Category: North West England

North West Eng­land

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

Manchester Critical Mass and benefit gig

Fri­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary. Meet at 6pm as usu­al by the cen­tral library for a bike ride round our city which will then go to the Ram­pant Lion, Anson Rd/ Upper Brook St, Vic­to­ria Park (para­lel to wilm­slow road) start­ing at 8pm

Fri­day 23rd Feb­ru­ary. Meet at 6pm as usu­al by the cen­tral library for a bike ride round our city which will then go to the Ram­pant Lion, Anson Rd/ Upper Brook St, Vic­to­ria Park (para­lel to wilm­slow road) start­ing at 8pm

Bands include Sweat­ing Cobs, Burnst, Run Like Hell, Cash for Your Sto­ries, Stray Dog Cafe and MC Flipflop. Plus DJs play­ing ska, reg­gae and d+b til 2am.

Djs play­ing reg­gae, punk and ska til 2am a £3 dona­tion to crit­i­cal mass would be love­ly

Crit­i­cal Mass is a bicy­cle ride that hap­pens every last Fri­day of the month at 6pm from Cen­tral Library

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;

also at that 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..

30 shut down Manchester petrol station

10.02.2007

Yes­ter­day, 30 cli­mate activists shut down an ESSO petrol sta­tion on Upper Brook Street in Man­ches­ter for 2 hours. The action aimed to high­light the link between the oil indus­try and glob­al warm­ing.

Esso flyer (Mcr)
Mcr Esso blockade banner
10.02.2007

Yes­ter­day, 30 cli­mate activists shut down an ESSO petrol sta­tion on Upper Brook Street in Man­ches­ter for 2 hours. The action aimed to high­light the link between the oil indus­try and glob­al warm­ing.

ESSO is a direct con­trib­u­tor to cli­mate change by burn­ing fos­sil fuels. It still active­ly looks for more oil. At the same time, ESSO is the last oil com­pa­ny to deny the link between burn­ing fos­sil fuels and cli­mate change. It has con­sis­tent­ly sab­o­taged inter­na­tion­al agree­ments on the issue. Although it announced a £20bn annu­al prof­it last week (the largest one in US cor­po­rate his­to­ry), ESSO does not spend a pen­ny on renew­able ener­gy.
Mcr Esso blockade 1
Mcr Esso blockade 2
30 peo­ple block­ad­ed the two entrances to the petrol sta­tion, using bits of fenc­ing and traf­fic cones. As a sym­bol against car cul­ture, three peo­ple locked them­selves with D‑locks to bicy­cles. Two oth­ers were locked to con­crete based signs. Two large ban­ners were dis­played read­ing “no.1 sup­pli­er, no.1 denier, no.1 prof­i­teer” and “closed for deny­ing cli­mate change”.
Police attend­ed the scene, but were gen­er­al­ly sup­port­ive. Passers-by and car dri­vers gave an over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive response, many honk­ing in sup­port.

Media atten­tion was high. Cam­era teams from both Chan­nel M and ITV Grana­da inter­viewed activists. A pho­to jour­nal­ist from Man­ches­ter Evening News was present. The BBC asked for footage to be sent in.

After two hours, hun­dreds of leaflets had been giv­en out and the block­aders vol­un­tar­i­ly re-opened the sta­tion. No arrests were made.

manchester@climatecamp.org.uk

photos of Manchester carbon footprint stencils

7.02.2007

Last Thurs­day, to coin­cide with the IPCC report, a group of Man­ches­ter cli­mate activists dec­o­rat­ed the pave­ments out­side flight cen­tres, petrol sta­tions, super­mar­kets and a humvee garage with car­bon foot­prints.


7.02.2007

Last Thurs­day, to coin­cide with the IPCC report, a group of Man­ches­ter cli­mate activists dec­o­rat­ed the pave­ments out­side flight cen­tres, petrol sta­tions, super­mar­kets and a humvee garage with car­bon foot­prints.

Rough­ly a dozen sten­cils appeared Fri­day morn­ing in var­i­ous city cen­tre loca­tions. The stunt fol­lowed a num­ber of oth­er aware­ness rais­ing actions in Man­ches­ter, such as the block­ade of the humvee garage a few weeks ear­li­er.

Manc protest against ESSO this Friday, 9th Feb

A protest against ESSO and its role in the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis will take place this fri­day (9th feb), meet­ing out­side Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dents Union at 5pm. All wel­come, lets increase the noise on cli­mate change around man­ches­ter!

A protest against ESSO and its role in the envi­ron­men­tal cri­sis will take place this fri­day (9th feb), meet­ing out­side Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dents Union at 5pm. All wel­come, lets increase the noise on cli­mate change around man­ches­ter!

ESSO (Exxon mobil) is the world’s sin­gle largest emit­ter of CO2, as well as the world’s most prof­itable com­pa­ny. It has been fund­ing numer­ous groups attempt­ing to mis­in­form the pub­lic over the caus­es of cli­mate change (see www.exxonsecrets.org), and recent­ly offered sci­en­tists $10,000 to write arti­cles dis­cred­it­ing the lat­est IPCC report. Come and protest against ESSO’s reck­less behav­iour, and raise the noise lev­els on cli­mate change around Man­ches­ter!

All wel­come, start­ing at 5pm, Fri­day 9th of feb out­side Man­ches­ter Uni­ver­si­ty Stu­dents Union, on the Oxford Road…seeyou there!

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

Some Jan Critical Mass reports — London, Leeds, Manchester (& I Bike Mcr festival)

You nev­er know what the police are going to do next on the Lon­don ride. They clamp down on some things and relax on oth­ers from one month to the next and from one part of the ride to anoth­er. ‘Sham­bol­ic’ is per­haps the word that best describes their behav­iour. They seem at times to behave more like Anar­chists than the rid­ers. You would think with their radios they could at least arrive at some sort of a con­sen­sus. In addi­tion to our usu­al police overkill the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team were also in atten­dance at the South Bank, pok­ing their cam­eras in peo­ple’s faces. All this just because of a bike ride!

You nev­er know what the police are going to do next on the Lon­don ride. They clamp down on some things and relax on oth­ers from one month to the next and from one part of the ride to anoth­er. ‘Sham­bol­ic’ is per­haps the word that best describes their behav­iour. They seem at times to behave more like Anar­chists than the rid­ers. You would think with their radios they could at least arrive at some sort of a con­sen­sus. In addi­tion to our usu­al police overkill the For­ward Intel­li­gence Team were also in atten­dance at the South Bank, pok­ing their cam­eras in peo­ple’s faces. All this just because of a bike ride!

This time the cops decid­ed to get tough with rid­ers with­out lights and those who go through red lights and also with sound sys­tems in the SOCPA zone. Did you know, it is OK for some­one with a car to play their sound sys­tem in the vicin­i­ty or Par­lia­ment but not for a cyclist with a sound sys­tem? How dis­crim­i­na­to­ry is that? Any­way, the cops allowed an extra long ‘bikes high’ stop in Oxford Cir­cus but no stop what­so­ev­er in Pica­dil­ly Cir­cus. Those rid­ers who were pulled for going through red lights are now fac­ing a £30 fine, despite the fact that some cops were actu­al­ly ush­er­ing oth­er rid­ers through red lights!

One of the high­lights of the ride was storm­ing through the Ald­wych under­pass, some­thing the police nor­mal­ly pre­vent. We had a fun time with Bri­an Haw in Par­lia­ment Square, he led the “More bikes less cars!” chants on his mega­phone and seemed in a very good spir­its. The ride split up after that at around 9pm, going off in all direc­tions and leav­ing our yel­low coat­ed ret­inue behind, chin-wag­ging among them­selves.
http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk

Quick­time video ver­sion — video/mp4 8.3M
Win­dows video ver­sion — video/x‑ms-wmv 8.6M

====================================================

45 peo­ple rode around Leeds for just under an hour last night, with no police inter­ven­tions. The largest ride for some years, its hoped that this is the begin­ning of rever­sal in the down­ward trend of recent times.

====================================================

crit­i­cal mass man­ches­ter last fri­day and the next one..

Crit­i­cal Mass on Fri­day was absolute­ly amaz­ing. We stood around chat­ting out­side the library for ages just chill­in and social­is­ing and meet­ing the many new­com­ers to the mass. Peo­ple mak­ing the I Bike MCR did some film­ing for part of the film and some­one tak­ing pho­tos for the bicy­cle exhi­bi­tion in March.

Then the 40 or so of us took to the streets, rid­ing around the city cen­tre and down past the sta­tion right down Grosvenor street and onto oxford road where mass­es of stu­dents wait­ing for some gig cheered us as we rode by the union. We rode through Rusholme and then up to With­ing­ton and back , hard­ly any neg­a­tiv­i­ty at all instead we were greet­ed with cheers and friend­ly beeps and waves from car dri­vers and pedes­tri­ans… woooo!
After the ride we all went for a nice cold beer..mmm

Join us on Fri­day 23rd Feb for the next one, which will end at the ram­pant lion on upper brook st/anson rd where we will have our very own cel­e­brate crit­i­cal mass par­ty with bands and dj’s play­ing reg­gae, ska and punk..

email us at: mcrcriticalmass@yahoo.co.uk
be our myspace friend: http://www.myspace.com/mcrcriticalmass
see our web­site: http://velorution.x21.org.uk

Man­ches­ter I bike Mcr fes­ti­val:

From 30th March to 20th April the I Bike MCR fes­ti­val takes place in
Man­ches­ter. It is a grass­roots fes­ti­val organ­ised by cyclists for cyclists
with diverse events that will entice any cyclist. From Bicy­cle Polo
class­es and match­es to All­ey­cat rac­ing to a Bicy­cle Art Exhi­bi­tion,
there’s some­thing for every­one.

Those involved in organ­is­ing the event are cyclists from dif­fer­ent walks
of life includ­ing cycling instruc­tors, dai­ly com­muters, bicy­cle
mes­sen­gers, Crit­i­cal Mass advo­ca­cy group mem­bers and bicy­cle mechan­ics.

Timetable

Fri­day 30th March
6pm Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride, meet at Cen­tral Library to cel­e­brate the
bicy­cle over car cul­ture.

8pm Exhi­bi­tion Open­ing at The Base­ment, 24 Lever St. The open­ing event
will be one to remem­ber and will fea­ture the pre­mier screen­ing of new
Man­ches­ter bicy­cle film “I bike MCR”. We shall also be show­ing oth­er
bicy­cle films and hav­ing a roller race (an indoor bicy­cle race- on
rollers) with lots of prizes to be won! Local acoustic bands will be
per­form­ing includ­ing the amaz­ing Coop­er Jones and Dr But­ler’s Hat­stand
Med­i­cine Band

Sat­ur­day 31st March
1pm Platt Fields Park Bicy­cle Polo class. Oxford bicy­cle polo team are
com­ing to teach us how to play the sport. Please email to reserve a place.
(they return 2 weeks lat­er to play a match: Man­ches­ter vs Oxford)

Sun­day 1st April
2pm Cen­tral Library April Fools Day Bicy­cle Trea­sure Hunt. A fun trea­sure
hunt around our city.

Wednes­day 4th April
Moon­light Pub Ride Start 7pm Sand­bar, Grosvenor St (off Oxford Road/opp.
All Saints Park. A night ride out and around the out­skirts of Man­ches­ter
stop­ping off at some love­ly pubs for a drink on the way.

Fri­day 13th April
Hell Of The North West All­ey­cat
Fix­ies and road­ragers ride the all­ey­cat for a fast race round our city. £5
entry, amaz­ing prizes to be won. with some donat­ed by the won­der­ous Twin
Six and Keirin Cul­ture
Email to reg­is­ter

Alleykit­ten
Shop­pers, bmx’s and sil­ly bikes ride alleykit­ten for a ran­dom race full of
games and non­sense round our city cen­tre. £5 entry, amaz­ing prizes to be
won. Email to reg­is­ter

Sat­ur­day 14th April
1pm Platt Fields Park Bicy­cle Polo Match: Man­ches­ter vs Oxford.

For more infor­ma­tion see the web­site: www.ibikemcr.org.uk or email
info@ibikemcr.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