Category: West Midlands

West Mid­lands

Earth First! Summer Gathering set-up plans announced

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We can now announce that set-up will begin from around 2pm on Sat­ur­day, 31 July. Mar­quees, tools and con­struc­tion mate­ri­als will be arriv­ing on site from Sat­ur­day morn­ing so there will be plen­ty to do. You will be able to camp on the site from Sat­ur­day and there will be skele­ton facil­i­ties (water, basic kitchen) from that time.

We also have a mobile num­ber for set­up which is 07766 947852. This will be on-site from Sat­ur­day lunchtime, and may well get answered in the few days before­hand but please don’t try ring­ing until then — e‑mail will remain the main con­tact point until near­er the time — sum­mer­gath­er­ing -{at}- earthfirst.org.uk

What we need to know:

*Please can you let us know when you are com­ing? — this helps us plan foods, facil­i­ties and what jobs to do when.

*It is also help­ful if you can let us know if you have any par­tic­u­lar skills or inter­ests with respect to set-up — we might need dri­vers, so if you are over 25, hold a clean licence, are con­fi­dent dri­ving a 3.5 tonne Luton AND can bring along both parts of your dri­ving licence please let us know.

*Sim­i­lar­ly if you are arriv­ing in a vehi­cle and could poten­tial­ly pro­vide lifts, trans­port equip­ment en route or run errands from site once you arrive please let us know. In this case it is very help­ful if you are able/willing to sup­ply us with a con­tact phone num­ber.

How to get there

As you maybe aware that we do not announce the exact site of the gath­er­ing until one week before the main event, this means direc­tions will be avail­able on the web­site http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/ from Wednes­day, 27 July. We realise this will be short notice for peo­ple arriv­ing on the Sat­ur­day, how­ev­er to make things eas­i­er we will e‑mail direc­tions to set-up crew on that day (that still 4 days to check a map!).

The near­est train sta­tion is Der­by if you want to pre-book train tick­ets, you will also need to take a local bus ser­vice from Der­by (these are fre­quent). We are aim­ing to have a vehi­cle on site that can assist if peo­ple have dif­fi­cul­ties between Der­by and the site, so hope­ful­ly every­one will be able to get there okay.

There may be a very small num­ber of lifts avail­able from the Not­ting­ham area across the week­end of Sat­ur­day 31st July/Sunday first of August. There may also be lifts from the Leeds area first thing on 31 July. Let us know if this may be of inter­est to you.

What to bring

*Every­thing you need to the gath­er­ing, tent sleep­ing bags etc. and espe­cial­ly a torch

*It may be wise to come a bit more self-suf­fi­cient in food and snacks than you would need to for the main gath­er­ing — we will have a basic kitchen but Veg­gies and the tuck shop are not arriv­ing until Wednes­day

*If you are able to bring any tools, espe­cial­ly for basic car­pen­try, these are often use­ful

Big thanks for offer­ing to help out

Do get in touch if you have any ques­tions

Love & rage

The EF! Gath­er­ing crew

Huntingdon Lane camp update

May 24, 2010
Hi there folks! Sor­ry it’s been so long since we last updat­ed the site, it’s been a busy busy month of dig­ging in and build­ing up! We’ve had peo­ple come and peo­ple go but over­all num­bers are steadi­ly climb­ing as more and more peo­ple hear about what we’re doing! Many thanks go out to those of you who have come and gone, all your efforts and dona­tions, be them time, mate­ri­als, food or finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, have been great­ly appre­ci­at­ed and we hope to see you all again soon! Now on with the news…

Huntingdon Lane camp flyerMay 24, 2010
Hi there folks! Sor­ry it’s been so long since we last updat­ed the site, it’s been a busy busy month of dig­ging in and build­ing up! We’ve had peo­ple come and peo­ple go but over­all num­bers are steadi­ly climb­ing as more and more peo­ple hear about what we’re doing! Many thanks go out to those of you who have come and gone, all your efforts and dona­tions, be them time, mate­ri­als, food or finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, have been great­ly appre­ci­at­ed and we hope to see you all again soon! Now on with the news…

NEWS
—————————————————

Over the last month we have seen UKCoal’s intend­ed date for the com­mence­ment of work move from the start of June to the end of June to mid July to ear­ly August and the lat­est news is that they don’t intend to start until the end of August. Good news!

—————————————————

Local water com­pa­ny Sev­ern Trent Water have assessed the area’s water sup­ply and have deter­mined that the pump that sup­plies the vil­lage of New Works with water does not have the capac­i­ty to sup­ply the pro­posed coal mine. This means that if they want a water sup­ply on site they will have to pay for an addi­tion­al pump to be installed at a cost of… wait for it… £40000!!!!

—————————————————

UKCoal’s share price is cur­rent­ly at a 52 week low, mean­ing they real­ly haven’t got much mon­ey knock­ing about right now. If this con­tin­ues they won’t be able to afford to install that pump, let alone fund an open cast mine!

—————————————————

CONSTRUCTION

We’ve have a busy time on the con­struc­tion front, with struc­tures going up and more tun­nels going in.

First up, due to the steadi­ly increas­ing num­bers of mouths to feed, we tore down the old kitchen tee-pee and built an brand new kitchen build­ing with prep areas, more stor­age and now enclos­ing the wash­ing up area.

Those very same police and fire crews have also tak­en pic­tures of the mouths of tun­nels and were not very hap­py with what they saw, leav­ing us quite hap­py 🙂

CAMP NEWS

As We said before, we’ve had some flu­id­i­ty in num­bers over the past month, with some com­ing, some going but over­all num­bers are look­ing up and a fair amount of folks are mak­ing repeat vis­its when they can. Thank you again to you all for your sup­port!

We recent­ly had three birth­days on camp all in the same week and a fan­tas­tic time was had by all! Hap­py Birth­day to Sarah (now 23), Dutch (an amaz­ing 30th) and Mon­key-Boy (spend­ing his 11th birt­day on site!).

An awe­some group of folks over Lud­low way did a fund rais­ing gig for us and raised a whop­ping £80 for the cause! Thanks so much guys, we’ll see you soon!

All in all, spir­its are pret­ty high on site right now, the fan­tas­tic weath­er has helped no end and the camp is a love­ly place to be, the trees are in bloom, every­thing is grow­ing, it’s beau­ti­full!

—————————————————

An updat­ed Wish List will fol­low short­ly, thanks again for your con­tin­ued sup­port and hope­ful­ly we’ll see you soon!

Pho­tos of some of the defence struc­tures, wish­list and updat­ed maps at http://defendhuntingtonlane.wordpress.com

The new Action Update — full of of action news and analysis

In the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Newcastle flotilla blockadeIn the new sum­mer edi­tion of the EF! Action Update, read about coal trains block­ad­ed, peat bogs defend­ed, and gas ter­mi­nals shut down. Find out about the dan­gers of nan­otech, cur­rent state of nuclear GM tri­als in the UK, Tesco upris­ings, golf course trash­ing, tar sands action and much more.

Be inspired by our protest camp fea­ture and the recent Tit­nore vic­to­ry. And from across the seas, read about our broth­ers and sis­ters strug­gling against whal­ing ship sab­o­tage, coal port pirates, riots in Zagreb, min­ing firm occu­pa­tions in Bolivia, dam resis­tance in Brazil and much more.

“We are going to inher­it the earth . There is not the slight­est doubt about that. We Are not afraid of ruins. We car­ry a new world, here in our hearts. That world is grow­ing this minute.” — Dur­ru­ti

To down­load the lat­est EF!AU for print­ing, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10print.pdf

To read the lat­est EF!AU online, go to http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/efau/actionupdate_summer10.pdf

Coal Action Network website relaunched!

Check out http://coalaction.org.uk/ for the updat­ed and re-vamped Coal Action Net­work web­site and detailed coal maps of the UK. It is hoped that this web­site will be a use­ful resource to any­one tak­ing action – or think­ing of tak­ing action – to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties, envi­ron­ments and the cli­mate sys­tem from coal projects.

Check out http://coalaction.org.uk/ for the updat­ed and re-vamped Coal Action Net­work web­site and detailed coal maps of the UK. It is hoped that this web­site will be a use­ful resource to any­one tak­ing action – or think­ing of tak­ing action – to pro­tect com­mu­ni­ties, envi­ron­ments and the cli­mate sys­tem from coal projects.

The CAN web­site will be kept up-to-date with recent news from cam­paigns and the indus­try. Have a look at The Coal Maps – map­ping coal across the UK, con­tacts page for cam­paigns and groups active on coal, use­ful resources for cam­paign groups, argu­ments against new coal, upcom­ing events and links to infor­ma­tion and oth­er issues. You can get in touch to con­tribute updates and infor­ma­tion and sign up to the CAN email list.

Through this web­site we aim to help link com­mu­ni­ty strug­gles and arm our­selves with the infor­ma­tion we need to resist new open cast coal mines and coal-fired pow­er sta­tions.

Upcoming action dates & activist gatherings, 2010 — updated

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010

scroll down for lat­est dates…

8–10 Octo­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

10 Octo­ber 2010
Glas­gow air­port shut-down action

12 Octo­ber 2010
Glob­al Min­ga for Moth­er Earth

12–16 Octo­ber 2010
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice, CJA call-out

13 Octo­ber 2010
It’s Ham­mer­time! — Smash EDO

16 Octo­ber 2010
Crude Awak­en­ing — big oil day of action in Lon­don City

23–24 Octo­ber 2010
Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work UK Gath­er­ing, Bris­tol

10–12 Decem­ber 2010
Earth First! tree plant­i­ng week­end — Treespon­si­bil­i­ty

=========

Old dates from this cal­en­dar:

2010

15–17 Jan­u­ary 2010
Peace News Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

23–26 Jan­u­ary 2010
Main­shill Pre-Evic­tion Gath­er­ing

5–7 Feb­ru­ary 2010
EF! Win­ter Moot, North East Eng­land

12–14 Feb­ru­ary 2010
UK Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

19–21 Feb­ru­ary 2010
Camp for Cli­mate Action nation­al ‘where next?’ gath­er­ing, Bris­tol — region­al ones hap­pen­ing over Jan­u­ary & Feb­ru­ary (details here)

26–28 Feb­ru­ary 2010
No Bor­ders Win­ter Gath­er­ing, Not­ting­ham

14 March 2010
UK Tar Sands Cam­paign Gath­er­ing, York

11am till 6pm (Veg­an lunch by dona­tion)
With BP’s AGM just 1 month away, and 2 weeks of actions planned for 1st to 15th April, come and con­nect with oth­er UK-based Tar Sands cam­paign­ers, share ideas and cre­ate actions. We’ll be look­ing at strate­gies and actions for tar­get­ing Shell, BP and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land — Britain’s Dirty Three­some on Tar Sands invest­ment.

We’re meet­ing in Der­went Col­lege, York Uni­ver­si­ty, room D/056 — from the sta­tion or city cen­tre, take bus num­ber 4 to the very last stop, walk back about 50 meters, and the road entrance to the col­lege is signed on the left. D/056 is accessed from the out­side, beyond the din­ing hall and ponds.

1 April 2010
Fos­sil Fools Day

1–4 April 2010
The Hunt­ing­ton Lane Fos­sil Fools week­end con­ver­gence

1–15 April 2010
BP Fort­night of Shame
includ­ing Lon­don Mass Action

17–18 April 2010
Social Cen­tres in a Time of Cri­sis, Leeds
A week­end of work­shops, dis­cus­sions and social­is­ing for every­one with an inter­est in rad­i­cal autonomous social cen­tres

22–23 April 2010
anti-avi­a­tion 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um

23–26 April 2010
Anti-nuclear Camp, Suf­folk — see lat­est EF!AU for details

6–10 May 2010
Activist Tat train­ing week: putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing flat pack toi­lets, as well as tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing

15 May 2010
Par­ty at the Pumps 2

21 May‑5 June 2010
Merthyr to Ross­port sol­i­dar­i­ty bike ride — Cli­mate Chains

5–8 June 2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Gath­er­ing, Ire­land

11–19 June 2010
World Naked Bike Ride — 11 June: Man­ches­ter, Southamp­ton; 12 June, Cardiff, Edin­burgh, Lon­don; 13 June: Brighton, Bris­tol; 19 June, Sheffield, York

18–21 June 2010
Out­door Skill­share, Scot­land

19 June 2010
Nation­al Gath­er­ing of the Stop Nuclear Pow­er Net­work, Lon­don

25 June-31 August 2010
Eco­topia Bike­tour, from Crit­i­cal Mass, Towards Car Free Cities Con­fer­ence, to the French & Ger­man cli­mate camps and much in between.

6–12 July 2010
Anti-Indus­tri­al Land Defence Action Camp, Cat­alo­nia
Go only if you can speak Cata­lan or Span­ish — http://acampadaderesistencies.blogspot.com

14–22 July 2010
Nordic cli­mate action camp, South­ern Swe­den

22 July‑1 August 2010
French Camp Action Cli­mat, near Le Havre

22 July‑2 August 2010
Swiss cli­mate camp Fr / De

23–27 July 2010
Peace News Sum­mer Camp, Oxford­shire

29 July‑4 August 2010
Bel­gian Cli­mate Camp, near Liege

4–9 August 2010
EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing, Der­byshire

12–16 August 2010
Irish Cli­mate Camp, Coun­ty Tyrone

13–17 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru

21–24 August 2010
Cli­mate Camp tar­gets RBS in Edin­burgh: Action Days

21–29 August 2010
Ger­man Kli­macamp, near Erke­lenz

27–30 August 2010
Nation­al Ani­mal Rights Gath­er­ing, near Northamp­ton

27–29 August 2010
Dutch Earth First! Gath­er­ing and CJA meet­ing — Groen Front!

Activist Tat training week

There will be a free AT Co-op train­ing week in Not­ting­ham, from Thurs­day 6th of May to Mon­day 10th of May 2010.

There will be a free AT Co-op train­ing week in Not­ting­ham, from Thurs­day 6th of May to Mon­day 10th of May 2010.

This will include putting up mar­quees, erect­ing and mend­ing the flat pack toi­lets and paint­ing them for beau­ty and dura­bil­i­ty, as well as all the tech­ni­cal and the­o­ret­i­cal (pow­er, plumb­ing etc) skill­shar­ing that launched the site crews of the No Bor­ders Camp in Calais, and the Camp for Cli­mate Action in Black­heath in 2009.

We would like to see 50 new peo­ple there. We can cope with 70 if they are
con­sid­er­ate and co-oper­a­tive.

You can come for the whole week or just a cou­ple of days. We’ll share the cost of excel­lent veg­an food, and bring sleep­ing bags for the friend­liest floors in For­est Fields, Not­ting­ham. E‑mail jed2f4[at]yahoo.co.uk if you’re com­ing.

======

Do you have equip­ment? Spaces activist groups can use? Skills you would like to share with oth­ers? ATC are cur­rent­ly doing an audit of grass­roots move­ments to see what mate­ri­als we have and what we have to offer each oth­er. Please take part in our ques­tion­naire, and help us cre­ate a strong net­work where we share skills and mate­ri­als.

The AT Coop­er­a­tive (com­mon­ly known as ‘activist tat col­lec­tive’) is a group of peo­ple who have come togeth­er to pro­vide equip­ment, trans­port and train­ing for grass­roots move­ments. The aims of the group are as fol­lows:

1. To source and pro­vide equip­ment for events to grass­roots cam­paigns at below com­mer­cial rates, by using exist­ing resources and pur­chas­ing new mate­ri­als.

2. To train peo­ple up in essen­tial skills for putting on out­door events.

3. To be a point of con­tact for indi­vid­u­als and groups seek­ing who are hap­py for oth­ers to use their equip­ment or who want to pass on their skills.

In all this, ATC aims to be as pro­fes­sion­al as pos­si­ble, main­tain­ing and stor­ing equip­ment respon­si­bly and ensur­ing that it is returned or replaced. This will reduce waste and free up valu­able time for actu­al cam­paign­ing!

There is a lot more infor­ma­tion on our web­site, so please read on.

http://www.atcoop.org.uk

Earth First! Summer Gathering, 4th — 9th Aug 2010, Derbyshire — location & programme announced/set-up plans & call-out

Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme

EF! Summer Gathering poster 2010Eco­log­i­cal Direct Action with­out Com­pro­mise

5 days of work­shops, skill shar­ing and plan­ning action, plus low-impact liv­ing with­out lead­ers.

Meet peo­ple, learn skills, take action.

For lat­est details, see http://www.earthfirstgathering.org.uk/
Set-up plans & call-out
Loca­tion
Pro­gramme
Want to do some­thing to stop our plan­et from get­ting trashed?

EF! is about direct action to halt the destruc­tion of the Earth. It’s about doing it your­self rather than rely­ing on lead­ers, gov­ern­ments or indus­try. Direct action is at the heart of it, whether you’re stand­ing in front of a bull­doz­er, shut­ting down an open-cast mine or rip­ping up a field of GM crops.

We’re a loose net­work of peo­ple, groups and cam­paigns com­ing togeth­er for eco­log­i­cal direct action.

Join us for 5 days of work­shops, net­work­ing and plan­ning actions, run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along. The gath­er­ing is also a prac­ti­cal exam­ple of low-impact eco-liv­ing and non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing.

What’s hap­pen­ing?
Over 80 work­shops, dis­cus­sions, plan­ning, strat­e­gy and ‘where next’ ses­sions:

*Share and learn skills for kick-ass actions on land and water.
Small boat han­dling and blockad­ing using kayaks / Blockad­ing — tripods, lock-ons/ Fences / Climb­ing skills / Action recon­nais­sance / Secu­ri­ty for Activists / Strat­e­gy and tac­tics / How to research cor­po­ra­tions /

*Net­work cur­rent cam­paigns against eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion
Open-cast min­ing / Genet­ic engi­neer­ing / Agro­fu­els / Sav­ing Ice­land / Cli­mate actions / Pipeline resis­tance in Ross­port / Anti-nuclear / Air­port expansion/ Tar Sands

*Think about eco-cen­tric ethics and alter­na­tive ways of organ­is­ing
Deep green ethics / Anar­chist eco­nom­ics / Anar­chist his­to­ry / Rad­i­cal Pol­i­tics / Work­ing with­out leaders/ Con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing

*Prac­ti­cal skills for eco­log­i­cal restora­tion and sus­tain­able liv­ing.
Intro­duc­tion to Ecol­o­gy / Restora­tion ecol­o­gy / Flo­ra and Fau­na iden­ti­fi­ca­tion / Veg­an Cake mak­ing / Pow­er from solar and wind / wild food / Squat­ting / Bike main­te­nance

As well as inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns round-up, net­work­ing and plan­ning for future actions.

Cost and prac­ti­cal things
£20–30 accord­ing to what you can afford.
The gath­er­ing is in Der­byshire, the exact loca­tion will be announced the week before. More info on our web­site.

Find out more and join in!

Email us if you can offer a work­shop, want to help out with the gath­er­ing or if you would like posters and leaflets to dis­trib­ute.

We have now a stack of fresh­ly print­ed posters adver­tis­ing the gath­er­ing. If you’d like to send you some to stick up in your area or to take to events, fes­ti­vals and the like, please email us. Alter­na­tive­ly you can also down­load the files and print your own. They are fair­ly large files! EF! gath­er­ing poster (A4)

We are now look­ing for peo­ple to run work­shops and dis­cus­sions at the gath­er­ing. Please con­tact us if you can offer some­thing. Have a look at our pro­gramme page to see the kind of thing we’re look­ing for.

http://www.earthfirst.org.uk, sum­mer­gath­er­ing _ NOSPAM _ @ _ NOSPAM earthfirst.org.uk

Huntington Lane Fossil Fools Weekend roundup

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

As part of Fos­sil Fools Day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action decid­ed to sup­port the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp against one of the UKs biggest Fos­sil Fools; UK Coal, who want to mine 900,000 tonnes of coal at Hunt­ing­ton Lane over a three-year peri­od. The main idea of the Fos­sil Fools week­end gath­er­ing was to get as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble down to the camp over the four days to help with the ongo­ing con­struc­tion of the camp. The 230-acre site near the foot of The Wrekin encom­pass­es part of the Shrop­shire Hills Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty and is also home to the pro­tect­ed sched­uled New Works Ancient Mon­u­ment. The Camp was set up three weeks ago in response to UK Coal felling trees which were part of ancient wood­land so they can build a haul road to link the two parts of the site togeth­er.

Fossil Fools Weekend

A day before Fos­sil Fools Days saw the camp attacked dur­ing the night by three loud bangs, which it is thought came from some­one either throw­ing fire­works or an air bomb into the camp. The camp which includ­ed young chil­dren were ter­ri­fied after being wok­en up dur­ing the dead of night. One camper said

“It was ter­ri­fy­ing, real­ly ter­ri­fy­ing. It was in the dead of night, death­ly qui­et, and then all of a sud­den we heard these three thun­der­ous bangs quick­ly one after the oth­er.”

As a result of the attack a 24 hour watch has now been estab­lished at the camp

Huntington Lane Camp

The week­end saw a steady stream of peo­ple vis­it the camp which has now grown to include two com­mu­nal tip­is and a third shel­tered com­mu­nal area is under con­struc­tion which when fin­ished will have raised floor­ing.

Fri­day the 2nd April saw two cam­paign­ers hang a ban­ner from the famous Iron Bridge World Her­itage Site land­mark in view of thou­sands of Bank Hol­i­day vis­i­tors.

“We are try­ing to raise aware­ness. We are still find­ing a large amount of peo­ple do not know pro­pos­als for a coal mine are in exis­tence, let alone it being so close to an Area of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beau­ty.”

Over­all the mood at the camp is pos­i­tive but we still need as many peo­ple at the camp as pos­si­ble and any­thing you can donate would be appre­ci­at­ed. We still need Food, Water, Tarp, Ropes, Straw/Sawdust/Woodchips to soak up the mud a lit­tle and Walkie Talkies

http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/fossil-fools-weekend-roundup/

Plane Stupid issues 48hr subvertising challenge

It’s that time of year when every air­line starts aggres­sive­ly adver­tis­ing for your busi­ness. Well, we’ve had enough. Plane Stu­pid is invit­ing all of you to take part in its very own sub­ver­tis­ing com­pe­ti­tion.

Sticker kidIt’s that time of year when every air­line starts aggres­sive­ly adver­tis­ing for your busi­ness. Well, we’ve had enough. Plane Stu­pid is invit­ing all of you to take part in its very own sub­ver­tis­ing com­pe­ti­tion. From Thurs­day 22nd April — Fri­day 23rd April, we’ll be launch­ing 48 hours of stick­er-whack­ing, sub­ver­tis­ing, adbust­ing pan­de­mo­ni­um.

The avi­a­tion indus­try spends mil­lions every year telling us that we’re no good to any­one unless we keep fly­ing with them. So it’s time to hit back! Like tobac­co adverts, avi­a­tion adver­tis­ing needs to become a thing of the past. But until then, let’s sub­ver­tise. Any poster, advert or bill­board is fair game.

Whether you’re a first time activist look­ing for an easy way-in, or an old timer look­ing for some light relief.….….it’s time to take to the streets and reclaim some pub­lic space. Tak­ing part is easy:

1. You can down­load a choice of designs from our Flickr site, or use your design skills to make your own.
2. Print them out on stan­dard, non divid­ed, A4 stick­er paper (avail­able from most print­ers and sta­tion­ers).
3. Then find your near­est avi­a­tion adver­tise­ment.
4. Stick ’em up punk!
5. Take pho­tographs, set up a new tem­po­rary email address in an inter­net cafe (under a pseu­do­nym) and email your images to info@planestupid.com.

The group who stick­ers the most adverts in the 48 hour peri­od wins. Wins what? Prizes! We got the bumper crop of 5 spray cans, Cul­ture Jam by Kalle Lasn, Do It Your­self, A hand­book for chang­ing our world, by the Trapese Col­lec­tive and Scrib­ble­boy by Philip Rid­ley to give away.

Of course don’t feel lim­it­ed to indi­vid­ual stick­ers, think big! You can write your own mes­sage on large stretch­es of blank wall paper to cov­er whole bill boards. Make up some wall paper paste, get a paint roller, a stick it up. If nec­es­sary — attach the roller to a broom han­dle for those hard to reach places. Help­ful­ly, there’s some great how-to guides on t’in­ter­net.

One last point. Please be respect­ful about where you stick­er. Cor­po­rate nas­ties are fine.….but the local old peo­ple’s homes may not appre­ci­ate your art on their walls!

Use your head, and remem­ber to dress well for the occa­sion — caps and scarves are the in thing this sub­ver­tis­ing sea­son. Some offi­cers of the law may be con­vinced that sub­ver­tis­ing is bor­der­line ille­gal, so take a friend as look­out, keep an eye open for CCTV and don’t get caught.

West Midlands Climate Action presents … The Huntington Lane Fossil Fools weekend convergence

]Thurs­day April 1st-Sun­day 4th
It’s time to Spring back into Action.

Fossil Fools Weekend]Thurs­day April 1st-Sun­day 4th
It’s time to Spring back into Action.

After dis­cov­er­ing that many trees had already been felled sig­nalling that work was due to begin, West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action and a coali­tion of local groups, anar­chists and activists last week swooped upon the Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site to claim the land. We’ve had a camp set up on the pro­posed open-cast site for about a week now. There’s a com­mu­nal sleep­ing area, fire pit, a wood store and plans for a lodge.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from UK Coal have also vis­it­ed the camp to find out our ‘list of demands’ and didn’t seem pleased with the response — That we want­ed them to call a halt to all open cast coal min­ing on this site!

As part of Fos­sil Fools day West Mid­lands Cli­mate Action are putting on a week­end gath­er­ing at the new­ly estab­lished Hunt­ing­ton Lane Camp. The week­end will include a ram­ble over the pro­posed Hunt­ing­ton Lane Sur­face Mine Site, Ban­ner drops, cam­paign plan­ning and most impor­tant­ly car­ry­ing out any work on site that needs doing to help estab­lish a per­ma­nent base on site.

We need as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble, if you can come for the whole week­end that would be great, but even if it’s just for the day any help we can get will be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed.

If you haven’t got a tent there is a com­mu­nal sleep­ing area.

We have a wish list of things we need:

Food (and teabags please)
Tarps – the big­ger the bet­ter!
Tools of all kinds
Rope of all kinds
Fire bricks (for the sweat lodge!)
Stove pipe etc for a rock­et stove
Com­post toi­lets
Tripods
Peo­ple

And any­thing else you think we might need that is not on the list.

We need as many peo­ple on site as pos­si­ble as soon as pos­si­ble so if you can’t make the week­end or want to get there ear­ly any sup­port will be wel­comed by the camp.

The near­est train sta­tion is Welling­ton which is just out­side of Telford and the camp is a 20 minute walk from the sta­tion.

Web­site: http://wmclimateaction.wordpress.com/
Twit­ter: http://twitter.com/wmclimateaction