What to expect at the Summer Gathering

Nev­er been to an Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing before? Want to know a bit more about what to expect before you decide to come? You’re prob­a­bly not the only one!

Every year, dozens of peo­ple come for the first time, and usu­al­ly like it and have a love­ly time. Still its always daunt­ing to turn up to some­thing not know­ing what it’ll be like. We’ve com­piled these key points from our longer access state­ment (which will be released short­ly), to give you a rough idea of how dif­fer­ent things will work!

Oth­er use­ful arti­cles:
Save the date
Trav­el Guide

What is an EF! gathering?

Earth First! Gath­er­ings are a place for our move­ments and peo­ple to come togeth­er, meet one anoth­er, learn from one anoth­er, eat togeth­er, dance togeth­er, share ideas, knowl­edge and resources, and prac­tice build­ing the world we’d like to bring forth. They hap­pen twice a year, although the Win­ter Moot tends to be calmer and more inti­mate.

We oper­ate under an umbrel­la of shared val­ues and under­stand­ings relat­ed to green anar­chism. Large­ly, this means that we work to dis­rupt and over­turn hier­ar­chies of pow­er, envi­sion­ing and build­ing ways that we can exist togeth­er beyond hier­ar­chi­cal struc­tures, and that we are com­mit­ted to an eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion. We are anti-cap­i­tal­ist, against all forms of oppres­sion, and believe that the earth and all its beings exist in their own right, out­side of their val­ue to us as humans.

This year, the Ani­mal Lib­er­a­tion Gath­er­ing will be hap­pen­ing along­side Earth First!, bring­ing anti-speciesism direct­ly into con­ver­sa­tions at EF!. We will share the site and learn togeth­er how to bring into prac­tice a new world in which we are all free.

We are all Crew

Earth First! and its gath­er­ings belong to all those of us who feel aligned to its prin­ci­ples. No one is paid to be here; no one is ‘in charge’. All of the work which goes into the gath­er­ings are done by peo­ple just like you!

Dur­ing the gath­er­ing itself, there are many jobs to be done! Whether that’s help­ing out in the kitchen, clean­ing or tidy­ing the site or facil­i­ties, time­keep­ing, fix­ing some­thing or just gen­er­al­ly help­ing things run smooth­ly; every­one is need­ed to help the gath­er­ings come togeth­er. If you see a job that needs doing, do it! If you’re not sure how, grab a friend or chat to some­one who might know (such as some­one on the Wel­come Desk).

There will be a board with a list of tasks that need doing that you can sign up to at the wel­come desk too. We know some folks find it eas­i­er to socialise and set­tle in if theres a task to do!

How do sign-up? What do I do when I arrive?

There’s no need to pre-reg­is­ter or tell us that you’re com­ing — just show up!

Upon your arrival, please head to the wel­come desk where you’ll be greet­ed by the love­ly peo­ple who’ll give you key infor­ma­tion like where to camp, where the toi­lets are, what time you’ll be fed and also answer any ques­tions you might have. Impor­tant­ly, it’s the wel­come desk who count num­bers for food, so if you don’t go via the wel­come desk and let them know how long you’re stay­ing, you won’t be count­ed into num­bers for meals!

There will be print­ed pro­grammes con­tain­ing lots of the infor­ma­tion in this doc­u­ment as well as oth­er impor­tant things like the anti-oppres­sion state­ment and a blank timetable. Because the sched­ule of work­shops is sub­ject to change, these will be writ­ten up on a board, so you can fill in your own sched­ule in your pro­gramme.

Earth First! runs on dona­tions and we ask those who can to give towards run­ning costs. We’d love to be liv­ing in a post-mon­ey soci­ety, but at the moment we rely on these dona­tions to cov­er food at the gath­er­ing, and oth­er costs such as buy­ing and trans­port­ing kit. There is a sug­gest­ed dona­tion of £5/day for food, plus a slid­ing scale of £10–50 to go towards site costs. Hav­ing said that, no-one will be turned away for lack of funds.

What will be site be like?

The gath­er­ing will be held across two large adjoin­ing fields. Both fields are gen­tly sloped, with some flat­ter ground towards one end. One of the fields is quite uneven / bumpy. There will large mar­quees in the fields, which is where we’ll hold the work­shops. We will be camp­ing and you will need to bring a tent, sleep­ing bag, roll mat and what­ev­er else you may need to be com­fy.

The site’s water is spring-fed, and there are two plumbed-in sinks with taps on site. We will be bring some com­post toi­lets and an acces­si­ble toi­let of our own. All facil­i­ties are gen­der neu­tral and we are all respon­si­ble for keep­ing them clean and tidy.

What about meals?

There’ll be a camp kitchen which will make 3 veg­an meals a day, with at least lunch and din­ner being hot. There will be coor­di­na­tors look­ing after them, but any attendee can vol­un­teer to help with meal prep. You can bring your own snacks and meals if you want, but please no nuts, and all food eat­en in com­mu­nal areas should be veg­an. Make sure to wash your hands before eat­ing and tell the wel­come desk if you have any aller­gies so we can make sure you have some­thing you can eat

Because we won’t know how many peo­ple are attend­ing the gath­er­ing, meal­times might vary, but the aim is to serve break­fast between 8am and 9am (morn­ing meet­ing will be at 9am), lunch between 1pm and 2pm, and din­ner between 6pm and 8pm.

There will be a veg­an tuck shop run by Veg­gies and there will be teas and cof­fees avail­able through­out the gath­er­ing. There will be alco­holic drinks avail­able for cheap some evenings, and the mon­ey will go towards sup­port­ing the gath­er­ing. Please bring cash to pay for snacks and drinks!

But will it be a nice and caring space?

We hope so! Peo­ple hav­ing a good time is real­ly impor­tant, so we encour­age every­one to look out for each oth­er and be friend­ly & wel­com­ing, espe­cial­ly if some­one has­n’t come with peo­ple they know.

We will have a des­ig­nat­ed qui­et tent on site, which every­one is wel­come to use for qui­et reflec­tion, prayer or to take some time away from the parts of the gath­er­ing which can be loud or over­whelm­ing.

There will be a tent or mar­quee space held by the well­be­ing col­lec­tive. Any­one is wel­come to use this space if they are feel­ing over­whelmed, strug­gling, or just need a qui­et space to talk. The well­be­ing team can help you if you are feel­ing unwell, strug­gling to make friends, or need some­one to talk to. They can sup­port peo­ple to set bound­aries or com­mu­ni­cate needs to each oth­er. If you would like to con­tact the well­be­ing col­lec­tive before the gath­er­ing then please email us on earthfirstuk@riseup.net to be put in touch.

There will be a kid’s space at the gath­er­ing with activ­i­ties for kids includ­ing fire start­ing, wide games, singing, crafts, (though young peo­ple are wel­come at most oth­er work­shops!) The kids’ space is not a creche and we encour­age par­ents and care­givers to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their kids and check in with them reg­u­lar­ly. The kids space is facil­i­tat­ed by a mixed gen­der group and is run by teach­ers, par­ents and non-par­ents. If you want to hang out with kids at the gath­er­ing, please email us or go to the kids space to sign up on the rota.

Earth First! has an anti-oppres­sion state­ment which we ask every­one com­ing to the gath­er­ing to read and fol­low. You can read the anti-oppres­sion state­ment here: earthfirst.uk/solidarity-statement/

Can I bring my phone?

There is no WiFi at the gath­er­ing, and we encour­age every­one to leave their phone switched off and in their tent dur­ing work­shops. We also ask peo­ple not to take pho­tos or film. This is for pri­va­cy & secu­ri­ty rea­sons, as well as to enable us to con­nect more direct­ly with oth­ers at the gath­er­ing. We won’t have mains pow­er and there­fore will not be able to offer charg­ing facil­i­ties except for nec­es­sary devices (e.g. assis­tive tech­nol­o­gy, elec­tric wheel­chairs).

Okay, so what should I bring?
  • Tent, sleep­ing bag, roll mat
  • A cup
  • Toi­letries and med­ica­tion
  • Eye mask and earplugs
  • Spare jumpers and blan­kets for cool­er evenings
  • Spare clothes for how­ev­er long you’re stay­ing
  • Water­proofs
  • Sun cream and insect repel­lant (e.g. cin­tronel­la essen­tial oils)
  • Cash for snacks, dona­tions, teas/coffees, food, booze, merch & zines
  • Charged bat­tery pack
  • Note­book & pen for work­shop notes
  • Fire­wood
  • Crafts
  • Musi­cal instru­ments
  • Water bot­tle

This list is incom­plete, everyone’s needs and car­ry­ing capac­i­ty are dif­fer­ent, hope­ful­ly it’s help­ful…

See you soon!! <3

Travel Planning Guide for Summer Gathering 2025

How to get to the Earth First! Summer Gathering 2025

Site loca­tion

The gath­er­ing is being host­ed by the Brithdir Mawr Hous­ing Co-op in Pem­brokeshire, Cym­ru. The what3words for the entrance to the camp is unleashed.pancakes.bless.

The clos­est train sta­tion to the site is Fish­guard & Good­wick in Pem­brokeshire, Wales. From the sta­tion, the site is a 15 minute bus ride (T5 or 404) to New­port, Pem­brokeshire, which will cost around £4.40 for a sin­gle. There’s then a 40 minute 1.8miles/300ft ascent walk up a qui­et road to the site. We’ll organ­ise as many shut­tle runs for peo­ple and/or lug­gage as pos­si­ble.

If you have access needs and require a guar­an­teed shut­tle run, we will have a site phone num­ber pub­li­cised clos­er to the time which you can get in touch with to make arrange­ments.

Get­ting to Fish­guard
To get to Fish­guard & Good­wick sta­tion, there are direct trains from Man­ches­ter, Cardiff & Swansea. Try a web­site like book.splitticketing.com to get cheap­er advance tick­ets.

If you can’t afford to make the whole jour­ney by train, you could get a direct coach from sev­er­al major cities like Birm­ing­ham, Bris­tol or Lon­don, to Cardiff or Swansea,  from where you can then get a train to Fish­guard.

Off-peak return trains (price will stay the same):
Cardiff to Fish­guard: £42.80 (£28.50 with a rail­card).
Swansea to Fish­guard: £30.10 (£20.00 with rail­card).

Coach options (prices are one-way and will rise clos­er to time):
Lon­don to Swansea: Nation­al Express 4h 50m, £16.90.
Lon­don to Cardiff: Flixbus 3hr 50m, £8.49; Nation­al Express 3h 40m, £15.90.
Birm­ing­ham to Cardiff: Flixbus 4hr 05m, £8.99; Nation­al Express: 2h 40m, £11.00.

This is an non-exhaus­tive list, so be sure to look out for oth­er options. One sug­ges­tion for a longer, but more scenic route is to take the train from Birmingham/Shrewsbury to Aberys­t­wyth, then the T5 bus along the coast to New­port, Pem­brokeshire.

When to arrive and leave
Wednes­day 6th August is the day for peo­ple to trav­el to the site and help with set­ting up, ready for the pro­gramme to start at 9am on Thurs­day 7th. The last pro­grammed day is Sun­day 10th, but we ask peo­ple trav­el back on Mon­day 11th, as this is our pack­down day and we are all crew, so help­ing with logis­tics is both appre­ci­at­ed and encour­aged.

Trav­el & lift­shar­ing chat
There is an Earth First! trav­el plan­ning chat on sig­nal for peo­ple to ask ques­tions, and ask for & offer lifts. Please con­tact us on insta­gram or by email to get the invite link

Last updat­ed 28th July — advance coach prices quot­ed will rise over time, so be sure to book ahead of time.

Earth First! Summer Gathering 2025

Save the date: 2025 Earth First! Summer Gathering!

The 2025 Earth First! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing will be from 6th — 11th August in Pem­brokeshire, Wales! It is a gath­er­ing of the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment, a chance to catch up with old friends, forge new con­nec­tions and get stuck in with mak­ing eco­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion a real­i­ty. We’ll post more infor­ma­tion soon, but you can expect five days of engag­ing work­shops, impor­tant dis­cus­sions, great music, deli­cious food and liv­ing, breath­ing green anar­chism.

The near­est train sta­tion is Fish­guard & Good­wick, Pem­brokeshire. The exact loca­tion will be announced clos­er to the time (it’s a bus ride and then a 40 min walk, or a car shut­tle from Fish­guard). More detailed trav­el infor­ma­tion is avail­able here

A selection of this year’s workshops

Biocentrism 101

Bio­cen­trism sounds daunt­ing, but it needn’t be, and it’s an impor­tant idea for peo­ple involved in Earth­First!. In this work­shop we will intro­duce the idea and cre­ate some space to explore it. We’ll talk about how it dif­fers from anthro­pocen­trism (putting humans first), how it relates to oth­er ideas such as deep ecol­o­gy and eco-fem­i­nism, and how it chal­lenges ‘envi­ron­men­tal­ism’ and anar­chism. We then dis­cuss how it is rel­e­vant to our organ­is­ing and what it means to put it into prac­tice. We’ll make it appro­pri­ate all knowl­edge lev­els, so don’t wor­ry if you feel like your start­ing from scratch.

Biocentrism 202

Bio­cen­trism has all man­ner of inter­est­ing impli­ca­tions and impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tions. What does cen­tring life require of our polit­i­cal strat­e­gy? How does should it affect the way we com­mu­ni­cate and talk about nature? How can we learn from oth­er cul­tures past and present that don’t con­sid­er humans supe­ri­or to oth­er life forms? In this work­shop we will dis­cuss things in a bit more detail. Every­one is wel­come, but prob­a­bly best if you’ve either been to Bio­cen­trism 101 or are already famil­iar with the area. It will be a fair­ly open dis­cus­sion with oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore issues that come up in more depth.

Rebel Alliances

We all want to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those on the receiv­ing end of oppres­sion. But what does it mean to be an ‘ally’? Some­times ally­ship is pre­sent­ed as sim­ply fol­low­ing the lead of those with lived expe­ri­ence of oppres­sion, but this can result in shal­low, uncrit­i­cal rela­tion­ships and treat­ing iden­ti­ties as homo­ge­neous. Using some pieces of text tak­en from Cindy Milstein’s ‘Tak­ing Sides’ we will dis­cuss ally­ship and what it means in our move­ments.

Cancel Culture 202

Can­cel cul­ture is rife in our move­ment spaces. We are fiery, with strong opin­ions and strong moral beliefs; we are rely­ing on one anoth­er, per­haps for sur­vival; we are hurt­ing and we are com­plex, and we are all at risk of being can­celled. What’s more, prob­a­bly all of us have done the can­celling.

In this work­shop we will go into a bit more depth on how to chal­lenge can­cel cul­ture while uphold­ing trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice, abo­li­tion­ism and rad­i­cal pol­i­tics. Using some of Adri­enne Maree Brown’s essay ‘unspeak­able thoughts’ as prompts, we will explore some of the com­plex­i­ties and nuances. It will include dis­cus­sion on when call outs are use­ful and nec­es­sary and when they can be puni­tive and harm­ful.

Walkie Talkies, over!

Walkie-talkies are a great com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool, whether you’re on an action or help­ing out at a gath­er­ing like Earth First! Like with our phones, theres always the chance some­one might be eaves­drop­ping – this work­shop will cov­er how to build a code for com­mu­ni­cat­ing using W‑Ts secure­ly, and dis­cuss what good W‑T eti­quette sounds like.

266la; direct action in the front line of animal oppression

Since 2016, our col­lec­tive and sanc­tu­ary “269 Libéra­tion Ani­male” has been devel­op­ing offen­sive activism based on direct action. We tar­get the large cap­i­tal­ist and speciesist indus­tries all over Europe with numer­ous activists – up to 150 per action. We there­by block­ade slaugh­ter­hous­es and free ani­mal peo­ple from speciesist dom­i­na­tion. Once freed, they get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to live with dig­ni­ty in ter­ri­to­ries of resis­tance, where activists do every­thing pos­si­ble to sup­port them in find­ing their auton­o­my. We defend direct action as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary path for the anti­speciesist strug­gle in regard to the finan­cial loss­es it can cause to indus­tries and the empow­er­ment of activists it entails.

Reclaiming Play

Do we give our­selves the time to look after our inner parts, when doing out­er work for social change? Our inner child can some­times be hid­den when we are work­ing to chal­lenge social injus­tices and this work­shop is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to do some inner activism! Give your inner child and oth­er parts of your­self the spa­cious­ness to return to the sur­face! Take a break from being in your head and get back into your body! To do this, we will be using tech­niques from the world of impro­vi­sa­tion and wis­dom from the world of clown­ing. Allow­ing our­selves to build a more play­ful per­spec­tive on relat­ing to one-anoth­er and the world at large.

Is there such thing as an ethical egg?

Descrip­tion: It is often argued that eat­ing eggs can be eth­i­cal, moral­ly accept­able and that hens do not suf­fer in high­er wel­fare sys­tems. Veg­e­tar­i­ans will often tell you that no one has to be killed for you to eat eggs. But what is real­ly going on inside egg farms? And are back­yard eggs any bet­ter? Come and find out more about egg farm­ing, the life cycle of hens and the indi­vid­u­als impact­ed by our every day choic­es.

How to design, cut and paint stencils

Sten­cil graf­fi­ti has been used by activists and resis­tance move­ments for decades dat­ing back to WWII, From The White Rose paint­ing anti-nazi slo­gans to Argen­tin­ian stu­dents paint­ing sten­cils against the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship dur­ing the late 1970s and ear­ly 1980s. We will dis­cuss the advan­tages of typo­graph­ic sten­cils as a direct action tool and how to design, cut and paint them.

Security as Solidarity

A lot of cam­paign­ers feel dis­em­pow­ered when faced with intru­sive police sur­veil­lance. The way many talk about secu­ri­ty is often ‘all or noth­ing’: ignor­ing the risks or cre­at­ing a cli­mate of sus­pi­cion and pres­sure that makes it dif­fi­cult to build trust and work togeth­er. Net­pol argues we need to talk open­ly about how best to resist sur­veil­lance, share knowl­edge about reduc­ing the risks of harm to mem­bers of our groups and edu­cate new cam­paign­ers so they do not feel dis­em­pow­ered. Pro­tect­ing each oth­er is an act of sol­i­dar­i­ty – so let’s talk about how we pro­tect each oth­er from police intel­li­gence-gath­er­ing.

Sustainable activism

How can we make our activism more effec­tive and sus­tain­able? This work­shop will give you prac­ti­cal tools to help pre­vent ‘activist burnouts’, to increase your resilience when cop­ing with high stress events, such as police repres­sion, and to inte­grate mutu­al care prac­tices in your com­mu­ni­ties.

Radicalising Right to Roam

The Right to Roam move­ment has grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly in recent years and giv­en many a taste of dis­obe­di­ence and col­lec­tive expe­ri­ences of nat­ur­al sur­round­ings, but it has been crit­i­cised for being too con­ser­v­a­tive. Pre­sent­ed by some who have organ­ised in Right to Roam, the work­shop will col­lec­tive­ly explore some ques­tions around the cam­paign: Is it worth engag­ing with? If so, how can it be trans­formed into some­thing that rad­i­calis­es par­tic­i­pants or achieves more rad­i­cal out­comes? Or would it be bet­ter to focus efforts on oth­er land jus­tice projects and activ­i­ties? Join us in dis­cussing the Right to Roam and build­ing the rad­i­cal move­ment for land jus­tice on these isles and beyond.

In Defense of Violence?

Is smash­ing up a frack­ing rig or a coal mine vio­lence?
How about shout­ing abuse at an aggres­sive cop or self defence?
Does it even mat­ter?
Should we be absolute­ly non-vio­lent or is vio­lence some­times moral­ly jus­ti­fi­able?
Can vio­lence ever be tac­ti­cal­ly use­ful?
What are some exam­ples of rad­i­cal polit­i­cal vio­lence?
Does neg­a­tive media and pub­lic per­cep­tion mean that any action per­ceived as vio­lent should be avoid­ed?

This work­shop is a chance to dis­cuss these ques­tions and more, as well as col­lec­tive­ly ques­tion­ing some of the assump­tions that under­pin a lot of recent envi­ron­men­tal action move­ments.
This isn’t a lec­ture but a group dis­cus­sion.
If you have strong views on these sub­jects, please be aware you may find parts of the work­shop chal­leng­ing, and remain respect­ful of oth­er views.

Archiving our movements

Eco anar­chist direct action move­ments have a vibrant his­to­ry: we can learn a lot from our col­lec­tive past, and find ele­ments of it to
crit­i­cise and cel­e­brate. How­ev­er, our move­ments are often incon­sis­tent­ly record­ed – part­ly due to a need for secu­ri­ty, and
because activist spaces are often pre­car­i­ous and mov­ing on to the next thing feels more urgent than doc­u­ment­ing what we have just done. There are a num­ber of phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal spaces in which activist archives exist, in vary­ing states of sta­bil­i­ty and order­li­ness. This inter­ac­tive work­shop will iden­ti­fy exist­ing archives and work out what we can do to bet­ter retain, share and learn from these his­to­ries and to safe­ly doc­u­ment cur­rent move­ments.

Bike stuff

Our car-cen­tric soci­ety is a dan­ger­ous and scary place to be a cyclist. This work­shop will cov­er some of the ways we can get around on two wheels more safe­ly. We we go over some basic bike safe­ty, M‑checks and some sim­ple repairs. Peo­ple are invit­ed to bring their bikes and any bike tools.

Veteran & Ancient Trees walk

Intro­duc­tion to Vet­er­an & Ancient trees. What’s the dif­fer­ence between them & jar­gon bust­ing. Dis­cus­sion on their cul­tur­al impor­tance & their val­ue to wildlife.

The ‘Game’ Industry

Every year, mil­lions of pheas­ants, par­tridges and oth­er “game” birds are farmed and released into the wild pure­ly to be shot for fun.
We will dis­cuss the life and death of “game birds”, the impact of these shoots on the ecosys­tem, and what direct action can be tak­en against them.

Introduction to hunt sabotage

Hunt­ing with hounds was made ille­gal 20 years ago, yet hunts in Eng­land and Wales still rou­tine­ly chase and kill wildlife. We will dis­cuss what hap­pens dur­ing a hunt and the direct action tech­niques used by hunt sabo­teurs to inter­vene and stop them killing.

Post Trap Animal Care

Take a dive in to post trap ani­mal care with an expe­ri­enced wildlife rehab­ber and long term activist. Learn how to do basic triage and know when it’s safe to do an on site release Vs need­ing long term reha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Technology security.

The tech world is dom­i­nat­ed by cap­i­tal­ist enter­pris­es that buy and sell you like you’re cur­ren­cy. Law enforce­ment huge­ly ben­e­fits from the con­stant array of track­ing and spy­ing your tech devices do in the name of com­fort. But tech has lots of extreme­ly use­ful tools to organ­ise and fight back! Let’s talk secur­ing your tech, tools to use and spe­cial­ly, behav­iour changes you need to take to care for your­self and peo­ple around you. Tech secu­ri­ty is com­mu­ni­ty self defence! (All lev­els wel­come, basic top­ics dis­cussed)

Elemental Sounds – singing circle in conversation with nature

Join vocal­ist and facil­i­ta­tor mar­go­mool in explor­ing tex­tures of the nat­ur­al world through the voice. Using embod­ied singing prac­tices, we will vocal­ly play with our envi­ron­ment and explore the realms of col­lec­tive lis­ten­ing. There will be games, impro­vis­ing and sim­ple folk songs that will ignite inter­nal and exter­nal con­nec­tion. No pre­vi­ous singing expe­ri­ence is required. Just an open­ness to try­ing some­thing new and lis­ten­ing.

Practical first aid for protests and direct action

Going through the basics of first aid with a focus on direct action. Come and learn how to pro­tect and care for your com­rades against the vio­lent forces of fas­cists and the state; includ­ing splint­ing bro­ken bones, treat­ing pep­per spray and inter­act­ing with the emer­gency ser­vices. No pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence required.

Know Your Rights

GBC’s ‘Know Your Rights’ work­shop aims to give you the knowl­edge to com­bat repres­sive police tac­tics com­mon­ly used against pro­test­ers. Police offi­cers often rely on the lack of legal under­stand­ing of those par­tic­i­pat­ing in protest. This inter­ac­tive ses­sion will give you the tools to take action more con­fi­dent­ly. We will cov­er our Key Mes­sages, police tac­tics and the role of pri­vate secu­ri­ty, stop and search, what hap­pens when you’re arrest­ed, and laws com­mon­ly used against pro­test­ers. There is also space to ask ques­tions. Please note that this work­shop is only rel­e­vant to Eng­land & Wales as the law is dif­fer­ent else­where.

Strengthening practical solidarity and resistance to police repression within our movements

This skill­share ses­sion will dis­cuss how we pre­pare for and organ­ise in the face of increas­ing police repres­sion and vio­lence. It will include how we bet­ter sup­port com­rades through arrest, court process­es and prison, and how we build the capac­i­ty with­in our groups and move­ments to cen­tre this work. We will also dis­cuss dif­fer­ent strate­gic approach­es to legal issues and there will be space to bring ques­tions and dis­cus­sion on the chal­lenges you are fac­ing with­in your organ­is­ing relat­ed to state repres­sion and polic­ing

Taking back birth

Think­ing about birthing one day, or sup­port­ing some­one doing so? The
anar­chist slo­gan “every­thing you have been told is wrong” may well
apply! We’ll cov­er some basic but vital infor­ma­tion and answer
ques­tions. If you are a birth work­er or had a baby your­self your input
is wel­comed. If you would like to talk through a chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ence,
please ask for some one-to-one time.

Leviathan’s Body: Recovering Fredy Perlman’s Anarchist Social Theory

Fredy Perlman’s anar­chist max­i­mal­ism had a for­ma­tive influ­ence on the movement’s post-1960s revival, quite apart from his lat­er and bet­ter-known cri­tiques of domes­ti­ca­tion. Perlman’s long-neglect­ed books, pam­phlets and par­o­dies from 1968–1972 show him cham­pi­oning an anti-van­guardist ethos of direct action and prac­ti­cal de-alien­ation, while work­ing towards an orig­i­nal and dis­tinct­ly anar­chist social the­o­ry of dom­i­na­tion. This arti­cle traces the influ­ences of Isaak Rubin, C. Wright Mills, and pos­si­bly Hen­ri Lefeb­vre and Peter Kropotkin, on Perlman’s thought. Perlman’s orig­i­nal­i­ty was to gen­er­alise a het­ero­dox Marx­i­an cri­tique of social repro­duc­tion, includ­ing but exceed­ing pro­duc­tive rela­tions. Thus, he explic­it­ly sets the state in ana­lyt­i­cal par­i­ty with cap­i­tal, the­o­ris­ing author­i­ty as a fetish dis­tinct from exchange val­ue. Implic­it­ly, he points to oth­er con­tain­ers for alien­at­ed pow­ers, includ­ing the fam­i­ly, reli­gion and schol­ar­ship. Perlman’s account of self- and com­mu­ni­ty pow­ers remains incom­plete, how­ev­er, elid­ing con­sti­tu­tive vio­lence and invit­ing engage­ment with cur­rent inter­sec­tion­al approach­es.

Border abolition

This work­shop will cov­er – A brief his­to­ry of bor­ders – why where they put in place and by who? Mov­ing Bor­ders – updates on the increas­ing
exter­nal­i­sa­tion of UK and EUs bor­ders, devel­op­ments in the Sahel, Libya, Tunisa and Calais. Enact­ing Bor­ders with­in com­mu­ni­ties – how bor­der­ing
is per­formed in com­mu­ni­ties by state actors and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. Then we col­lec­tive explore – what is a world with­out bor­ders? Come and
imag­ine a world in which the bor­ders fall!

La Via Campesina – how can we respond to climate catastrophes?

We know our gov­ern­ments and said char­i­ties can’t save us, and glob­al­ly, we need to be to be able to respond to ever more fre­quent cli­mate cat­a­stro­phes. La Via Campesina are build­ing struc­tures to respond to crises and pro­vide prac­ti­cal mutu­al aid and inter­na­tion­al­ist sol­i­dar­i­ty, as well as devel­op­ing land & farm­ing prac­tices that are able to adapt to dras­ti­cal­ly chang­ing cli­mates

The Struggle for Life in Kurdistan and Beyond

Amidst increased attacks on the peo­ple, ecol­o­gy and all means of life across Kur­dis­tan, 2024 has seen huge devel­op­ments in the eco­log­i­cal strug­gle, organ­i­sa­tion and per­spec­tive of the Kur­dis­tan Free­dom Move­ment. This work­shop gives an update on the eco­log­i­cal sit­u­a­tion, the war in the region, and new organ­i­sa­tion­al devel­op­ments in Kur­dis­tan and Europe. Come and dis­cuss ways we can bet­ter sup­port.

Solidarity Economy as Revolutionary Strategy

How can we build col­lec­tive pow­er to sur­vive and over­come cap­i­tal­ism? From mutu­al aid and coop­er­a­tion to inter­na­tion­al­ist sol­i­dar­i­ty; build­ing a new world in the shell of the old while defend­ing our rights and sur­viv­ing togeth­er. Come and learn more about sol­i­dar­i­ty econ­o­my as rev­o­lu­tion­ary strat­e­gy.

Introduction to Transformative Justice

Intro­duc­tion to and dis­cus­sion about Trans­for­ma­tive Jus­tice (TJ) and how we can devel­op prac­tices and approach­es with­in that frame­work.
Devel­oped main­ly by Black and Indige­nous activists, espe­cial­ly women, trans and queer folks in Tur­tle Island (North Amer­i­ca), TJ offers an abo­li­tion­ist frame­work for com­mu­ni­ty approach­es to jus­tice that do not rely on state sys­tems such as pris­ons and police. Many dif­fer­ent tools can be used with­in this frame­work, TJ is about the approach and the val­ues that under­pin it, based on a belief that trans­for­ma­tion is pos­si­ble and an under­stand­ing that big­ger sys­tems of oppres­sion are at the root of all harms caused.

Wildflower Walk

A walk round the local area, see­ing how many flow­ers and trees we can iden­ti­fy between us. We are not experts, and you may know more than us! This is a chance for a walk in nature and to share our knowl­edge.
Note- weath­er depen­dent, we won’t want to be walk­ing round in pour­ing rain!

Danga

Dan­ga is a com­bi­na­tion of dance and yoga. A great way to start your morn­ing with move­ment and a chance to release your inner extro­vert

UK coal – the End Game

We’re so close to win­ning, but we’re not quite there, and if we take our eyes off the game – progress can rapid­ly unrav­el, such as when the UK Gov­ern­ment wast­ed £420m tax-cash on coal imports and prop­ping up coal pow­er sta­tions through the 2022–23 win­ter. Get involved – let’s final­ly end coal, the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel, togeth­er.

Politi­cians are lin­ing up to pinky-promise no more coal mine licences as coal-fired pow­er gen­er­a­tion will pass into the his­to­ry books this sum­mer, and coal-fired steel­works join those his­to­ry books over the next year or two. But in South Wales there is still an oper­at­ing deep coal mine and an open­cast coal mine striv­ing for an exten­sion. In Eng­land, at the site of last year’s Earth First! Gath­er­ing, the West Cum­bria coal mine pro­pos­al con­tin­ues to loom, threat­en­ing coal min­ing until 2049. Now, a new fron­tier of coal min­ing yawns open, with a com­pa­ny apply­ing to mine old dumps (coal tips) of coal aban­doned by his­tor­i­cal coal min­ing, in the name of “restor­ing” those coal tips. This amounts to a pro­pos­al to solve the issues left by min­ing by more min­ing – and with over 300 coal tips in Wales alone, this could be a dan­ger­ous new scram­ble for coal.

Transformative Justice in our Movements

Dis­cus­sion around the prac­tice of trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice in our move­ments – where are we going wrong and how can we be more effec­tive and car­ing in deal­ing with harm. May involve some dif­fi­cult involve con­ver­sa­tions about dif­fi­cult or trig­ger­ing sub­jects. Expect good chat and role play!’

How to rescue and care for a fox hound.

Alfred is a Fox­hound who came from the clasp of the hunt­ing fra­ter­ni­ty. A fierce run­ner who’s pedi­gree is of roy­al blood. A tale of how he and oth­er ani­mals like him have been res­cued from a life of tor­ment and exploita­tion. Used against our native wild by the most depraved of orders. Sto­ries of a life under­cov­er as an activist and com­rade, Alfred’s keep­er who dou­bles as a live ani­mal cap­ture expert will be offer­ing advice. In hope that future oppor­tu­ni­ties can be giv­en to such a friend­ly and mis­un­der­stood breed. “If not you, who?”

Youth Liberation

Youth, and espe­cial­ly chil­dren, face oppres­sion in our soci­ety and even in many of our sup­pos­ed­ly rad­i­cal spaces that is fre­quent­ly ignored. In this work­shop, we con­sid­er the basics of youth lib­er­a­tion – the nature of the oppres­sion of youth in our cap­i­tal­ist and impe­ri­al­ist soci­ety and the fight to end it.

Fighting the Home Office through Anti Raids

Anti Raids Brighton will be guid­ing you through the best ways to spot immi­gra­tion raids, how to stop them, and how to set up your own Anti Raids group in your local area. With Labour’s new admin­is­tra­tion plan­ning on being harsh­er on immi­gra­tion than ever before, Anti Raids strate­gies are more nec­es­sary than ever.

Folk Dancing

Come and learn some folk danc­ing from these isles, includ­ing mol­ly and mor­ris dances! sticks will be pro­vid­ed!!

Sonic Meditation

Come lis­ten and exper­i­ment with your sens­es using a series of guid­ed prompts to encour­age lis­ten­ing deeply to the envi­ron­ment – with group noise mak­ing and move­ment we will play­ful­ly engage with our envi­ron­ment.

Using and repairing hand tools

Learn or improve your skills with using, sharp­en­ing and repair­ing axes, bill­hooks, bow­saws, scythes and more. Suit­able for com­plete begin­ners, but experts want­i­ng to share their skills are wel­come too.

Action Massage

8 hours in a lock-on, clam­ber­ing fences, lug­ging tripods… this work­shop shows some quick tech­niques to release ten­sion and key spots to help aches and pains that can be done almost any­where – let’s take care of one anoth­er. No oils, no strip­ping, & def­i­nite­ly no Enya. Find your mas­sage part­ner before the work­shop and arrive with them (for ease of con­sen­su­al con­tact). Touch will include the back, shoul­ders, neck, head, face, arms. Wash hands just before work­shop! Num­bers lim­it­ed to first 16.

Fighting Basics

Learn some sim­ple ground rules of keep­ing your­self safer in a phys­i­cal con­fronta­tion, and the weak points on an oppo­nent to tar­get. Become slip­pery! This is a no bull­shit, non-macho, bound­ary-respect­ing space, suit­able for total new­bies. Tap out at any time dur­ing the work­shop. Num­bers lim­it­ed to first 14.

Climate activism and resistance in Wales then and now

This aware­ness-rais­ing ses­sion explores cli­mate activism and resis­tance in Wales. It pro­vides an overview of fos­sil cap­i­tal in Wales past and present and goes on to high­light resis­tance in Wales then and now. Final­ly, the ses­sion explores the con­cept and ide­olo­gies of cli­mate camps and intro­duces the ‘Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru’ move­ment and this year’s camp that is being held 30th August – 2nd Sep­tem­ber in Swansea. In the ses­sion, we will also be seek­ing input from com­rades into the strengths and weak­ness­es of the cli­mate camp mod­el and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn from our col­lec­tive expe­ri­ences.

Passport-free solidarity – How can ‘non-citizens’ contribute to the rising tide of actions in the UK?

This ses­sion is not a one-way talk, but a space to col­lec­tive­ly dis­cuss the strange hard­ships that polit­i­cal­ly-mind­ed migrants encounter when try­ing to be part of actions, whether it’s some­thing like join­ing protest march­es or tak­ing part in high­er-risk direct actions. Thanks in equal part to state ter­ror and a cru­el pro­pa­gan­da machine, migrants tend to con­sid­er the risks to their visa sta­tus before join­ing even rel­a­tive­ly ‘harm­less’ actions. This has impli­ca­tions beyond activist strat­e­gy, as a gen­er­al posi­tion of non-par­tic­i­pa­tion — out of a real fear of arrests, refusals of future visas, or worse — can have a chill­ing effect on the polit­i­cal con­scious­ness of migrants. The goal of this facil­i­tat­ed ses­sion is to con­sid­er such aspects, hear from migrant voic­es, and col­lec­tive­ly think of ways in which we could invite and wel­come migrants into rad­i­cal polit­i­cal actions.

The cultural programming of (post-)modern society and its fuckedupness

“The true focus of rev­o­lu­tion­ary change is nev­er mere­ly the oppres­sive sit­u­a­tions which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppres­sor which is plant­ed deep with­in each of us….” Audrey Lorde
This work­shop explores the man­ner in which the dom­i­nant cul­ture fails to meet our fun­da­men­tal human needs and in so doing plants that piece of the oppres­sor with­in each of us, such that we are cul­tur­al­ly pro­grammed to repli­cate it. The work­ing hypoth­e­sis being that mul­ti­ple miss­ing cul­tur­al ele­ments need to be iden­ti­fied and insti­gat­ed before we can cre­ate a benign human pres­ence on this plan­et.

Action climbing for beginners

Come along and learn about climb­ing as a direct action tac­tic. From tree hous­es to oil rigs, this is a valu­able skill in a green anarchist’s tool chest. Have a go at climb­ing a rigged rope and prac­tise the knots need­ed for rig­ging and climb­ing. Absolute begin­ners wel­come, please tie long hair back and wear stur­dy shoes. Climb­ing is an inher­ent­ly haz­ardous activ­i­ty; 16s and over only.

Militarism, policing, and ecocide in Gaza

What is the rela­tion­ship between polic­ing, mil­i­tarism, and eco­cide? Why does eco-lib­er­a­tion require abo­li­tion? How is eco­cide used as a weapon of war, in Gaza and across the world? Work­shop fol­lowed by dis­cus­sion.

Why I cut down trees; an introduction to woodland management & conservation

Forestry prac­tices are often mis­un­der­stood by those who do not work with­in wood­lands, with their being no cul­ture of forestry in the main­stream and the aver­age per­son not hav­ing access to forests. Most of what is seen in the media, is polar­is­ing inci­dents of bad prac­tice, or scrupu­lous felling in aid of megapro­jects. Join two foresters for an insight­ful & nuanced dis­cus­sion on the var­ied & often chal­leng­ing land­scape of wood­land man­age­ment & con­ser­va­tion in the UK.

Action planning: two part session

What to con­sid­er when plan­ning an effec­tive action: strat­e­gy, tac­tics, logis­tics, dynam­ics…

Safer spaces policies: great to have, hard to use

Deal­ing with oppres­sion or harm in groups can be hard, even if you have agreed val­ues or sys­tems in place. This ses­sion will explore chal­lenges, tools and approach­es to hav­ing con­ver­sa­tions that are polit­i­cal­ly and rela­tion­al­ly engaged.

Not seen, not heard: moving at night without being detected or identified

A struc­tured series of prac­tices cul­mi­nat­ing in a cap­ture the flag game to hone your action skills. If you have acces­si­bil­i­ty ques­tions, please ask some­one at the wel­come tent to put you in touch with us for a chat before­hand.

Fences: over, under, through

A prac­ti­cal ses­sion suit­able for begin­ners. If you have acces­si­bil­i­ty ques­tions, please ask some­one at the wel­come tent to put you in touch with us for a chat before­hand.

Quick decisions on actions

How to make group deci­sions when the sit­u­a­tion keeps chang­ing and the stakes are high.

Worker liaison, de-escalation and assertiveness

Skills for engag­ing with work­ers when our action has obstruct­ed their work: how to stay safe, stay put and stay true to our val­ues.

How do we do it?

We want to build the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment, we want to trans­form soci­ety and our rela­tion­ship with nature, but how do we do it? To get peo­ple think­ing and talk­ing we will have some short pre­sen­ta­tions giv­ing dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives with a chance to delve into each. We’re not look­ing try­ing to come to a shared posi­tion or pro­mote a par­tic­u­lar strat­e­gy, but we do want to help peo­ple think seri­ous­ly about rad­i­cal social change and how to make it hap­pen. There will also be a chance to meet peo­ple in your local area so con­ver­sa­tions and plans can con­tin­ue.

Hegemonic Narratives

How do the many rule the few? Not by force alone (or even the threat of it). We’ll inves­ti­gate the nar­ra­tives cre­at­ed and spread by the hege­mon­ic elite in order to con­trol pop­u­la­tions, and see how this links to Gramsci’s con­cepts of active and pas­sive con­sent. In this work­shop, we’ll explore the nar­ra­tives we have inher­it­ed from the cul­ture we’ve been brought up in, and the ones that may still lurk deep down inside, along with how to uproot them in our­selves and soci­ety at large.

Complexity Games & Movement Ecology

Come learn about com­plex sys­tems in an embod­ied, expe­ri­en­tial way through the medi­um of games. We all have expe­ri­ence with com­plex­i­ty and know what it is in a fun­da­men­tal way, but we might not know that we do or how to describe it. Too often, we go about try­ing to cre­ate change as if we were deal­ing with a pre­dictable and ordered machine. Yet, under­stand­ing the rich, organ­ic com­plex­i­ty of our work­places, com­mu­ni­ties and soci­eties and the process of build­ing col­lec­tive pow­er to change them, is key to effect­ing, long-last­ing change. This is the core idea of ‘move­ment ecol­o­gy’. This work­shop will help you to under­stand what com­plex sys­tems are and their key char­ac­ter­is­tics, and give you a new lens with which to view the world. Acces­si­bil­i­ty: This work­shop involves stand­ing and mov­ing about, but each per­son can decide how much they want to move.

Undercover cops in our movements – history, current situation, and lessons learnt

In this work­shop we’ll be dis­cussing the his­to­ry of under­cov­er infil­tra­tion in our move­ments, the cur­rent state of the offi­cial inquiry, and how it has affect­ed EF! and eco/anarchist/leftist move­ments more wide­ly. How can we take seri­ous­ly the lessons learnt and the trau­ma caused, while not let­ting them break us? What are effec­tive tools to deal with the inter­twined issues of secu­ri­ty and para­noia?
A space for dis­cus­sion and shar­ing expe­ri­ences.

Feeding the Masses

A dis­cus­sion of expe­ri­ences, strate­gies and tools to feed our move­ments. Shar­ing food builds com­mu­ni­ty, con­nec­tion and care. Kitchens have always been part of both mass mobil­i­sa­tions and local com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tives. From sourc­ing good food, prac­ti­cal and legal con­sid­er­a­tions, and equip­ment, to shar­ing ideas, expe­ri­ences and learn­ings, this is a space to think about cook­ing for the rev­o­lu­tion.

Power to the People: Off-Grid Electrics 101

Come and learn the basics of off-grid electrics and 12V pow­er sys­tems. Whether you’re set­ting up a protest camp in a field, liv­ing in a van or boat, or just curi­ous to under­stand how it works this work­shop is for you. We will be pri­mar­i­ly look­ing at a solar sys­tem set up and will also cov­er basic con­cepts that are trans­fer­able to oth­er pow­er sources.

…and many more 🙂

Please note: the kids’ programme is separate and will be hung up on the kids’ space and welcome tent! Kids are welcome to join other workshops (with some exceptions) too, of course!

Sharing circles

What are Shar­ing Cir­cles?
‘Shar­ing cir­cles’ are spaces where peo­ple get togeth­er, usu­al­ly based on their shared iden­ti­ties (and usu­al­ly sit­ting in a cir­cle) to share and dis­cuss expe­ri­ences and issues, or just get to know and sup­port each oth­er. So, for exam­ple, there could be a cir­cle of peo­ple of colour or a cir­cle of trans or work­ing class peo­ple. They can strength­en sol­i­dar­i­ty, cel­e­brate iden­ti­ties and allow peo­ple to feel more com­fort­able in express­ing how they feel. They can encour­age con­ver­sa­tions to hap­pen that might be hard­er in spaces where oth­ers don’t share lived expe­ri­encs of the par­tic­u­lar iden­ti­ty. Cir­cles can be pow­er­ful ways to counter sys­temic oppres­sion (such as sex­ism, ableism or racism). 
In and out­side of cir­cles it’s impor­tant to recog­nise how dif­fer­ent forms of oppres­sion over­lap and inter­sect and to avoid pit­ting iden­ti­ties against one anoth­er. When fight­ing iden­ti­ty-based oppres­sion, trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice is key, where­as ‘can­cel cul­ture’ can end up mak­ing things worse. The anti-oppres­sion state­ment includes some guide­lines on col­lec­tive­ly tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for tack­ling oppres­sion (https://www.earthfirst.uk/solidarity-statement/). Can­cel cul­ture is explored in more depth in the piece ‘Raise Your Hand if You’ve Been Can­celled’, which is in the pro­gramme and a sep­a­rate zine. There will also be sev­er­al work­shops on can­cel cul­ture and trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice at the gath­er­ing.
The well-being group will help facil­i­tate peo­ple form­ing shar­ing cir­cles, so feel free to get in touch with them if you’d like some assis­tance. If an issue comes up in your cir­cle, then please get in touch with the well-being group to see if they can help. Shar­ing cir­cles can be won­der­ful­ly lib­er­at­ing and as a space pro­mot­ing green anar­chism, which fights against all forms of oppres­sion and dom­i­na­tion, peo­ple are strong­ly encour­aged to form shar­ing cir­cles at the gath­er­ing if they wish to. 

Wellbeing 2024 summer gathering

Dur­ing the gath­er­ing, the well­be­ing group will work to hold and attempt to resolve dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions that may arise. The group works on a loose rota, meet­ing every day to dis­cuss any issues that come up.

The well­be­ing group may be able to help peo­ple nav­i­gate con­cerns that arise or trig­gers that hap­pen dur­ing the gath­er­ing. They may also be able to medi­ate and help shift ten­sion between peo­ple.

Please not that the well­be­ing group and the EF! gath­er­ing col­lec­tive are NOT author­i­ties at the gath­er­ing and can­not resolve long-stand­ing prob­lems between peo­ple.

Every­one at the gath­er­ing is crew and every­one should take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the well-being of the gath­er­ing and every­one at it. Although the well being team is not open to peo­ple join­ing dur­ing the gath­er­ing, please get in touch if you’d like to help out in future.

Travel info 2024 summer gathering

This year’s gath­er­ing will take place at the beau­ti­ful Crabap­ple coop­er­a­tive near Shrews­bury.

PARKING & SHUTTLE INFO BELOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE!

The address is

Berring­ton Hall
Berring­ton
Shrews­bury
SY5 6HA

The near­est train sta­tion is in Shrews­bury, just under five miles away. From there, you can either walk, cycle, take a bus, or get a lift in our shut­tle­bus. More info on the shut­tle­bus will be added short­ly. The near­est bus stop is called “Junc­tion”, 0.8 miles away on bus line 540, or “Berring­ton Junc­tion”, 0.9 miles away, on bus line 436.

There’s no need to pre-reg­is­ter or give any details — just show up.. There are no tick­ets and we ask for dona­tions (if you can) to cov­er run­ning costs (eg food, fuel, buy­ing access kit, van hire) at the wel­come desk.

Public Transport

The near­est train sta­tion is Shrews­bury, which is less than half an hour cycle from the site and has hourly bus­es from the sta­tion that take you to with­in a 20 minute walk of the site. We will be organ­is­ing shut­tles between shrews­bury and the site, as well as some cycling con­voys! There is use­ful infor­ma­tion about pub­lic trans­port to and from the site here: https://1drv.ms/w/s!ApQ_j7pcP9d_jhgS-x24z9w5BF56?e=4I7QFs
There is a group chat for co-ordi­nat­ing pub­lic trans­port to and from the site here:https://signal.group/#CjQKIN-Q_j4AYK8uOHcAQic5XZLSncBpIyEF_oez_-6_SZZxEhBLDUOqBtmzt7PCWSybssqa
If you have a vehi­cle and are able to help us with organ­is­ing shut­tles, please get in touch on earthfirstuk@riseup.net

Wheelchair accessible shuttles & taxis

We have access to a wheel­chair acces­si­ble shut­tle vehi­cle — please email us (earthfirstuk@riseup.net) to agree a time for this, or ring the site phone (this doc­u­ment will be updat­ed with the phone num­ber once we have it)
There are a few wheel­chair acces­si­ble taxi com­pa­nies that oper­ates around Shrews­bury. Their web­sites are below.
Wheel­chair acces­si­ble taxis:  Dellstaxis.co.uk/wheelchair-taxis
A2onA2onetaxisshrewsbury.co.uk

 

Parking

There is very VERY lim­it­ed park­ing on site — we have space for around 7–8 addi­tion­al vehi­cles. If you need to come in a vehicle/have access needs please email us. We rec­om­mend get­ting pub­lic trans­port if you are able to. If you need to bring a vehi­cle and don’t need to be on site, please park in Shrews­bury or Berring­ton.
Some options:
- You could look for a lay-by in the gen­er­al area your­self
- You could park in paid park­ing (info here) in Shrews­bury and then take the bus or shut­tle.
- You could park in Berring­ton

 

Shuttle

Do you need a shut­tle from the train sta­tion? We will have a reg­u­lar shut­tle from Shrews­bury train sta­tion to site:

Fri­day 4pm, 6pm, 8pm

From site to Shrews­bury:

Sun­day 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm

Mon­day 10am, 11am, 12am, 1am

Arriv­ing on Wednes­day, Thurs­day or Fri­day morn­ing? No prob­lem, give us a call on the site phone (at least a cou­ple of hours in advance please!!!) and we will arrange a ride, either from the train sta­tion or the bus stop.

Please remem­ber there are fre­quent bus­es from just around the cor­ner of the train sta­tion, 2 pounds, info here.

If you get stuck, call the site phone 07780 996042

 

Accessibility 2024 summer gathering

File:Wheelchair rugby pictogram (Paralympics).svg

Camp­ing in a field and attend­ing meetings/workshops can pose par­tic­u­lar chal­lenges for peo­ple who use wheel­chairs, have oth­er mobil­i­ty needs or are hear­ing impaired (have oth­er acces­si­bil­i­ty needs). The gath­er­ing will include pri­or­i­ty camp­ing areas, lev­el access toi­lets, and acces­si­bil­i­ty mat­ting, but please let us know if there is more we can do to make the gath­er­ing work for your phys­i­cal needs. Sim­i­lar­ly if you have any oth­er kinds of acces­si­bil­i­ty needs, relat­ed to men­tal health for exam­ple, then do let us know. We’ll do our best to pro­vide infor­ma­tion and to meet people’s needs, but as access is a prac­tice, not a des­ti­na­tion, we invite peo­ple to let us know about ways we can improve. The rev­o­lu­tion must be acces­si­ble!

Our detailed acces­si­bil­i­ty doc­u­ment can be found here.

 

Whether you’re brand new to EF! or have been coming for decades — join us to celebrate the 30th ever EF! summer gathering in the UK!

Exciting update: workshop blurbs online now!

 

💜 We are very excit­ed to announce the 30th ever Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing in the UK! From 25th-29th July at Crabap­ple, a gor­geous com­mu­ni­ty orchard in Shrews­bury in the West Mid­lands. We invite you to five days of work­shops, skill shares, sol­i­dar­i­ty, social­is­ing, and con­spir­ing the destruc­tion of cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, and all the forces of dom­i­na­tion of humans and nature ✊ Trav­el info here, acces­si­bil­i­ty info here, info about well­be­ing here.

🌈 It’s a space for rad­i­cal thinkers, rebel­lious souls, and curi­ous minds, bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to strength­en and spread the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal resis­tance move­ment across these north­ern isles that we call home. Join us! ☺️

🌱 Learn about cur­rent and past envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles here and around the world, about (anti-)repression and move­ment vic­to­ries, green anar­chism and bio­cen­trism, queer ecol­o­gy and anti-colo­nial land jus­tice. Or get your hands dirty in some of our more prac­ti­cal work­shops, from direct action, skills to solar pow­er, night nav­i­ga­tion, tech secu­ri­ty and more. Or just relax and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings and let loose on the dance floor! 🪩🕺

🥕 There will be three veg­an meals a day, cooked by the won­der­ful Eat­First! col­lectve, dona­tion-based. 🍝

🫖 Tea, cof­fee, cake and a tug shop will be pro­vid­ed by the amaz­ing Veg­gies col­lec­tive ☕

🎲 There will be a kids’ space and pro­gramme too!

🚽 We’ll have com­post toi­lets and even show­ers this year 🚿😯

🐥 Are you new to EF!, have nev­er been, maybe feel­ing a bit ner­vous? No wor­ries, there are won­der­ful humans who will show you around, explain how things work, and sit down and have a cup of tea with!

🌳 Do you want to share sto­ries from the past three decades of EF! in the UK, offer a work­shop, or help out with the kids’ space? Ques­tions on acces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­port (there will be a shut­tle ser­vice from Shrews­bury train sta­tion) or food? Get in touch! earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 Dogs 🐕 🐕‍🦺🦮 We have now reached our capac­i­ty for dogs at the gath­er­ing. We have a lim­it on the num­ber of dogs we can accom­mo­date this year because the site is a sen­si­tive habi­tat with nest­ing barn owls, fledg­ling birds and small mam­mals liv­ing in the fields and woods. 🦮 If you have an assis­tance dog that you need to bring to the gath­er­ing then please do email us before the gath­er­ing to reg­is­ter your dog with: earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🔥 Bring your friends, com­rades, ener­gy and ideas, and please spread the word! 📢

🚐 Please note that (depend­ing on the weath­er) we might have very lim­it­ed park­ing space and CANNOT guar­an­tee that you can bring your car or live-in vehi­cle onto the site. If you need your vehi­cle for acces­si­bil­i­ty rea­sons, you will be pri­ori­tised — please send us an email! 🚗

 

Pricing info

  • How much mon­ey?
EF is as DIY as it gets, and doing it our­selves also means fund­ing it our­selves. No one prof­its off of EF. No one gets paid.
EF gath­er­ings always run on a dona­tion basis, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. As a rough esti­mate, we ask that on aver­age peo­ple pay £8 per day for food (three meals) and around £20 for the camp, depend­ing on what you can afford.
The total expense of the gath­er­ings is hard to say accu­rate­ly before­hand, we esti­mate that it’s around 20 pounds per per­son (assum­ing there will be around 300 peo­ple) plus food.
At the wel­come desk you will be able to donate what­ev­er feels right, based on ‘sol­i­dar­i­ty pric­ing’:
    
  • Sol­i­dar­i­ty pric­ing: Have more, pay more. Have less, pay less.
Here’s a lit­tle guide to help you judge how much you can afford com­pared to oth­ers, it’s not just about income, oth­er fac­tors are impor­tant. Class, wealth, and expe­ri­ences of sys­temic oppres­sion all play a part. Remem­ber, it’s just a guide, an imper­fect way to cre­ate a more eco­nom­i­cal­ly lib­er­at­ing mod­el while we work to smash cap­i­tal­ism and cre­ate dif­fer­ent eco­nom­ic sys­tems.
  • Some fac­tors that MIGHT allow you to afford more:
- Hav­ing above aver­age income
- Own­ing land or prop­er­ty
- Being like­ly to inher­it prop­er­ty or wealth
- Hav­ing sig­nif­i­cant wealth, sav­ings, or invest­ments
- Being eas­i­ly able to meet basic needs and able to afford lux­u­ries (hol­i­days, take­away)
- Hav­ing recog­nised edu­ca­tion­al back­ground and qual­i­fi­ca­tions (‘good’ schools, degrees, post­grad etc.) 
- Being eas­i­ly able to get well-paid work
- Hav­ing a safe­ty net or strong social sup­port net­works (e.g. a par­ents’ house to retreat to, friends with mon­ey etc.)
  • Some fac­tors that MIGHT reduce how much you can afford:
- Earn­ing less than aver­age income
- Sup­port­ing depen­dents or hav­ing car­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties (chil­dren, rel­a­tives, part­ners etc.)
- Hav­ing dis­abil­i­ties or long term ill-health
- Reg­u­lar­ly being in con­tact with state/institutional vio­lence
- Pre­car­i­ous migra­tion sta­tus (eg being a refugee, asy­lum seek­er, or per­son with­out papers)
- Being unable to legal­ly work
- Expe­ri­enc­ing finan­cial dis­tress (eg. unex­pect­ed court fees, los­ing a job, sud­den rent increas­es)
- Expe­ri­enc­ing sys­temic oppres­sion due to things such as race, class, gen­der, neu­ro­di­ver­si­ty, sex­u­al­i­ty.
No one is turned away for lack of funds, please don’t let cost put you off attend­ing!
We all have dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships to mon­ey and we encour­age every­one to be hon­est with them­selves. The emo­tions that come up when we talk about what we can afford can often cloud our judge­ment. Cap­i­tal­ism breeds a cul­ture of scarci­ty — for some this feels like emo­tion­al insta­bil­i­ty and uncer­tain­ty, and for oth­ers this looks like mate­r­i­al pover­ty and a lack of resources. It is impos­si­ble to talk about things like class, mon­ey, wealth, or income with­out think­ing about sys­temic oppres­sions like racism or ableism and yes, it’s com­pli­cat­ed, but let’s do the best we can.
There are lots of hid­den costs involved with gath­er­ings like EF. Some stuff can’t be found in bins or bor­rowed and, while we try to keep costs down, there is equip­ment we would like to pur­chase to make sum­mer camps like EF more acces­si­ble in the future (eg track mat­ting for wheel­chair acces­si­bil­i­ty, a minibus, light­ing, solar pan­els.) By donat­ing more gen­er­ous­ly you are help­ing achieve this!

2024 summer gathering

30th ever EarthFirst! summer gathering in the UK!

 

💜 We are very excit­ed to announce the 30th ever Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing in the UK! From 25th-29th July at Crabap­ple, a gor­geous com­mu­ni­ty orchard in Shrews­bury in the West Mid­lands. We invite you to five days of work­shops, skill shares, sol­i­dar­i­ty, social­is­ing, and con­spir­ing the destruc­tion of cap­i­tal­ism, patri­archy, and all the forces of dom­i­na­tion of humans and nature ✊

🌈 It’s a space for rad­i­cal thinkers, rebel­lious souls, and curi­ous minds, bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to strength­en and spread the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal resis­tance move­ment across these north­ern isles that we call home. Join us! ☺️

🌱 Learn about cur­rent and past envi­ron­men­tal strug­gles here and around the world, about (anti-)repression and move­ment vic­to­ries, green anar­chism and bio­cen­trism, queer ecol­o­gy and anti-colo­nial land jus­tice. Or get your hands dirty in some of our more prac­ti­cal work­shops, from direct action, skills to solar pow­er, night nav­i­ga­tion, tech secu­ri­ty and more. Or just relax and enjoy the beau­ti­ful sur­round­ings and let loose on the dance floor! 🪩🕺

🎲 🐕There will be a kids’ space and pro­gramme too!

🌳 Do you want to share sto­ries from the past three decades of EF! in the UK, offer a work­shop, or help out with the kids’ space? Ques­tions on acces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­port (there will be a shut­tle ser­vice from Shrews­bury train sta­tion) or food? Get in touch! earthfirstuk@riseup.net

🔥 Bring your friends, com­rades, ener­gy and ideas, and please spread the word! 📢

🦮🐕‍🦺🐕 Dogs 🐕 🐕‍🦺🦮 We have now reached our capac­i­ty for dogs at the gath­er­ing. We have a lim­it on the num­ber of dogs we can accom­mo­date this year because the site is a sen­si­tive habi­tat with nest­ing barn owls, fledg­ling birds and small mam­mals liv­ing in the fields and woods. 🦮 If you have an assis­tance dog that you need to bring to the gath­er­ing then please do email us before the gath­er­ing to reg­is­ter your dog with: earthfirstuk@riseup.net

Acces­si­bil­i­ty info here!

 

EF! Summer gathering 2023

Summer gathering 2023!

You’re all warm­ly invit­ed to the one and only Earth First! sum­mer gath­er­ing 2023!

For this year’s gath­er­ing we have squat­ted the site of the new coal pro­posed coal mine in White­haven, Cum­bria!

Leave the coal in the hole!

The pre­cise loca­tion for the site entrance is here: https://w3w.co/guilty.polygraph.scale

Near­est train sta­tions are Cor­kick­le or White­haven. It is a long walk from the sta­tion so let us know if you need a lift by call­ing the site phone 07592479185. Please call, don’t mes­sage!

Telegram lift share: https://t.me/+RbhnJUczz000YjM0 (self-organ­ised)

If you are trav­el­ing by road: A595, signed White­haven. Then turn R. (from N), or L. (from S), onto road signed: ‘St. Bees/Sandwith’ At B5345: turn L. onto St. Bees Road, then take first R. Sat­Nav: CA28 9QJ

If you need help with acces­si­bil­i­ty or any­thing else the site phone num­ber: 07592479185

We will also keep check­ing our email: earth­firstuk (at) riseup.net

There will be deli­cious food by Veg­gies kitchen, a kids’ space and an amaz­ing pro­gramme of work­shops. and dis­cus­sions Join us!