Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

Oxford social centre gets stay of execution

25.08.2011
The squat­ted social cen­tre known as “Plebs’ col­lege” was in court this morn­ing for an evic­tion hear­ing.

About 10–15 sup­port­ers crowd­ed into the pub­lic gallery while a cou­ple sat at the front to address the court.

There were, of course, the usu­al com­e­dy moments that occur when a large group of peo­ple is forced to remain seri­ous at a for­mal-but-slight­ly-ridicu­lous event.

25.08.2011
The squat­ted social cen­tre known as “Plebs’ col­lege” was in court this morn­ing for an evic­tion hear­ing.

About 10–15 sup­port­ers crowd­ed into the pub­lic gallery while a cou­ple sat at the front to address the court.

There were, of course, the usu­al com­e­dy moments that occur when a large group of peo­ple is forced to remain seri­ous at a for­mal-but-slight­ly-ridicu­lous event.

The judge claimed that none of our defences amount­ed to a valid legal defence, and informed us with an affa­ble demeanour that “you might be doing some­thing very worth­while and mer­i­to­ri­ous with the place, but you don’t have a right to be there” and “you may very well be home­less but you can’t stay on some­one else’s prop­er­ty”.

Still, we had appar­ent­ly gained his sym­pa­thies; he sug­gest­ed to the own­er’s solic­i­tor that they under­take not to make use of the pos­ses­sion order for at least 7 days, and point­ed out that it would like­ly take anoth­er 7 days beyond that to arrange bailiffs.

They agreed, and so we have the place for anoth­er 1–2 weeks.

One down-side is that the judge agreed to allow the own­ers to apply to the High Court for enforce­ment if nec­es­sary; which means if they need to they can send bailiffs with more pow­ers (though they are also more expen­sive for the own­er).

The judge fin­ished with the com­ment: “I hope you find some­where else”. Incite­ment and encour­age­ment to con­tin­ue the project in anoth­er squat­ted space? Well, per­haps…

—
From pre­vi­ous report from 14th August:
An emp­ty indus­tri­al work­shop in East Oxford has been squat­ted by a group plan­ning to use it for com­mu­ni­ty and social events, an organ­is­ing base for local rad­i­cals and liv­ing space too.

We had our first vis­it from the cops today. To cut a long sto­ry short, they man­aged to coerce their way in by wav­ing around bat­ter­ing rams and threats of arrest. But after wan­der­ing around and fail­ing to find any evi­dence of theft or dam­age, they left.. leav­ing us pleas­ant­ly mys­ti­fied. Not sure why they did­n’t kick us out when they phys­i­cal­ly had the chance; there are many the­o­ries.

Still, now that first encounter is out of the way we can now get down to busi­ness. A freeshop, book­swap library, com­mu­ni­ty meals and freeschool events are some ideas we have for starters, but we want your ideas too! If you have an idea for an event or project, get in touch or come and chat.

We’re at 55 Ran­dolph Street, which is here:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=51.745114&mlon=-1.234634&zoom=16
…unfor­tu­nate­ly at the moment get­ting in involves hop­ping over the front wall to get into the court­yard. This can be done using the neigh­bours’ front wall (luck­i­ly the folks in that house seem to be pret­ty sym­pa­thet­ic). If you need a hand with this give us a wave from the road.

Use­ful things you could bring:
‑mat­tress­es or bed­ding
‑elec­tri­cal or plumb­ing skills
‑food and/or water

If you don’t have time to vis­it us in per­son you can reach us at:
oxsquat@riseup.net

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/

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

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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

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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

Mobile Guerilla Garden

A con­voy of shop­ping trol­lies plant­ed up with veg­eta­bles and flow­ers sal­vaged from a demol­ished com­mu­ni­ty gar­den back in May took to the streets of Brighton on Sat­ur­day (July 9).

A con­voy of shop­ping trol­lies plant­ed up with veg­eta­bles and flow­ers sal­vaged from a demol­ished com­mu­ni­ty gar­den back in May took to the streets of Brighton on Sat­ur­day (July 9). Shop­pers were encour­aged to grow their own and sup­port local inde­pen­dent gro­cers and boy­cott Tesco and Sains­buries who are tak­ing over the city cen­tre in a super­mar­ket war.

The Mound com­mu­ni­ty gar­den — 15 veg beds — was destroyed by Lit­tle­hamp­ton-based devel­op­ers Har­g­reaves ltd on May 19. They cyn­i­cal­ly avoid­ed all con­tact with gar­den­ers, ignored clear­ly sign­post­ed wildlife con­ser­va­tion areas and actu­al­ly dug over a pond con­tain­ing newts and tad­poles.

Out of all this the Mound gar­den­ers col­lec­tive have stayed togeth­er and kept var­i­ous plants and flow­ers saved from the gar­den which are now being stored in the mobile trol­lies at a secret loca­tion.

Sat­ur­day’s action was in sup­port of the Wild­catz Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre — a recentl­ly occu­pied emp­ty mobile phone shop which is now a free caff & shop/debating & anti-cuts cham­ber — and the No More Super­mar­kets in Kemp­town cam­paign.

After a pit­stop out­side the Churchill Sq-based Wild­catz the trol­lies — sev­en in all — dodged their way through crowd­ed high streets to the new­ly opened Sains­buries in Kemp­town where a pro-local food and anti-super­mar­ket demo took place for the rest of the after­noon.

The gar­den­ers are call­ing for Brighton’s ‘green’ coun­cil to put their mon­ey where their mouth is and with­draw Har­g­reaves plan­ning per­mis­sion and in doing so pro­mote green spaces in city cen­tres

Peo­ple before Prof­its Gar­dens before Super­mar­kets!
http://brighton-mound.org.uk/

The Age of Evictions … and Resistance!

Two dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties. One liv­ing in Clifton Man­sions, an inner city block of long term squat­ted flats in Brix­ton, south Lon­don.

Two dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties. One liv­ing in Clifton Man­sions, an inner city block of long term squat­ted flats in Brix­ton, south Lon­don. The oth­er made of 90 fam­i­lies part of the UK’s largest Trav­eller com­mu­ni­ty in Dale Farm, a for­mer scrap-yard pur­chased by the Trav­ellers ten years ago near Basil­don, Essex.

They both now face one com­mon prob­lem: the threat of evic­tion. Dale Far­m’s long bat­tle has now reached a crit­i­cal point as Basil­don coun­cil yes­ter­day served a final notice of evic­tion giv­ing fam­i­lies until mid­night on August 31st to aban­don their homes. The com­mu­ni­ty of squat­ters of Clifton Man­sions have learnt that the police is plan­ning to block off Brix­ton’s Cold­har­bour Lane on Tues­day 12 July to enforce the evic­tion of all the peo­ple liv­ing in the 22 flats.

See calls from both com­mu­ni­ties for sol­i­dar­i­ty in resist­ing the planned evic­tions: Clifton Man­sions | Dale Farm

Clifton Man­sions:

Clifton Man­sions On Cold­har­bour Lane is a com­mu­ni­ty of squat­ters in the heart of Brix­ton. Squat­ted since the 1990’s the 22 flats are home to a large and diverse group of peo­ple. The res­i­dents have repaired and main­tained the prop­er­ties after Lam­beth Coun­cil left them emp­ty and neglect­ed. Clus­tered around a cen­tral court­yard Clifton Man­sions is a safe and vibrant com­mu­ni­ty where vio­lence and abuse are not tol­er­at­ed.

On Tues­day 12 July 2011 the police plan to block off Cold­har­bour Lane and enforce the evic­tion of all the peo­ple liv­ing in Clifton Man­sions. Mak­ing the aston­ish­ing claim that evict­ing Clifton Man­sions will some­how solve the prob­lem of drug crime in Brix­ton, the police failed to con­sult with local coun­cil­lors before push­ing ahead with this plan. Clifton Man­sions res­i­dents have received only two weeks notice that they are to be evict­ed from their homes.

Fol­low­ing the evic­tions, Lam­beth Coun­cil will pay Camelot, a pri­vate com­pa­ny, to pro­vide “live-in guardians” to occu­py Clifton Man­sions. The squat­ters have been pro­vid­ing a free guardian ser­vice for years. Why make peo­ple home­less and then pay a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny to occu­py their homes?

Even­tu­al­ly Lam­beth wants to sell Clifton Man­sions to prop­er­ty devel­op­ers, fur­ther reduc­ing Lam­beth’s social hous­ing stock in cen­tral Brix­ton. Clifton Man­sions will be turned into lux­u­ry flats priced well beyond the means of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

Please con­tact the coun­cil and the police to let them know what you think.

Show your sup­port on evic­tion day:
12 July – 8am – Clifton Man­sions – 429 Cold­har­bour Lane

They’re clos­ing the street so lets have a par­ty!

Dale Farm:

Dale Farm, in Crays Hill, Essex, is the UK’s largest Trav­ellers’ com­mu­ni­ty, con­sist­ing of near­ly a hun­dred sep­a­rate prop­er­ties, lying well out­side the vil­lage and made up of extend­ed fam­i­ly plots or yards.

Most are owned by Trav­ellers of Irish her­itage, although some Romani fam­i­lies also own yards. The estate is divid­ed in two sec­tions, the front part (about 45 plots) has plan­ning per­mis­sion; while the back part (52 plots) despite numer­ous appli­ca­tions and appeals, has been refused plan­ning con­sent, even though the site was pre­vi­ous­ly a dis­used scrap yard! 90% of trav­eller plan­ning appli­ca­tions are ini­tial­ly reject­ed com­pared to 20% over­all.

Cav­ing in to racial prej­u­dice, Basil­don Dis­trict Coun­cil (BDC) has set aside 9.2 mil­lion pounds to demol­ish the homes in the back 52 plots and have asked the Home Office for 10 mil­lion more. This could hap­pen as ear­ly as June. We view the destruc­tion of half this com­mu­ni­ty as eth­nic cleans­ing.

The plan­ning his­to­ry of the area has shown that the site had been used with­out plan­ning per­mis­sion since ear­ly 1990’s for a vari­ety of indus­tri­al uses. In 1992 BDC issued Enforce­ment Notices against var­i­ous unau­tho­rised com­mer­cial activ­i­ties that were being pur­sued on the site. Part of the land at the east side of the site was pre­vi­ous­ly the sub­ject of two tem­po­rary con­sents for the break­ing of motor vehi­cles, sale of vehi­cle parts and deal­ing in scrap met­als. This use ceased fol­low­ing the vaca­tion of the?land by the busi­ness pro­pri­etors in 2001.

When the unau­tho­rised devel­op­ment of the appli­ca­tion site first came to the Council’s atten­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2003, the land to the east of the site had been used as a scrap yard from 1978 until 2001 under a per­mis­sion grant­ed by the Coun­cil to be used as such. If an excep­tion was allowed for the scrap met­al yard, sure­ly an excep­tion can be made for a vul­ner­a­ble minor­i­ty group to con­tin­ue to live there, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en that many of them have already been through trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences of forced evic­tion.

In May 2005, the BDC vot­ed to take direct action, set­ting aside some three mil­lion euro for an evic­tion and demo­li­tion oper­a­tion. Res­i­dents sought a Judi­cial Review of this deci­sion and won in the High Court. This judg­ment was over­turned by the Court of Appeal on 22 Jan­u­ary 2009. An appeal to the House of Lords was denied on 14 May 2009. After exten­sive research into the needs of Trav­ellers and Gyp­sies in the UK, on 20 July the Depart­ment for Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment informed BDC and the Gip­sy Coun­cil that the Dis­trict Coun­cil is required to pro­vide suf­fi­cient land for 62 (six­ty two) addi­tion­al pitch­es. This require­ment can be eas­i­ly met by BDC if it decides to grant plan­ning per­mis­sion for the 52 (fifty two) unau­tho­rised pitch­es already in exis­tence at Dale Farm.

As men­tioned before, the main desire of the fam­i­lies is to not move from Dale Farm; they wish to get plan­ning per­mis­sion for per­ma­nent res­i­dence to con­tin­ue liv­ing in the site they pri­vate­ly own.

We say no to home demo­li­tions, and no to eth­nic cleans­ing!

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

Action Update + Summer Gathering + website

The lat­est EF! Action Update is out — down­load it, sub­scribe and dis­trib­ute.

The Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is com­ing up — see here for the loca­tion and pro­gramme, and here for more details

The lat­est EF! Action Update is out — down­load it, sub­scribe and dis­trib­ute.

The Sum­mer Gath­er­ing is com­ing up — see here for the loca­tion and pro­gramme, and here for more details

This web­site got a bit sick, but all is pret­ty much bet­ter now.

Latest Action Update

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Climb­ing, block­ing, stink­ing, sab­bing earth defend­ers rock!
Roll on down to the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing in mid-August.

Paint-throw­ing, blockad­ing, riot­ing, board­ing up offices and gath­er­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands togeth­er — all ways to try and defeat the Nuclear Behe­moth.

Blockad­ing coal in Bangladesh, cop­per min­ing in Peru, Ital­ian eco­tage against incin­er­a­tion, Greek fire­bombs oppos­ing land­fill, pro-rick­shaw car-smash­ing in India, actions and camp­ing to pro­tect the Tas­man­ian forests, and anti-min­ing trash­ing of many things in Indonesia…just a taste from around the world of how peo­ple cam­paign to stop the destruc­tion of the earth and it’s inhab­i­tants.

More news from the front lines: trav­ellers dig­ging in, mobile phone mast torch­ing, a first time hunt sabber’s diary, the lat­est from the GM ‘anti-lob­by’, and track­ing new devel­op­ments — UK frack­ing, FFS!

Plus with the lat­est advice from AUn­tie Miffy, con­tacts and dates to get you in the mood for Cap­tain Swing, down­load, dis­trib­ute, sub­scribe and get out there, and stuck in.

earthfirst.org.uk/efau
[- to sub­scribe & get the EF!AU as soon as it’s pro­duced, rather than when we put it up here!]

Call out for workshops for EF! Summer Gathering 2011

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot.

This year’s Earth First Sum­mer Gath­er­ing takes place in East Anglia this year, start­ing on the 10th of August and run­ning for five days. With six work­shops tents we have space for over 100 dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops. The spaces are fill­ing up fast, but there is still time to book a spot. So if you’ve got an idea you wish to high­light, whether it’s relat­ed to eco­log­i­cal defence or social resis­tance here is your chance. The gath­er­ing is attend­ed by hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als inter­est­ed and par­tic­i­pat­ing in strug­gles around the UK and Europe.

To get in touch just email efsummergathering2011announce@riseup.net with a blurb of for you work­shop or dis­cus­sion and we’ll do our best to fit you in.

For month­ly email updates for the gath­er­ing sub­scribe to efsummergathering@lists.riseup.net