Category: London

Been a while since there has been an update on the sit­u­a­tion at the ram­pART social cen­tre post­ed on the newswire. Below is the lat­est newslet­ter — reg­isiter as a mem­ber your­self via http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/rampart and get the lat­est news each week.

EX-VORTEX EVICTED…

We’re sor­ry to hear that the Vor­tex social cen­tre in Stoke New­ing­ton was evict­ed in the ear­ly hours of Tues­day morn­ing. Most of us involved in the ram­pART col­lec­tive have been so caught up in work­ing on the build­ing that we did­n’t get to vis­it the Vor­tex at all.

Despite the Vor­tex being evict­ed they’ll still be meet­ing until they find a new build­ing.

Tonight’s meet­ing (wednes­day 7th March) is at: 7.30pm
Ryan’s Bar (base­ment), 181 Stoke New­ing­ton Church St, N16 0UL
(map: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=532996&Y=186437&A=Y&Z=1
(yel­low bar on the same side as the vor­tex up at albion road end of church street).

Planned events for Inter­na­tion­al Wom­ens Day have been relo­cat­ed with the help of the local Kur­dish and Turk­ish com­mu­ni­ties. A scaled-down pro­gramme of events on Thurs­day 8th March will now take place in the IMSC com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter on near­by Tyssen Road, N16. Work­shops on DJing, self-defence, assertive­ness, dreams and polit­i­cal music will be run­ning as well as live music and food and refresh­ments.

FIRE EXCITE…

The new fire exit we’ve been work­ing on has now final­ly been com­plet­ed so we are hap­py to ‘reopen’ for larg­er events. How­ev­er, the new fire exit also means the hall is no longer sound proof so expect events to end ear­li­er until we come up with a solu­tion to sound­proof­ing the door while retain­ing it’s func­tion as an emer­gency exit.

FIRE ENTER…

This fri­day we have the fire inspec­tion so wish us luck. We think the place is pret­ty much as ready is it’s like­ly to get. Thanks to all those who came through with items off the wish list.

RAMPART EVENTS

- TIBETIAN NATIONAL UPRISING PARTY, SATURDAY 10TH

On Sat­ur­day evening we’ve got an after demo event organ­ised by the
Tibetan Youth. It starts at 7pm with films and goes on till 12.

- COMING SOON

* We were going to restart the cin­e­ma nights this Fri­day but con­fu­sion over pos­si­ble relo­ca­tion of an event booked for the Vor­tex means we’ll leave it this time and relaunch in the next cou­ple of weeks. We’d like to hear from you whether we should stick to Thurs­day nights or would you pre­fer Tues­days or per­haps Fri­day nights end­ing in a social, music and refresh­ments?
We intend to try to have a pro­gram arranged a month ahead so please let us know about any films you think should be shown.

* We’d also like to hear from those inter­est­ed in a dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy skill share (prac­ti­cal and dis­cus­sion based work­shop on shoot­ing with a focus on social jus­tice reportage). Please con­tact us to reg­is­ter your inter­est and help us choose a date.

- BOMB THE BEETS

A new Lon­don Food Not Bombs group is now up and run­ning and serv­ing free, hot veg­an food to all who are hun­gry every week in a park in Whitechapel. They are still look­ing for more peo­ple to be involved with cook­ing, skip­ping, or just to come down and sup­port the project, bring­ing food, music, ener­gy etc when­ev­er it takes place. If you would like to be involved in the Food Not Bombs project (see www.foodnotbombs.net for more infor­ma­tion about the idea and the moti­va­tions and prin­ci­ples which guide it), send an email to londonfnb@lists.riseup.net , or just come down to help with cook­ing or the park to help with serv­ing (and eat­ing!) on Sat­ur­days.

They meet mid­day sat­ur­day at the ram­pART then serve food from around 3pm in Altab Ali park on Whitechapel High Street, which is vir­tu­al­ly oppo­site Aldgate East tube sta­tion (and Free­dom Books, the anar­chist book shop). Serv­ing usu­al­ly lasts until about 4.30 then it’s back to ram­pART to wash up. Feel free to bring ban­ners, signs, music, leaflets etc etc, and if you need cook­ing for an event, just send them the details…

— RAMPART REGULARITIES

Remem­ber there is self defense class­es every mon­day evening and sam­ba prac­tice every wednes­day evening except for the third wednes­day of every month when it’s the wom­en’s anar­chist nui­sance cafe.

“YOU ARE ONE OF US”

Also remem­ber that the ram­pART is, for var­i­ous rea­sons, a pri­vate mem­bers club. Mem­ber­ship is free and you can join by sign­ing up to the mail­ing list. Please also famil­iar­ize your­self with the loca­tion of fire exits, fire alarms, extin­guish­ers and first aid kits next time you vis­it.

FINALLE

OH WISHFULL THINKING!

We still need…
a sole­noid valve from a bro­ken wash­ing machine.
a length of hose pipe
some 3/4 inch ply or chip board, at least the size of a door.
some­body to fix the leak­ing toi­let

Stuff we have that you might want…
loads of long pieces of fab­ric includ­ing black stretchy stuff.
lots of dex­ion angle iron piece of var­i­ous lengths.
blue gloss paint

The ex-Vor­tex Social Cen­tre in Stoke New­ing­ton was evict­ed this morn­ing. Bailiffs arrived at 5.30, with sev­er­al police vans in atten­dance and pro­ceed­ed to break down the door.

Although most peo­ple were quick­ly removed from the build­ing one valiant soul hid in the attic and it was over an hour lat­er that the police and bailiffs com­plete­ly occu­pied the premis­es.

Many local peo­ple got out of bed and braved the rain to offer sup­port and help retrieve equip­ment. The bailiffs refused to allow any­one to re-enter the build­ing to col­lect per­son­al pos­ses­sions until it was point­ed out that the res­i­dents had a legal right to leave with their belong­ings.

After a brief stand off dur­ing which local hate fig­ure and arch-bas­tard Richard Mid­da threat­ened to come down to the build­ing to nego­ti­ate the bailiffs final­ly agreed to bring out most of the equip­ment remain­ing in the build­ing. Sev­er­al peo­ple how­ev­er­are still wait­ing for their clothes and oth­er per­son­al pos­ses­sions.

No arrests were made dur­ing the evic­tion.

It seems that Mid­da bot­tled out of a chance to speak to the squat­ters and locals about his actions and his plans for the build­ing.

So it seems that par­a­sitic land­lord Mid­da’s long term plans for the Vor­tex remain unclear how­ev­er in the short term it seems the build­ing will be occu­pied by 24 hour secu­ri­ty. A call has gone out to respect the secu­ri­ty guard’s peace and qui­et, no bang­ing on the door at 2am and absolute­ly no attempts to hound them out of Stoke New­ing­ton like the cow­ard­ly dogs they are.

Morale remains high and Stoke New­ing­ton may see anoth­er Social Cen­tre soon, mean­while the cam­paign to keep the ex-Vor­tex build­ing for com­mu­ni­ty use will con­tin­ue.

pics at http://johnnyvoid.blogspot.com/2007/03/ast-stand-at-ex-vortex.html

6.03.2007 5:25am

The Vor­tex Social Cen­tre is being evict­ed now. Peo­ple need­ed urgent­ly to get down to 141 Church Street, Stoke New­ing­ton, N16 and show sup­port. Bring noise mak­ing equip­ment.