On the week­end before and the day of the block­ade, we will need a lot of prac­ti­cal sup­port. Some of you have already kind­ly indi­cat­ed when you signed the pledge that you can help in var­i­ous ways. Thank you. When you arrive at the week­end camp or at the block­ade your sup­port will be invalu­able. If any­one else wants to help by wav­ing a plac­ard, help­ing with legal sup­port, help­ing out at the tea stall or by pro­vid­ing prac­ti­cal help with camp logis­tics, then just let us know.

Stop New Nuclear in the news
On 15 June, we sent out our first press release (see http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/node/24). Since then, we have received more news cov­er­age than expect­ed, thanks part­ly to the gov­ern­men­t’s pub­li­ca­tion of the Nation­al Pol­i­cy State­ments on Ener­gy, and eight sites for nuclear new build. Stop New Nuclear was men­tioned on the BBC News web­site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13887579), and in local media around Hink­ley Point
(see http://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/2011/hinkley-selected-22–06-11.php, http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/9105147.Protesters_plan_Hinkley_Point_blockade/, http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/Nuclear-plants-ahead-day-West-changed-forever/story-12826052-detail/story.html).
We also did a few inter­views for local radio. This is an encour­ag­ing start, more than three months before the action. You can check news cov­er­age about Stop New Nuclear at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/inthepress. Let us know if we missed any­thing.

Dona­tions!
We need them. We expect the cam­paign to cost about £10,000, of which we have been able to raise £2,000 until now. This means we need your help to raise the funds need­ed for this cam­paign — to cov­er for the fli­er, the camp logis­tics, trans­port, etc… Every dona­tion is wel­come — no mat­ter how small. Please send your dona­tion to:

Stop New Nuclear
c/o 5 Cale­don­ian Road
Lon­don N1 9DX

Or donate online at http://stopnewnuclear.org.uk/donate