Grassroots Gathering Galway

Community struggles - campaign strategies - developing networks

Galway, October 12 - 14

A grassroots gathering is a one-off event run by a local group bringing together people involved in different community campaigns and social movements to learn from each other's experiences, talk about what works and what doesn't, develop networks and make alliances. There have been a dozen of these in different parts of the country over the last eleven years and they have helped support all sorts of different campaigns and movements - resisting Shell in Erris, campaigning against cuts, supporting women's right to choose, challenging neo-liberalism in the EU, creating free space for young people, opposing incinerators, community gardening, protecting natural and national heritage, highlighting US military use of Shannon, challenging racism and more. This one will have particular sessions for communities resisting fracking and drilling and for movements against austerity, as well as an open stream and other activities.

The Gathering isn't about famous speakers or Great Experts telling us how to do things - the idea is to bring together campaigners, people in communities, people organising at the base in unions, experienced activists and people just starting out to share their experiences, discuss what way they think things might go, ask questions of each other, make connections and have a good chance to chat and meet new people and old friends. It's not for profit (and we all get to muck in with washing up, passing the hat and generally helping out), it isn't run by any political party and nobody will try to recruit anyone.

Over the last few years more and more people have seen just how corrupt the system is and how little faith we can have in the people who claim to represent us and "see us right". For this reason the Gatherings aren't for people who want to make a name for themselves, make a career out of other people's activism, get a leg up politically, make money out of campaigning, appear on TV etc. More formally we have the "Grassroots Principles" which say that we want to work together as equals, run things in an open and democratic way and try not to talk down to each other or over each other's heads. Rather than rebuild the old mess we believe in communities being able to decide for themselves, workplaces controlled by the people who actually work in them, a sustainable economy and an end to neoliberal bodies like the IMF and World Bank which have helped to create the crisis. The full principles and more about the Gatherings at http://grassroots.pageabode.com.

If this sounds interesting, please get involved and help us make it happen! We're going to need practical help on the weekend (food, childcare, beds etc.); workshops; one-off things like poster design and fundraising help; and you might just want to be kept up-to-date. For any of these please email grassrootsgalway@gmail.com (facebook coming).

A call out for proposed workshops is now online here.


Short version (for facebook etc.):

Grassroots Gathering: community struggles - campaign strategies - developing networks

Galway, October 12 - 14

A grassroots gathering is a one-off event run by a local group bringing together people involved in different community campaigns and social movements to learn from each other's experiences, talk about what works and what doesn't, develop networks and make alliances. This one will have particular sessions for communities resisting fracking and drilling and for movements against austerity, as well as an open stream. The idea is to bring together campaigners, people in communities, people organising at the base in unions, experienced activists and people just starting out to share their experiences, discuss what way they think things might go, ask questions of each other, make connections and have a good chance to chat and meet new people and old friends. It's not for profit, it isn't run by any political party and nobody will try to recruit anyone. You can see the Grassroots Principles at http://grassroots.pageabode.com, email grassrootsgalway@gmail.com (facebook coming).

Info-activism camp 2013

"Data and design for evidence-based activism", at a location TBA in March-April 2013; more details and sign-up here.

Festival of community television

A festival of community television in Dublin, 27 - 28 July...

"How class works" papers

Papers from the annual "How class works" conference at Stony Brook can now be read online here.

The plenary session "May Day in New York City: Occupy, Labor, and Community "
with Penny Lewis, Teresa Gutierrez, Thisanjali Gangoda, and Amy Muldoon can be watched here.

The roundtable "The U.S. in 2012: What's Class Got to Do with It?"
with Bill Fletcher, Jr., Juan Gonzalez, Bob Herbert, Frances Fox Piven, and Michael Zweig can be watched here.

Looking back for new beginnings

Advance notice of important conference and festival.

Looking back for new beginnings:

A Community Celebration and Renewal.

(Friday 27 and Saturday 28 July 2012, Liberty Hall.

Thirty years ago, activists from the North Inner City organised a month-long Looking-On Festival to showcase the problems facing this community in a creative and stimulating way. To commemorate this event, we are holding a conference in Liberty Hall over two days as set out in the programme below. The chief aim is to look at the changes in the city and community in the intervening period. We are very fortunate to have distinguished and experienced speakers attending such as Professor Ivor Brown, Art O’Briain, Loughlin Kealy, historians Francis Devine, Padraig Yeates and Mary Muldowney and other speakers who were involved in the original Looking-On Festival. It promises to be a creative mix and a harbinger of hope in these gloomy days. You are invited to attend and to take part in this inquiry and renewal for the community movement. Please circulate this to all your contacts. If you are only going to one summer school this year, this is it!

Friday 7.30- 9.00

Reading of the play The Kips, The Digs, The Village.

Directed by Peter Sheridan and Maggie Byrne.

This was originally performed as part of the Looking-On Festival in 1982. The actors were all from the city and some went on to become professionals. It explores the Inner City of the post- World War 1 period and the emergence of the Irish Free State as a Catholic state. 

In the Bar after the show there will be a showcase of local bands.

Saturday Morning

11-1.00. In the Connolly Room, Liberty Hall

This session will give perspectives on labour, class, community and women in the struggles for improvement in the city since 1913.

Francis Devine, Padraig Yeates, Mary Muldowney

.

Saturday 2.15-2.45

In the main auditorium

Paper reflecting the changes in the city in the past thirty years. These would include housing, jobs, drugs ethnicity, facilities, education and the community sector itself.

Theme is “Changed city, same challenges” delivered by Patricia McCarthy and Mick Rafferty on behalf of the festival collective.

2.45-3.15

Buzz groups and responses from the audience.

3.30-5.30 (or beyond if necessary)

This session explores human development as the core aim of community development and explores where the personal, the creative and the social merge. In the aftermath of the State’s demolishing of the community development gains of the past thirty years and the destruction of   the civic society organisations that evolved in that time, what can we learn from the past and what are the pointers to the future?

Overviews and reflections by Professor Ivor Brown, Loughlin Kealy, Art O’Briain.

Questions and comments from the audience.

6-late

Songs of struggle, craic and tragedy, in the bar.  Like the Irish at the Euro despite all our defeats the city can sing! Ceoltoiri Chluain Tarbh  ,guest musicians and singers,and guest appearance from James Larkin!

Throughout the two days in the Connolly room there will be a   photo exhibition and digital slide show of the city, past and present, by Terry Fagan and Mick.Rafferty.

No registration or booking fee. Donations accepted. Many thanks to Liberty Hall for use of the premises.

Biographies

Peter Sheridan is an acclaimed theatre and film director. He is also a distinguished playwright and has written a number of best-selling memoirs of growing up in Dublin’s docklands.  He was co-founder of the community based City Workshop theater group in the eighties

Maggie Byrne is a well know community theatre director who has worked with prisoners and recovering addicts. She engages in theatre and performance as both a personal aid to healing and community empowerment. She was a key member of the City Workshop group  

Loughlin Kealy is former Professor of Architecture at University College, Dublin. He carried out extensive work in the North Inner City during the 1990s, including a survey of the built environment, a study of the urban morphology of the area prior to regeneration, and an inventory of the Dockland’s archaeological heritage prior to development.

Ivor Browne is former Professor of Psychiatry at University College, Dublin, and former Chief Psychiatrist for the Eastern Health Board. He has long-standing involvement in mental health issues in the city centre and in Ballyfermot. He was one of the founders of the Irish Foundation for Human Development. His book, Music and Madness, published in 2010, was a best-seller.

Art O’Briain is a theatre, TV and film director who was involved with community arts projects from the 1970s on. He has recently been engaged with programmes dealing with inspirational individuals, like photograper Fergus Bourke, artist Joe Boske, and Danish disability campaigner Evaid Grog.

Padraig Yeates is an author and trade union activist. He is author of Lockout, the definitive history of the 1913 Lockout. His most recent publication is A City in Wartime: Dublin 1914-1918. He is Head of the Steering Committee for the commemoration of 1913.

Francis Devine is a labour historian and was a tutor in SIPTU’s Education and Training Department. He is a former editor of Saothar, the journal of the Irish Labour History Society, of which he is a past President. He is author of Organising History: A Centenary of Siptu, 1909-2009.

Mary Muldowney is a historian. She is author of The Second World War and Irish Women. An Oral History. She is a pioneer of oral history and one of the founders of the Oral History Network of Ireland.

Patricia McCarthy is a sociologist and community activist. She has carried out action-research with Travellers, the homeless and inner city communities. She is currently involved through Partners in Catalyst in voluntary cross-community work in Northern Ireland as well as work with asylum seekers.

Mick Rafferty has being active in community politics and development since 1972. In that time he has been director of The NCCCAP and the Inner city Renewal Group, worked with the Combat poverty agency, was a Dublin city councilor and now is with Partners in Catalyst on a voluntary basis.

Festival Committee members;

Catriona Crowe, Seanie Lamb, Terry Fagan, Peter Sheridan, Maggie Byrne, Liz Burns, Ger O’Leary, Patricia McCarthy, Mick Rafferty.

Well, well, well...

It turns out that a West Midlands police inquiry has found that officers made up the "evidence" against research student Rizwaan Sabir. Nottingham University hit the panic button when he had a friend photocopy an Al-Quaida document for his research (in ìnternational relations - the document is widely available on US government websites and can be bought in high street bookshops) and armed police went in. Rizwaan and his friend Hicham Yezza wound up having some very nasty experiences at the hands of the usual suspects.

The uni, for its part, had no intention of admitting that it had acted dimwittedly (and in ways completely counter to its stated goal of enabling students to research world politics). The attempt to save face led to the ousting of Dr Rod Thornton, who made the mistake of challenging uni management on the subject. Never let it be said that the emperor has no clothes... A full Guardian report here.

In completely unrelated news, the Garda Ombudsman "issued" a letter (the rest of us send them) on June 28th which went to at least some of those Maynooth staff who had been threatened with prosecution for supporting research student Jerrie Ann Sullivan over the recordings of Gardai discussing raping and deporting protestors at Rossport. "No further action will be taken", we are told. This is two months after they had told RTE that GSOC's role had finished - the wheels grind slowly over there. At that time, their spokesperson had backed off from the claims of criminal activity (directed at the student and her supporters, naturally) to the comment that Maynooth staff had done what they felt they had to do and GSOC had done the same.

Again, of course, "sorry" would be too simple a response for such an august body.

Cooperate and no-one gets hurt: worker-owned enterprises

Great news over on Irish Left Review from a cross-border network of worker-owned coops. Really useful and inspiring responses to austerity and recession...