Category: Yorkshire & The Humber

York­shire & the Hum­ber

critical masses (reports from end June/beginning July 2007)

Man­ches­ter:Ace mass on fri­day woo! despite all the stu­dents being away for the sum­mer there was still an ace turnout of around 30–40 people.nice. and a few stayed for a nice bbq in the park which was real love­ly.

Man­ches­ter:Ace mass on fri­day woo! despite all the stu­dents being away for the sum­mer there was still an ace turnout of around 30–40 people.nice. and a few stayed for a nice bbq in the park which was real love­ly.

Crit­i­cal mass has a my space account
here:http://www.myspace.com/mcrcriticalmass
and a face­book account here:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=597661675&ref=mf

also an email list at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/manccriticalmass

so if you have pho­tos or film of the mass­es please post or upload them or email for the pass­words and i’ll send them out to you. also please use these and this list to dis­cuss ideas and calls for help with future events for after the crit­i­cal mass. In the past we’ve had ben­e­fit gigs, par­ty in the woods, film nights, meals, beers in pubs, pic­nics, bike polo work­shops, art exhi­bi­tion, roller races etc etc. It would be ace if every­one could be involved in organ­is­ing these. maybe we could even get togeth­er a lit­tle cm events work­ing group..would any­one be inter­est­ed in this? we could get togeth­er either after cm or in the month to share ideas, organ­i­sa­tion and tasks.

these things can be dis­cussed on this list or on myspace com­ments or on the face­book note or wall

ALSO
At pre­vi­ous crit­i­cal mass­es in Man­ches­ter we decid­ed on the fol­low­ing tips to ensure that we are all safe,that we cause least annoy­ance as pos­si­ble, to make sure the ride stays togeth­er and to ensure that every­one feels com­fort­able. Remem­ber some­times peo­ple on crit­i­cal mass come because it is a chance to reclaim the road and to feel safe, peo­ple who would­nt usu­al­ly ride in cen­tral man­ches­ter and also chil­dren, so its good to keep the nice friend­ly atmos­phere to encour­age cycling and that safe environment…if peo­ple want to dis­cuss these its great, they were points that were agreed at sev­er­al crit­i­cal mass­es by peo­ple shout­ing and wav­ing hands and that kind of thing. there is no organ­is­er and every­one should be able to have their say. (in a way that is respon­si­ble and look­ing after each oth­er)

1. If the light goes on red as the ride approach­es the lights we stop and wait for green.
2. If the light changes part way through the ride get­ting through around 2 peo­ple per lane of oncom­ing traf­fic stop and cork the road. This basi­cal­ly means that they stand in the mid­dle of that lane hold­ing up their hand/ a sign say­ing ‘thank you for wait­ing’ so that cars will stop and let the ride stay togeth­er and go through the light safe­ly. Thank­ing the dri­vers when every­one is through..we are try­ing to get dri­vers onto bikes not to hate us!!!
3. Slow­er rid­ers and chil­dren and peo­ple with less con­fi­dence ride at the front of the ride and to the left hand side so that they can set the pace and help to stay togeth­er and also feel safer as they are less like­ly to be near traffic/ annoyed dri­vers.
4. We don’t have a set route for crit­i­cal mass, instead who­ev­er is at the front at the time can choose where we go, so we take it in turns! just shout left or right or straight on in plen­ty of time!
5. Have fun!

Future crit­i­cal mass dates are

MEET CENTRAL LIBRARY 6PM FRIDAY:
27th July
31st August
28th Sep­tem­ber
26th Octo­ber
30th Novem­ber
28th Decem­ber

2008
25th Jan­u­ary
29th Feb­ru­ary (woo leap year!)
28th March
etc etc

Lon­don: Crit­i­cal Mass 29th June — The June Crit­i­cal Mass, with a few hun­dred cyclists, was a fun ride through the City and Hol­born and man­aged to stay dry the whole way through!

Sev­er­al hun­dred peo­ple left Water­loo bridge at about 7pm, cycling across Black­fri­ars bridge, along Ludgate Hill, past the Muse­um of Lon­don and onto Liv­er­pool Street sta­tion. After some cir­cling of Fins­bury Cir­cus the mass kept mov­ing on to Old Street where we had a brief rest. Mov­ing off the mass head­ed for Cam­bridge Cir­cus along Theobalds road and High Hol­born. From there it moved up and along Oxford Street and down to West­min­ster Square where there were some skir­mish­es with the cops over the sound sys­tem (see the account: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374738.html)

It was a fun ride. The police for the most part seemed to keep their dis­tance. Enter­tain­ing­ly a cou­ple of police start­ed head bob­bing to the music in Old Street — I’m hop­ing some­one got a film of it! Let’s hope next month is slight­ly sun­nier though.

Edin­burgh: It went pret­ty well. Around 50 peo­ple. Con­sid­er­ably more than last month. There was no police inter­ven­tion, apart from pre­vent­ing all vehi­cles to go across North Bridge, since it was shut again. We sim­ply divert­ed down Lei­th Street, went all the way round the round­about, then along Queen Street to the mead­ows from there. In the last 5 min­utes the heav­ens opened.

Glas­gow got the sun and a ride out to the West End com­plete with bike lifts and a film screen­ing after­wards.

July York Crit­i­cal Mass Ride Small but Suc­cess­ful

Well, it was­n’t a big ride, with just 19 peo­ple tak­ing part, but we had fun, made cycling vis­i­ble and encoun­tered some com­plete idiots who need their 2 ton weapons remov­ing from beneath them. The dri­ver of a bright red Audi on Nun­nery Lane expend­ed much petrol revving, over­tak­ing (twice) and gen­er­al­ly being an idiot with­out any gain for him­self, oth­er than a nice pic­ture show­ing that he, like a notable group of York’s dri­vers, has no con­cern what­so­ev­er for cycle lanes or cyclists. No one was hurt, but as one per­son put it lat­er “we gave as good as we got”, ver­bal­ly of course.

Next months ride will prob­a­bly also be small, but that’s no excuse not to show up. On Fri­day August 3rd we’ll be return­ing to the streets of York to pro­mote cycling, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and fun, same time and same place.

Miffed by Miffy

I don’t know how it came about but the Miffy rab­bit char­ac­ter has for a long time been asso­ci­at­ed with the Earth First! move­ment and rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action. But do the cre­ators and copy­right own­ers of the char­ac­ter know or approve of Miffy’s polit­i­cal activ­i­ties?…



Rabbit under fence

EF! summer gathering 2007 logo



Rabbit with wrenchEF! gathering '07 logo (rabbit/fence)

I don’t know how it came about but the Miffy rab­bit char­ac­ter has for a long time been asso­ci­at­ed with the Earth First! move­ment and rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal direct action. But do the cre­ators and copy­right own­ers of the char­ac­ter know or approve of Miffy’s polit­i­cal activ­i­ties?…

Miffy is a pic­ture book char­ac­ter cre­at­ed by Dick Bruna in 1955, after telling his one-year-old son Sierk sto­ries about a rab­bit they had seen on hol­i­day. Miffy now fea­tures in about 30 titles which have been trans­lat­ed into 40 dif­fer­ent lan­guages, sell­ing over 80 mil­lion copies all over the world.

Drawn in a very min­i­mal­ist style, Miffy requires only a few lines and one or two pri­ma­ry col­ors drawn in two dimen­sions to be recog­nis­able. Per­haps this, and the sense of air of inno­cence over mis­chief explains why she become involved in eco­log­i­cal direct action.

It’s unclear exact­ly when exact­ly it began but you can trace her polit­i­cal activ­i­ties, in this coun­try at least, back to the ear­ly 90’s and the anti-roads move­ment. Seen coy­ly hold­ing a span­ner behind her back, one could only imag­ine the trail of mon­key wrench­ing she left behind her in her efforts to defend the fields, wood­land and hedgerows she loved.

By the late nineties, with the roads build­ing pro­gram in retreat, Miffy joined the grow­ing anti GM move­ment, tak­ing up a spade to join the resis­tance. More recent­ly, Miffy joined her fel­low pro­test­ers for a game of golf up in Scot­land dur­ing the 2005 G8 sum­mit and who know, per­haps she also took part in the block­ades in Heili­gen­damm this year.

At over fifty years old you’d think that Miffy would be her own per­son, free to express her polit­i­cal beliefs as she sees fit but sad­ly it appears not. The copy­right own­ers of all Dick Bruna’s char­ac­ter con­stant­ly hunt down unli­censed users of her image in order to defend their prof­itable mer­chan­dis­ing busi­ness.

While Miffy was cre­at­ed for a chil­dren’s book, the design has been cap­i­talised on to sell numer­ous oth­er prod­ucts like clothes, sta­tionery, toys, glass­es, house­hold items etc. A search for Miffy prod­ucts on google brings up over 100,000 pages and no doubt many of the prod­ucts sold are unli­censed copies made in far east­ern sweat shops.

How­ev­er, Mer­cis, the Dutch com­pa­ny that owns the copy­right, are not con­tent to sim­ply take action on those pro­duc­ing ‘fake’ mer­chan­dise, they appears to have stum­bled on Miffy’s rad­i­cal secret life and they are not amused. They are deeply offend­ed, iron­i­cal­ly, by Miffys involve­ment in the cam­paign against patents on life, as depict­ed in stick­er pro­duced many years ago pro­mot­ing the (long dead), www.resistanceisfertile.com web­site — copies of which can now only be found in resource archives of the (no longer main­tained) Totnes Against Genet­ics (ToGG) web­site.

Mer­cis (www.mercis.nl) have unleashed their legal team to threat­en expen­sive legal action against who­ev­er might be held account­able — the inac­tive Totnes Genet­ics Group who’s long unmain­tained web­site sill con­tains a pic­ture of that Miffy stick­er.

While ToGG vol­un­teers try to get long for­got­ten pass­words and access from the inter­net ser­vice provider which hosts the web­site in order to remove the offend­ing image, more impor­tant ques­tions have been raised. Will Miffy tol­er­ate this attack on her free­dom of expres­sion and will her friends in the move­ment stand idly by and watch as her free­dom to protest is tak­en away?

Oth­er sit­ing of Miffy can be found at https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374195.html?c=on#comments

Ramona Africa — ON A MOVE tour of UK

Ramona Africa is tour­ing the UK speak­ing about the incred­i­ble sto­ry of MOVE. MOVE are a large­ly black eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group based in Philadel­phia. They have cam­paigned on envi­ron­men­tal, ani­mal rights and anti-police repres­sion issues for thir­ty years. They have nev­er backed down in the face of overt racist police repres­sion.

More info: www.onamove2007.org.uk

Ramona Africa is tour­ing the UK speak­ing about the incred­i­ble sto­ry of MOVE. MOVE are a large­ly black eco-rev­o­lu­tion­ary group based in Philadel­phia. They have cam­paigned on envi­ron­men­tal, ani­mal rights and anti-police repres­sion issues for thir­ty years. They have nev­er backed down in the face of overt racist police repres­sion.

More info: www.onamove2007.org.uk


In 1978 nine mem­bers of MOVE were impris­oned for a bla­tant­ly framed mur­der, they are still impris­oned with their first chance of parole in August 2008. In 1985 the city of Philadel­phia sort the ‘final solu­tion’ for the MOVE ‘prob­lem’ by attack­ing their home with 10,000 rounds of ammu­ni­tion, tear gas, water can­nons and final­ly a bomb that burnt 60 homes to the ground. 6 MOVE adults and 5 chil­dren were burned to death. Ramona man­aged to escape with one of the chil­dren.
She was sen­tenced to sev­en years for ‘riot’.

MumiaMumia Abu-Jamal is a MOVE sup­port­er who also has also expe­ri­enced the injus­tice of the sys­tem whilst spend­ing over 26 years on death row for a crime he did not com­mit.

Come and hear about all these events and see the MOVE doc­u­men­tary nar­rat­ed by Howard Zinn.

.
.

June:
Thu 21ST @ 1in12 Brad­ford
Fri 22nd @ The Work­shop Cafe Bar Nor­wich 7pm
Sun 24th @ The Com­mon Place Leeds 6pm
Mon 25th @ The West Indi­an Club Leeds 6.30pm
Wed 27th @ The Cow­ley Club Brighton 7pm
Thu 28th @ The Ram­part Cen­tre Lon­don 7pm
Fri 29th @ Bath Place Leam­ing­ton Spa
Sat 30th @ The Drum Birm­ing­ham 7pm
July:
Sun 1st @ The Star and Shad­ow Cin­e­ma New­cas­tle 7.30pm
Mon 2nd @ The Cube Cin­e­ma Bris­tol 8pm
(Kebele are also turn­ing their reg­u­lar Sun­day Veg­an cafe into a
ben­e­fit for MOVE on Sun­day 1st July)

Thousands strip off for London’s Naked Bike Ride + Manchester video + Brighton + York

In 2004 there were 58 rid­ers, in 2005 a cred­itable 250 rid­ers, ris­ing to a mas­sive 800 in 2006.

In 2004 there were 58 rid­ers, in 2005 a cred­itable 250 rid­ers, ris­ing to a mas­sive 800 in 2006.

But in a scale that sur­prised even the organ­is­ers, more than five thou­sand peo­ple today took to Lon­don’s streets to protest against oil depen­den­cy, cel­e­brate body free­dom and curb car cul­ture.

Start­ing from Hyde Park, there was a slight devi­a­tion in route as pre­cau­tions were tak­en to avoid a col­li­sion with an Orange march (fea­tur­ing as scary a bunch of appar­ent loons and psy­chopaths as you’d ever not want to meet).

Halt­ed half way down Pic­cadil­ly the scale of the ride became appar­ent, as it still tailed back well into Hyde Park (first pic­ture).

Part of the fun took it straight through the heart of Lon­don’s tourist hell­hole, Covent Gar­den. But the roar of appre­ci­a­tion from the crowds made the cob­bly streets more than tol­er­a­ble.

Why so many? Well many of the rid­ers had been to last mon­th’s Crit­i­cal Mass, swollen to record num­bers as a result of State attempts to con­trol it and make it “ille­gal”. Empow­ered, as many put it, the next stage was to get their clothes off and take it up a lev­el.

“Roll on” as Rik­ki put in his report of that day “the next piece of repres­sive leg­is­la­tion”.

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Man­ches­ter 2007 WNBR evening Fri­day 8th:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEuDP7BOBUc

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Brighton 07 World Naked Bike Ride
On Sat­ur­day, more than 200 naked cyclists rode through Brighton and Hove in East Sus­sex. “Bikes and naked bod­ies harm nobody. Car fumes… are dri­ving us all to cli­mate chaos.”

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York:

Sheffield NVDA Training and Plane Stupid Benefit

Plane Stu­pid NVDA Train­ing and Ben­e­fit Gig
Join us for some Plane Stu­pid fun!
Plane Stu­pid Sheffield is host­ing two fab­u­lous events this Sun­day the 10th of June.

First, at 11am in the Octa­gon bar, we’re hav­ing a bit of morn­ing and an after­noon of insight into the intri­ca­cies and prac­ti­cal­i­ties of non-vio­lent direct action (NVDA) and quick con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing. If you’ve ever won­dered what peo­ple do when they want to take mean­ing­ful action against things that they oppose, and the ins and outs of get­ting arrest­ed for doing so, or how it is pos­si­ble to quick­ly make groups deci­sions that every­body is in agree­ment on, then come along and be part of some col­lec­tive and inter­ac­tive edu­ca­tion!

Plane Stu­pid NVDA Train­ing and Ben­e­fit Gig
Join us for some Plane Stu­pid fun!
Plane Stu­pid Sheffield is host­ing two fab­u­lous events this Sun­day the 10th of June.

First, at 11am in the Octa­gon bar, we’re hav­ing a bit of morn­ing and an after­noon of insight into the intri­ca­cies and prac­ti­cal­i­ties of non-vio­lent direct action (NVDA) and quick con­sen­sus deci­sion-mak­ing. If you’ve ever won­dered what peo­ple do when they want to take mean­ing­ful action against things that they oppose, and the ins and outs of get­ting arrest­ed for doing so, or how it is pos­si­ble to quick­ly make groups deci­sions that every­body is in agree­ment on, then come along and be part of some col­lec­tive and inter­ac­tive edu­ca­tion!

Then, from 8pm that evening is a Plane Stu­pid ben­e­fit gig at the love­ly Red House ( http://www.multimap.com/maps/#t=l&map=53.38447,-1.47792|17|4&loc=GB:53.38447:-1.47792:17|168%20Solly%20Street|168%20Solly%20Street,%20FULWOOD%20(SHEFFIELD),%20S3).
Music will be brought to your ears by Just Pota­toes, Aclous­tic Dom­i­na­tion, Sarah Bark­er with fur­ther com­ple­men­tary Djs.

Admis­sion to the work­shop is free/donation. Food will be pro­vid­ed col­lec­tive­ly, so if you want to come then bring some food to share and we can all enjoy a plen­ti­ful and var­ied lunch. To get into the gig in the evening will cost you just £1.50 sug­gest­ed dona­tion!

sheffield@planestupid.com
http://www.planestupid.com

Critical Mass reports — London, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol, Edinburgh, York

Lon­don:
The cycle police were pret­ty laid back and vast­ly out­num­bered, though they did still try to man­age the ride by block­ing the front so that the back could catch up. What does it mat­ter if a 1,000 rid­ers get split into two or more though? Towards the end of the ride the police seemed to give up doing any­thing, they did­n’t even try to stop a cou­ple of cars going the wrong way down a one way street, and they just blend­ed in and became a part of the Mass.

Lon­don:
London May 07 Critical Mass 3The cycle police were pret­ty laid back and vast­ly out­num­bered, though they did still try to man­age the ride by block­ing the front so that the back could catch up. What does it mat­ter if a 1,000 rid­ers get split into two or more though? Towards the end of the ride the police seemed to give up doing any­thing, they did­n’t even try to stop a cou­ple of cars going the wrong way down a one way street, and they just blend­ed in and became a part of the Mass.

The police inter­vened with an inci­dent with a young rid­er at King’s Cross. I could­n’t make out whether the rid­er had been involved in acci­dent and the police were just tak­ing par­tic­u­lars or if the rid­er was being rep­ri­mand­ed. Any­way this led to some boo­ing from the Mass.

Par­tic­i­pants did quite a lot of blockad­ing traf­fic and even a small sit
down in Par­lia­ment Square, though this was prob­a­bly cel­e­bra­to­ry and
defi­ant. Noth­ing was done to stop the sound sys­tems play­ing in the SOCPA zone this time. The impres­sion I got from oth­er rid­ers was that this was a very good Mass. I went expect­ing the worst and got almost the best.

http://criticalmasslondon.org.uk

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the inci­dent at kings cross involved a rid­er being caught steal­ing a light from the back of a cops bike. the police got pissed and tried to arrest her but a few oth­er rid­ers, and unfor­tu­nate­ly i mean a few, inter­vened and let it be known that it would be very dif­fi­cult for the police to arrest her — which they decid­ed would there­fore not be worth it. i per­son­al­ly think that those on the CM should not allow fel­low rid­ers to be arrest­ed — an easy thing to acheive when we vast­ly out­num­ber the cops.
respect to the few that helped out.

———————————
The atmos­phere on the ride was real­ly friend­ly with a few small sound sys­tems and a vari­ety of pret­ty mad bikes and trail­ers adding to the mag­ic. There were loads of new faces and peo­ple of every age and back­ground.

There were also plen­ty of cops. They had talked to a few peo­ple as the ride met up at Water­loo Bridge and were seen hand­ing some kind of paper­work to the own­er of one of the sound sys­tems, but no sign of any sig­nif­i­cant attempt to cur­tail the ride. Far from being oppres­sive, they kept them­selves to them­selves on the whole.

I per­son­al­ly got a quite pissed off a few times by seem­ing­ly incon­sid­er­ate behav­ior from the ride itself — for exam­ple, not let­ting pedes­tri­ans cross the road. In anoth­er exam­ple, a bus com­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion was blocked by cyclists on the wrong side of the road and held up for at least ten min­utes as a result.
The cops did grab a few idiots and give them some stern words on sev­er­al occa­sions through­out the ride for cycling on the wrong side of the road into oncom­ing traf­fic.

The police made fools of them­selves at Par­lia­ment Square when they tried to block the rides third or forth rota­tion around the square and end­ed up stalling the ride there for a good half hour. The ride would have moved off much quick­er if left to it’s own devices as the ride likes to move and becomes impa­tient when peo­ple stop.

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Videos from Lon­don:

Quick­time video — video/mp4 9.3M
Win­dows video — video/x‑ms-wmv 13M

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Man­ches­ter video rough-cut

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Glasgow CM May '07 blessing
BIG BIKE BLESSING — Anoth­er great Crit­i­cal Mass bike ride in Glas­gow

About 80 cyclists came out to the Big Bike Bless­ing on this sun­ny evening in Glas­gow. The priest from the church of the Hol­ly Bikes were sent by St Cycle to help cyclists real­ize that by rid­ding their bikes they are actu­al­ly sav­ing the city dwellers and the plan­et at the same time. Every cyclists was praised as a hero, a sav­ior for they are the only ones that can help this oil dri­ven econ­o­my. They are the only ones that can bring fresh air to the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed city. They are the ones tak­ing action on a dai­ly bases no mat­ter where they are from, what their reli­gion might be, or what their pro­fes­sion is. The bike will save us. AMEN!

Hol­ly oil was used to bless about 20 bikes and every cyclist was thanked for their incred­i­ble achieve­ment, their hero­ic act of using their self pro­pelled vehi­cles. They were told that the Great St Cycles is look­ing over all of us and that we will be looked after dur­ing our ride around the city as long as we stick togeth­er.

The cer­e­mo­ni­ous aspect of this gath­er­ing actu­al­ly cre­at­ed some great inter­ac­tions and made peo­ple curi­ous to the point of want­i­ng to know more. There were some very inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion about our reli­gious belief in bikes (which chal­lenged peo­ple in their own beliefs). This also brought all the cyclists togeth­er.

As for cul­tur­al diver­si­ty, and just to show that it’s not about the reli­gion but about bikes, there were a few peo­ple send­ing bless­ings dressed in a more Hin­du style as well. There was even some strange rep­tile that decid­ed to join the cer­e­monies of the day.

The Weird Bike Show brought out the ZEM (Zero Emis­sions Machine) once again, with it’s hop­ping sound sys­tem and pro­vid­ed the broth­ers and sis­ters from the church of the Hol­ly Bikes a bril­liant ride.

The promised Divine Inter­ven­tion did occur around Tron­gate where a pair of shoes belong­ing to no oth­er than St Cycles were care­ful­ly left on top of an elec­tric box before he him­self was tak­en to the sky.

As for the police charg­ing cyclists of block­ing traf­fic last month, there was a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent vibe this month. There were two police offi­cers on bikes that came along to the ride. They were very mel­low and there­for were giv­en quite a few bless­ings.

We also have some excel­lent footage that shows how fast bikes can get out of the way to let things like fire trucks and the police through. The only thing hold­ing these emer­gency vehi­cles up were the motors … not bikes.

The mass fin­ished in George Sq where every­one left was stamped with a ‘Bike Route’ Stamp ensur­ing a spe­cial dis­count to the gig at the Art School with Jum­ble Sales Sound Sys­tem and Bed­lam Boudoir fan­cy bur­lesque night.

For those that claimed Crit­i­cal Mass was dead … I’m pleased to inform you that our num­bers are still grow­ing and we’re lov­ing it.

Bless you Bike!!

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Bristol CM May 07 wheel trashed
Bristol CM May 07 arrestBristol CM May 07 arrest 2
Bris­tol: Crit­i­cal Mass yes­ter­day was phe­nom­e­nal. I think we had over 100 par­tic­i­pants and it was flow­ing beau­ti­ful­ly for about 40 min­utes… Then of course some dri­vers, three I think, all got a bit impa­tient all at once and a cou­ple of cyclists were knocked over, 14 police cars an ambu­lance and a riot van, two arrests lat­er, tail backs from the Foun­tains right up past Stokes Croft… all got a bit nasty. It will be inter­est­ing to see if the press have any­thing to say and what the police pres­ence is next time…

Just to be clear though, whilst there was quite a lot going on as far as I am aware at least one of those arrest­ed got stuck in to the fra­cas after the police arrived and had noth­ing to do with the ride itself, and nei­ther of the cyclists who were hit behaved inap­pro­pri­ate­ly at any point. No motorists were arrest­ed and the police let one hit and run dri­ver leave the scene with­out for­mal­ly record­ing an acci­dent, despite him hav­ing delib­er­ate­ly rammed a cyclist and ruined his bicy­cle.

So, peo­ple, I under­stand there will be anoth­er ride on the 29th of May. Meet 5.30pm at the Foun­tains, leave at 6pm. Those of you who aren’t at Glas­ton­bury that is. The more rea­son­able cyclists that attend the bet­ter we can cre­ate a good organ­ic flow and have a safe and effec­tive ride to cel­e­brate cycling.

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I was at the Edin­burgh Crit­i­cal Mass yes­ter­day, with about 15 or 20 of us there. It went along fair­ly peace­ful­ly, with the excep­tion of the police in the mid­dle of the mead­ows. The ban­ner that some­one had, had to be tak­en down, but apart from that there was no issue, apart from some tail­backs.

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York’s May Crit­i­cal Mass a suc­cess

Some­where between 35 and 40 rid­ers took part in this months ride includ­ing a num­ber of new faces. Flags dis­play­ing state­ments such as “One Less Car” and “I [bike] YRK” were attached to peo­ple’s bikes as they assem­bled at the Min­ster. The large amounts of flier­ing in the pre­vi­ous week seemed to have had a won­der­ful effect, though the weath­er could have been bet­ter. We met some inter­est­ing respons­es along the way. When we reached the sug­gest­ed end point of St Samp­sons Square, the ride end­ed up con­tin­u­ing to cir­cle the square for some time before final­ly stop­ping. It def­i­nite­ly looks like, hav­ing slipped to just 20 a month, the ride is head­ing back to high­er num­bers, and could make 100 by the end of the year.
At 6:05 the ride left, head­ing for Hol­gate Road and Pop­ple­ton Road. After cross­ing Clifton Bridge, the ride head­ed down Water End into Clifton, and after a messy turn, pro­ceed­ed along Kingsway North to the round­about, where the cus­tom­ary 2.5 rota­tions was achieved. The ride then fol­lowed Crighton Avenue to Bur­ton Stone Lane, where the away team coach for the evening’s City match was found com­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion. The ride turned towards town, in along Bootham, through Gilly­gate, through Lord May­ors walk and out along Monkgate, where the round­about pro­vid­ed yet more fun. Back in, through Bootham Bar, and round the Min­ster, then over to the Assem­bly Rooms and Dav­ey Gate. At this point, the ride approached the agreed fin­ish­ing point in St Samp­sons Square. Due to the cycle racks and phones, the ride went round the first side, where upon, instead of turn­ing into the square, it con­tin­ued onwards around and around. So imma­ture, but so much fun!

World Naked Bike Ride comes to Southampton! Other UK locations — York, Manchester, London, Brighton

In the fourth year of this imag­i­na­tive and spec­tac­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal protest, The World Naked Bike Ride is to see its first event in Southamp­ton on Fri­day 8 June.

World Naked Bikeride 'stop raping the planet'In the fourth year of this imag­i­na­tive and spec­tac­u­lar envi­ron­men­tal protest, The World Naked Bike Ride is to see its first event in Southamp­ton on Fri­day 8 June.

On the week­end of 8–10 June 2007, in over 40 cities world­wide, peo­ple will be rid­ing bikes naked to cel­e­brate cycling and the human body. In the UK, the World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR, www.worldnakedbikeride.org) is bar­ing all in Lon­don and Brighton on Sat­ur­day 9 June; and Southamp­ton, Man­ches­ter and York the day before, on Fri­day 8 June. The ride demon­strates the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of cyclists on the road and is a protest against oil depen­den­cy. Cyclists and skaters are encour­aged to “be there, as bare as you dare”.

Prob­a­bly the biggest world­wide naked protest in his­to­ry, WNBR dif­fers from oth­er mass cycle events because of its aston­ish­ing naked ele­ment. Accord­ing to the organ­is­ers, most bystanders expe­ri­ence a com­bined feel­ing of “amuse­ment, shock and dis­be­lief”.

Southampton’s ride will take place on Fri­day evening, to allow par­tic­i­pants to also ride in Brighton and Lon­don on the fol­low­ing day should they wish.

The WNBR dress code is “as bare as you dare” — par­tic­i­pants are encour­aged to wear “as lit­tle as they feel con­fi­dent with”. Join­ing the ful­ly nude con­tin­gent, some rid­ers in Lon­don and Brighton last year wore shorts, bras, swimwear, body paint, wigs, sun­glass­es etc. Most wear footwear and bring bags to car­ry clothes. Body paint­ing and adorn­ment, cus­tomised bikes and oth­er cre­ative expres­sion are all strong­ly encour­aged.

WNBR cel­e­brates the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of peo­ple’s bod­ies. Rid­ers of all ages, sizes, builds and appear­ances are there­fore wel­come to par­tic­i­pate with dig­ni­ty and respect. “Most rid­ers find the expe­ri­ence exhil­a­rat­ing, lib­er­at­ing, empow­er­ing. I’ve yet to find any­one who didn’t enjoy it” says Southamp­ton res­i­dent Nat Rav­elle, who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Lon­don and Brighton rides in pre­vi­ous years. “At the same time, it makes a great state­ment about the most vital issue of our times: curb­ing our exces­sive use of oil to ensure the future of the plan­et.”

WNBR Southamp­ton will take place on the evening of Fri­day 8 June. Rid­ers will meet at 6pm on Southamp­ton Com­mon – off High­field Road, oppo­site the junc­tion with Omder­man Road. The route will pro­ceed along Portswood Road and onwards through the city cen­tre, and return­ing up the mag­nif­i­cent Avenue to the start loca­tion.

More details of the Southamp­ton ride can be found at http://www.worldnakedbikeride.org/uk/southampton

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact Rob, southampton@bikenaked.org

Activist Mediation Network — open for business

The Activist Medi­a­tion Net­work is now up and run­ning. If you know of any activist group or activist indi­vid­ual who has a con­flict which is affect­ing their abil­i­ty to change our world for the bet­ter, then get in touch and we may be able to help sort it out.

The Activist Medi­a­tion Net­work is now up and run­ning. If you know of any activist group or activist indi­vid­ual who has a con­flict which is affect­ing their abil­i­ty to change our world for the bet­ter, then get in touch and we may be able to help sort it out.

activistmediation@aktivix.org
www.activistmediation.org.uk

We are con­tin­u­ing to run train­ing days for peo­ple want­i­ng to learn con­flict res­o­lu­tion and medi­a­tion skills.

Upcom­ing dates
Mon­day June 18th in Nor­wich. Day 1 — How we deal with con­flict, Con­flict res­o­lu­tion tools, Basic medi­a­tion prac­tice. Lim­it­ed places avail­able.
Book asap by email­ing us.

We are prob­a­bly going to do a 2 day course at the Earth First gath­er­ing in Nor­folk, 18–22nd July. This is espe­cial­ly for those going to Cli­mate Camp. It will go like this:

Fri­day July 20th — Day 1 — How we deal with con­flict, Con­flict res­o­lu­tion tools, Basic medi­a­tion prac­tice.

Sat­ur­day July 21st — Day 2 — Prac­tis­ing medi­a­tion skills. Only avail­able to peo­ple who have com­plet­ed a Day 1 with us.

These days will only run if there is enough demand. There will be lim­ites places and we may decide peo­ple need to com­mit in advance. Get in touch if you are inter­est­ed.

Apolo­gies that all these dates are in Nor­folk. If you think there is a demand for a train­ing day in your area, do get in touch.

Climate Camp To Target Heathrow (& new videos: Another End of the World is Possible)

Last sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

climate camp '07 sand posterLast sum­mer, over 600 peo­ple con­verged out­side Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion for 10 days of sus­tain­able liv­ing and col­lec­tive edu­ca­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a day of mass action against Drax. This year, the Camp for Cli­mate Action will pitch its tents near Heathrow air­port.

There will be a day of mass direct action aim­ing to dis­rupt the activ­i­ties of the air­port and the avi­a­tion indus­try, but in the inter­ests of pub­lic safe­ty there will be no attempt to block­ade run­ways.

Although the loca­tion is dif­fer­ent, the phi­los­o­phy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the bur­geon­ing net­work of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action on cli­mate change around the coun­try to come togeth­er for a week of low-impact liv­ing, edu­ca­tion, debate, net­work­ing, strate­gis­ing, cel­e­bra­tion, and direct action. The camp will fea­ture over 100 work­shops cov­er­ing top­ics such as cli­mate change impacts, car­bon off­set­ting, bio­fu­els, peak oil, per­ma­cul­ture, prac­ti­cal renew­ables, cam­paign strat­e­gy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run with­out lead­ers by every­one who comes along, it will be a work­ing eco­log­i­cal vil­lage using renew­able ener­gy, com­post­ing waste and sourc­ing food local­ly.

Avi­a­tion is the fastest grow­ing source of green­house gas emis­sions in the UK, and all our efforts to tack­le cli­mate change in oth­er sec­tors are undone by the mas­sive growth in air trav­el. Hold­ing the camp at Heathrow aims to high­light the luna­cy of the gov­ern­men­t’s air­port expan­sion plans, tar­get indus­try giants prof­i­teer­ing from the cli­mate cri­sis, and raise aware­ness of the need to fly less. The camp will also sup­port local res­i­dents in their long-term strug­gle against the build­ing of a third run­way and the destruc­tion of their com­mu­ni­ties.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last gen­er­a­tion that can do any­thing about cli­mate change. In 20 or 30 years time, should we not change our ways, we’ll be com­mit­ted to emis­sions increas­es that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and mil­lions of peo­ple die. If we don’t get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Camp for Cli­mate Action, 14th — 21st August 2007.
http://www.climatecamp.org.uk


To cel­e­brate the announce­ment of the loca­tion for this sum­mer’s CAMP
FOR CLIMATE ACTION — Heathrow Air­port, we present:

ANOTHER END OF THE WORLD IS POSSIBLE
7 Video por­traits of rad­i­cal cli­mate activists

“Apoc­a­lypse is always eas­i­er to imag­ine than the strange and cir­cuitous routes to what actu­al­ly comes next.”
Rebec­ca Sol­nit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold His­to­ry of Peo­ple Pow­er, Can­non­gate 2005.

Anoth­er End of the World is Pos­si­ble is a series of cap­ti­vat­ing video por­traits of peo­ple tak­ing rad­i­cal action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change. Rang­ing from an activist who occu­pied an airport’s
taxi way, to a teacher work­ing with kids on a deprived hous­ing estate, the por­traits demon­strate the won­der­ful diver­si­ty of those who will be tak­ing part in this years Camp for Cli­mate Action in the UK : 14th –21st August. see the all at www.climatecamp.org.uk

The 7 — 5 minute long por­traits are also post­ed on numer­ous video plat­forms includ­ing youtube,archive.org, dai­ly motion,v‑social — Quick­time copies can be down­loaded from http://www.guidedurenard.org/bm/library/7 . If you want a dvd copy con­tact john@labofii.net

Inter­vie­wees are: Cather­ine — Cli­mate Camp; Dun­can Law — Tran­si­tion Town Brix­ton; Pauline — Rite2No; John Stew­art- Air­port Watch, Julie — Grow­ing Com­mu­ni­ties; Leo — Plane Stu­pid; Kevin Smith — Car­bon Trade
Watch.

International Day of Direct Action Against Climate Change and the G8 — UK events: Haringey… (& Jeff Luers solidarity callout)

Fri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

G8 2007 climate day flierFri­day 8th June 2007
Direct Action for Cli­mate Jus­tice – Resis­tance is Self Defense!

We all know the ter­ri­fy­ing sta­tis­tics: a mil­lion species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Green­land and Antarc­ti­ca melt­ing, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address cli­mate change and only suc­ceed­ed in pro­vid­ing tril­lions in sub­si­dies to the very indus­tries that are destroy­ing our plan­et and our future. And while the G8 con­tin­ues to line their pock­ets, island states dis­ap­pear and hun­dreds of thou­sands die as a result of the freak weath­er con­di­tions caused by their irra­tional and uncon­trol­lable obses­sion with nev­er end­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

We have a ten-year win­dow to act. As the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac G8 lead­ers meet in Ger­many, masked behind a bar­ri­er of fences and sol­diers, intent on lead­ing us fur­ther towards cat­a­stroph­ic and irre­versible cli­mate chaos, we must shout, scream and roar ‘no more’. Now is the time to take direct action and shut them down, them and their cli­mate crim­i­nal indus­try friends!

The 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action Against Cli­mate Change and the G8 has been called by the Inter­na­tion­al Ris­ing Tide Net­work. This is a call for autonomous, decen­tral­ized actions appro­pri­ate for your town, city, or local area. Use this inter­na­tion­al day of action to sup­port local strug­gles against oil refiner­ies, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired pow­er plants. Dis­rupt the finan­cial back­ers of the fos­sil fuel indus­try. Organ­ise work­shops to spread sus­tain­able post-petro­le­um liv­ing skills. Find a weak point in the infra­struc­ture of resource exploita­tion and throw a lit­er­al or sym­bol­ic wrench in the works. It’s time to vis­it your local pol­luters and give ’em hell!

We already know of actions planned across the UK, North Amer­i­ca, Ger­many, Cana­da and Aus­tralia and that’s just the start! By 8th June actions will be planned around the world. Pass this call out on to all envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice, cli­mate action, rad­i­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and relat­ed move­ments in all the G8 coun­tries and the Glob­al South.

Ris­ing Tide will cre­ate a col­lec­tion of out­reach and agit-prop mate­ri­als (includ­ing this call out in five dif­fer­ent lan­guages) that can be used by groups around the world to organ­ise local­ly. These mate­ri­als will be down­load­able from www.risingtide.org.uk and http://risingtidenorthamerica.org.
Direct action and civ­il dis­obe­di­ence are the ratio­nal response in this time of cri­sis. Sup­port the 8th of June Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action against Cli­mate Change and the G8! Tell us about planned actions for cli­mate jus­tice being planned in your com­mu­ni­ty. Con­tact us — info@risingtide.org.uk and contact@risingtidenorthamerica.org

In June 2007 the G8 will under­stand the mean­ing of rebel­lion, revolt and rev­o­lu­tion. Their recipe for cat­a­stro­phe will be met with our world­wide resis­tance!

*G8 Day of Action Resources — Down­load­able G8 day of Action fly­ers and posters.
*Organ­ise a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride on the 8th of June — here are some leaflet ideas to help you.

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You could link your event in with Day of Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Jef­frey Free Luers, June 9, 2007:

June marks the sev­enth year that our friend and com­rade, Jef­frey “Free” Luers has been impris­oned and held cap­tive by the state. Sen­tenced to an out­ra­geous 22 years and 8 months for burn­ing three Sport Util­i­ty Vehi­cles (SUVs) at Roma­nia Chevro­let in Eugene, Jeff has con­tin­ued to be active in prison and fight back with his words and inspi­ra­tion. Although Jeff recent­ly won his appeal and is expect­ing a reduced sen­tence, this case is not over:

“I have spo­ken with my attor­ney and there are still many bat­tles ahead. Hard choic­es will have to be made. I am by no means close to walk­ing out of prison, just one step clos­er. This is a vic­to­ry, and while my own per­son­al strug­gle is mak­ing head­way oth­ers are just begin­ning.”

We encour­age peo­ple to orga­nize events for Jeff and oth­er polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, unit­ing strug­gles for human, earth, and ani­mal lib­er­a­tion. In Jef­f’s own words:

“This June, show your sol­i­dar­i­ty with me, and all those who have strug­gled, past and present, to make this world a bet­ter place. Strug­gle with us. Hold demon­stra­tions or gath­er­ings at fed­er­al build­ings or US embassies and demand change. It doesn’t mat­ter what cause or issue you fight for — we are all con­nect­ed. What does mat­ter is that we stand unit­ed and make our voic­es heard.”

More at http://freefreenow.org/june2007.html

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>ANNOUNCED UK EVENTS»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

HARINGEY CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE 2007

Can’t make it to Ger­many? Sick of the all those cars get­ting in your way on the auto­bahn! Don’t despair…join us on Sat­ur­day 9th of June for the 2007 Haringey Crit­i­cal Mass. A leisure­ly ride down the Green Lanes to reclaim our streets and send a breath of fresh air to those meet­ing in Ger­many.

Sat­ur­day 9th June • Assem­ble 12 Noon @ Manor House
• Fin­ish­ing at Chest­nuts Park for a pic­nic •

All Wel­come: espe­cial­ly cycles, scoot­ers, wheel­chairs, skate­boards, rollerblades, pedes­tri­ans…
Sup­port­ed by Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group www.haringey.org.uk

FOR CLEAN AIR AND A GREEN G8

WHY HAVE A CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE IN HARINGEY?
We are join­ing togeth­er on a Crit­i­cal Mass Bike Ride through Haringey as a colour­ful and fun way of high­light­ing envi­ron­men­tal and trans­port issues in the bor­ough. In the week when the G8 are gath­er­ing in Ger­many and the day
after the Inter­na­tion­al Day of Direct Action Against Cli­mate Change we should also be focus­ing on the glob­al cri­sis of cli­mate change and the envi­ron­men­tal impacts of oil depen­den­cy.

• It’s time we reclaimed our streets from the traf­fic and con­ges­tion that caus­es tox­ic lev­els of pol­lu­tion and injury and death.
• We want cycle lanes on Green Lanes and all over Haringey to make cycling a safer, more viable form of trans­port.
• We want mea­sures in place to reduce traf­fic speeds on all roads in Haringey, where dan­ger­ous dri­ving reg­u­lar­ly puts cyclists, chil­dren and pedes­tri­ans at risk.

WHAT’S THE G8 GOT TO DO WITH THIS?

• The G8 (Group of eight, most indus­tri­al­ized nations) Sum­mits are host­ed, on rota­tion, by the group’s mem­ber states. In 2007 the sum­mit is to be held on 6–8 June in Ros­tock, Ger­many.
• While it seems to be in the news a lot, Cli­mate Change is per­haps the issue that has received least atten­tion com­pared to the scale of destruc­tion that life on earth is fac­ing. It is the most seri­ous prob­lem fac­ing the world, more seri­ous than inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ism, accord­ing to the UK Government’s chief sci­en­tif­ic advi­sor.
• Cli­mate change needs to be high­er on the G8 agen­da. How­ev­er, we can­not leave it just to the sci­en­tists and politi­cians to dis­man­tle the car­bon machine.
• This bike ride aims to high­light this issue through action and the pro­mo­tion of cycling.

Let’s cel­e­brate the free­dom and plea­sure of trav­el­ling by bike – it’s much more fun and much health­i­er than being stuck in a car in a traf­fic jam. This will be a fun day out for every­one in a safe, sup­port­ive, pos­i­tive atmos­phere, show­ing how much safer and more pleas­ant our streets can be.

COME AND JOIN US!

If you feel it’s time to pro­mote cycling and encour­age a more sus­tain­able Haringey, or if you would like to get involved, vis­it the Haringey Sol­i­dar­i­ty Group web­site: www.haringey.org.uk