I’m going to do my best to attend this conference.

Should be a great networking opportunity and a good place to tell people about Commons Creation

Birmingham, 17th – 19th September.

The Development Trusts Association is planning the biggest ever community sector conference in the UK. Enterprising Communities 2006 is for anyone interested in creating community assets, setting up new community enterprises, accessing finance, tackling poverty, celebrating diversity – and for anyone who wants to be inspired. We are expecting 600 people to attend, from front-line activists to key policy makers including ministers Ruth Kelly and Ed Miliband.

Enterprising Communities 2006 is on 17th – 19th September in Birmingham.

For further information go to: http://www.dta.org.uk/Content/current_activities/conference%202006.htm

via Social Enterprise London

See also:

• Free ‘Peak Oil’ conference in London, 15 July 2006
• Commons Creation meeting
• Commons Creation Collective
• London Free School
• The London Fund

I just made the following comment in City Hippy’s article about good films:

I think The Take and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised are the best and most important films I’ve seen in a while.

Both HIGHLY recommended.

I also saw We… Unauthorised Arundhati Roy Documentary a few days ago. Great stuff.

I thought I could’ve been done a lot better, but The End of Suburbia should defo be on this list too, as one of the main movies so far to focus on Peak Oil.

The film I can’t wait for is Undercurrents’ Living in the Future – a DVD of self builders and ecovillagers.

You can sign this pledge, or this one to help support the films production. Please do!

Also, I don’t think it is out yet, but another important film will be Franny Armstrong’s (of McLibel etc.) forthcoming film Crude (see bottom of article).

Oh, and I just remembered, I saw Michael Franti’s film I Know I Am Not Alone at Sunday Sounds the other night. Very inspiring.

Enjoy!

See also:

• Video Blogging
• A Farm for the Future
• Outfoxed
• Unmissable: Sunday Sounds album launch party on July 23rd
• GOOD: Oil Addiction

UPDATE: the first Commons Creation meeting was held at Limehouse Town Hall on Sunday 21st January, 2007. A copy of the presentation given can be downloaded here as a PDF (1.1Mb) file. Enjoy!

Introduction

The Commons Creation Collective is all about harnessing the wealth and power of our networks and working together to raising funds and awareness.

It will initially bring together conscious event organisers, radial media publishers, and their supporters, to collaborate on two complementary projects:

1. The Commons Creation Fund
   Lots of people contributing a minimum of £5 a month into a common fund and deciding together how to best to invest it in shared infrastructure. Purpose: to create a commons; a pool of collectively owned/ shared resources (thereby building the foundations for a scaleable community banking and exchange system).
2. The Commons Creation Flyer
   A regular A3 (folded to A6) flyer, distributed by members, that encourages people to become a member of the collective (i.e. contribute £5 a month, help distribute flyer, promote the collective), give details of all the events organised by members, and links to news and issues they deem important.Purpose: to ensure the success of the Commons Creation Fund, and to inform as many people as possible about all events organised by members, and all the news/issues they deem important.

So, what’s the deal?

INDIVIDUALS

To become a member of the Commons Creation Collective, individuals agree to:

• Contribute a minimum of £5 per month to the Commons Creation Fund
• Help distribute the Commons Creation Flyer/ promote the Commons Creation Collective (this can be as simple as inviting friends and forwarding e-mails, or getting involved with day to day admin jobs etc.)

In return, members:

• Become shared owners of The Commons, our pool of collectively owned/shared resouces
• Decide together (using Dotmocracy?) how best to spend the money contributed to the Commons Creation Fund
• Are kept informed about all the latest news and events relevant to the collective
• Can submit and rate news, events and short articles to be included on the flyer
• Get FREE entrance to exclusive member gatherings and parties
• Get discounts from other members of the collective (eg. concessionary ticket prices, cheap books, CDs etc)
• Get fair access to use of the resources in The Commons (obviously, you own them)
• Get connected to other people and groups who share similar values and/or are interested in the same things (all the other members and the wonderful people you’ll meet at member events)

GROUPS

If a conscious event/radical publisher/other group wants to get involved they agree:

• To put a link to commonscreation.org on their website
• To put a link to commonscreation.org on all their flyers/mailouts/publications
• To offer discouts and/or special offers to members of the collective

In return, groups will get:

• A profile on commonscreation.org highlighting all the good work the groups does, including details about how to get involved and links back to their own site etc.
• Details of all events organised by the group included on the Commons Creation Flyer
• A link to the group’s website on all copies of the Commons Creation Flyer
• Additionally, and perhaps most significantly, groups will gain discounted access to and use of the resources held in The Commons (eg. web experts, CD burners, printers, vans, lighting rigs, staging, land, venues, etc.)

Who needs to be involved?

Event Organisers:

• uniteddiversity – signed up!
  Josef, Oli, Tom
• Peace Not War – signed up!
  Mudge, Katie, Rob, Sarah, Katie, Fidel, etc.
• One Taste – signed up!
  Dannii, Jamie
• The Synergy Project – signed up!
  Dom, Gian, Daniel, Alex, Rowly, etc.
• Movimientos – signed up!
• Neo-Dogma-Non – signed up!
  
• Creative Forum
  Alan, Teresa, Shane, Gareth etc.
• Art Music Politic
  Will etc.
• Guerilla Zoo
  James etc.
• Small World Solar Stage
  Pony, Emma, etc.
• The Synergy Centre
  Steve, Matt, Jo, etc.
• Kingston Green Fair
  Bernadette, Des, etc.
• NODE London
• Big Green Gathering
• Sunrise Celebration
  Daniel etc.
  
• Buttercuts
  Andy etc.
• Raison d’etre
  Yvan, Crystal
• Needle and Thread
  Len etc.
• Signs of Life
• Crystal Field
  Enoch etc.
• Sangita Sounds
  Darren etc.
• Planet Angel
  Pete, Angel, etc.
• etc.

Radical Media Publishers and Bloggers

• Red Pepper
• Bulb Magazine
• Resurgence
• Undercurrents
• Peace News
• Green Events
• City Hippy – signed up!
• Shorno.net
• Leighton Cooke
• Ceridwen Devi
• Indymedia
• i-conscious
• germination
• contaminant media
• media venture collective
• etc.

How will it be financed?

The aim is for the whole thing to be self-financed by member contributions (we encourage those who can afford to contribute more than £5 a month to do so). Some seed funding will also be sought, but there is nothing stopping a group of co-operatively minded people from pooling £5+ a month straight away.

Next Steps:

• Gather some of the people who need to be involved and get agreement on the above (or at least something very similar to what is outlined above)
• On the back of this initial agreement, get more of the people who need to be involved signed-up, whilst also working on the initial website and flyer

APPENDIX
Suggested Initial SMART Goals/Objectives (specific, measurable, acheivable, realistic, time-based)

• Get first version of http://commonscreation.org up (a nicely designed site explaining the idea, who the existing members are, how and why to join, etc.) no later than one month after getting initial agreement from some of the people who need to be involved.
• Design and produce the first version of the flyer no later than one month after getting initial agreement from some of the people who need to be involved. Start to distribute flyers.
• Get 400 members to sign-up and start contributing £5 a month by December 31st, 2006.
• Hold a monthly member’s gatherings (meal and jam session), starting no later than Januray, 2007.

Suggestions about where to put/invest money

• La Base – “Some seek to destroy the pyramid by taking the power of the top. La Base creates by giving power to the base. When the base rises, a new structure rises with it.”
  

  What is La Base
  La Base is rooted in the idea that real democracy and human rights can only be meaningful when accompanied by economic rights and autonomy.

  La Base is not an organization, but a fund of productive capital owned in common. Access to this resource is universal but entails an obligation to ensure its sustainability for all, now and in the future. Those who use La Base are free to create their world as they will.

  La Base’s resources are currently used as fair loans to individuals to help them pursue their economic independence in democratic collectives. Loan repayments go back to the common fund to be used by others. To learn more about loans and other practical applications of La Base, please see the actions.

• Rootstock – “supporting co-operatives working for social change”
  

  Rootstock is a social investment society set up as an initiative of the Radical Routes network of co-operatives. Radical Routes is a growing network of housing and workers’ co-operatives working for social change.

  Radical Routes co-operatives are active in many fields, including:

  Sustainable land use through permaculture, land restoration, woodland creation, and growing and distributing organic food.

  Communal housing – co-operatively owned housing is a resource for the whole community rather than a commodity for the profit of a few.

  Resource centres for communities

  Information through publications, radical bookshops and practical support for new co-ops.

  Campaigning on issues such as ecological preservation, animal rights and housing.

  International peace work

  Home education

  Electrical, plumbing and small scale building work

  Support services including Book keeping and accountancy, Computer services, Training and consultancy, Mediation and group working

• Triodos – Europe’s leading ethical bank that only finances projects wtih affect positive social, environmental and cultural change.
  
• Ecology Building Society – a mutual building society dedicated to improving the environment by promoting sustainable housing and sustainable communities.
• London Rebuilding Society and other CDFI’s (Community Development Finance Institutions)

See also:

• Commons Creation Collective
• Commons Creation meeting
• We Have Land!
• Very Exciting News
• The London Fund

I can’t recommend the Sunday Sounds album launch highly enough.

It takes place this Sunday July 23rd @ the DA Gallery, 43 Kensington High Street, London W8 5ED
The London Premiere of Michael Franti’s film, I Know I’m Not Alone, will be shown from 6pm and music will start around 8pm. Earlier in the afternoon, at 1pm 4pm, I’ll be hosting a meeting about the Commons Creation Collective in the park across the road.

After visiting Yelnow Farm to check out the potential for holding a Building Man Festival there, I headed down to Sunday Sounds and left on an incredible high.

I figured it could write a good post about it, and even took and got some pictures (update: loads more pictures added) off Sarah Bear to include, but I only ever got as far as writing the following:

Love in Bloom(sbury)
On the evening of Sunday 12th Marth, 20006, the basement of The Square was radiating with Love. The squatted building, at 21 Russell Square, is right in the heart of Bloomsbury.

Anyway, listening to my preview CD I am often moved to cry tears of Joy. This shit is REAL.

Check out the tracks from Daisy, Yap, David J etc over on the Sunday Sounds myspace*
More importantly, come and join us for some magical times

* Yes, it does annoy me that MySpace is part of Murdoch’s Fox Interactive Media, and no promises that you’ll love the tracks as much as me – maybe you had to be there.

See also:

• TONIGHT: Another World Is Blossoming
• Peace Not War Album Launch – Thursday 6 July @ Cargo – In memory of the victims of the London Bombings
• Reclaim Love 2007
• Reclaim Love 5!
• Sessions of Spontaneity

Whilst up in Bedford visiting the farm, I discussed plans for my book with Shane. He thought that Recipes for a New World Order would be a good title; we could reclaim the phrase New World Order (like how I tried to claim Bush’s so-called Global Democratic Revolution). I chatted to Saul Albert about it, but he didn’t like it, saying that he wouldn’t even pick up a book with such a title. Maybe I should just write a load of stuff and self-publish it under a load of different titles to reach different people (much like publishers often change covers/titles for different markets).

What do you think? Comment and let us know.

See also:

• Money Books
• Visit to Yelnow Farm
• Very Exciting News
• Sonia’s media empire
• Commons Creation meeting

As those of you who saw Greg Palast speak at the NUJ last week will know, the recent presidential election in Mexico was marred by blatant vote rigging and Florida-style fraud.

An emergency picket outside the Mexican embassy has been organised for tomorrow, Friday July 14, from 1pm to 2pm to support the demand by social movements in Mexico to count each and every vote. These pickets are taking place in many different countries around the world.

In front of half a million supporters last Saturday, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador formally challenged the July 2 election results, charging fraud and citing other irregularities with the electoral process.

Without a doubt, the elections were rigged to prevent the PRD from winning the elections. The Mexican ruling elite are prepared to go to any lengths to prevent Lopez Obrador from becoming the next president of Mexico.

We must protest against this attack on democratic rights. Please join the picket of the Mexican embassy tomorrow and pass this info on to anyone else you think might be interested. The Mexican Embassy is situated at 16 St George Street, Hanover Square, London W1 (nearest tube: Oxford Circus).

Letters of protest should be sent to the embassy at mexuk@easynet.co.uk – and see www.gregpalast.com and www.narconews.com for the latest news from Mexico.

Then this Saturday July 15 from 1pm to 7pm there is the Radical Activist Network conference on Latin America: Social movements fight back, at the University of London Union, Malet Street, London WC1 (nearest tube: Goodge Street).

Oscar Olivera, spokesperson for the Coalition in Defence of Water and Life in Cochabamba, Bolivia, will be speaking, as will Hilary Wainwright (Red Pepper), Andy Higginbottom (Frontline Latin America and Colombia Solidarity Campaign), Sue Branford (Latin America Bureau and War on Want) and Jorge Martin (Hands Off Venezuela).

Sessions and workshops will include: Social Movements and Left Governments, Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, Social movements in Bolivia, Brazil’s Landless movement and the continuing Zapatista revolt in Mexico. Entry by donation (£2 suggested), more info: http://www.radicalactivist.net/latinamerica

Finally, next week’s Wednesday meeting will be from 6.45pm at The Inn On the Green, 3-5 Thorpe Close (under the Westway), Portobello Green, W10 (nearest tube: Ladbroke Grove), where we will be holding the British premier of the new documentary Five Factories, about workers’ control in Venezuela, followed by a debate and social. We hope you can make this special event, more info at
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/index.php?option=com_events&task=view_detail&Itemid=&agid=4&year=2006&month=07&day=19

Best Bolivarian wishes everyone from the London Hands Off Venezuela crew.
Via the Creative Forum list

See also:

• ‘Voices of Latin America’: The Left in Mexico and the Other Campaign.
• Movimientos – 6th July
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised Screening
• The War On Democracy by John Pilger
• Venezuela Bolivariana: People and the struggle of the 4th world war

The agenda is available here as a PDF

A free-to-attend conference looking at many aspects of Peak Oil is taking place on Saturday 15 July 2006 at the BedZed development in Hackbridge, just outside London. The event, Peak Speak 2, is the follow up to the successful Peak Speak 1, held at the same location last year.
Organised by PowerSwitch.org.uk, and run in a friendly and informal manner, it is designed to give plenty of opportunity to discuss an issue that will dominate the 21st century – the ongoing decline
of global oil supplies, how it will affect all lives and what we can do about it. Along with Climate Change, it will make this century very different to the last.

As Jeremy Leggett wrote in the Independent, January 2006, “We have allowed oil to become vital to virtually everything we do. Ninety per cent of all our transportation, whether by land, air or sea, is
fuelled by oil. Ninety-five per cent of all goods in shops involve the use of oil. Ninety-five per cent of all our food products require oil use. Just to farm a single cow and deliver it to market requires six barrels of oil, enough to drive a car from New York to Los Angeles.” Meanwhile there is a quickly growing acceptance of the concept of imminent Peak Oil. Notable figures such as Bill Clinton and Al Gore believe we are at Peak Oil while the oil company Total sees it as occurring around 2020. The challenges that Peak Oil and Climate Change presents are stark indeed, and it is important for individuals, businesses and government to begin addressing this as soon as possible.

For some, Peak Speak 1, which had seventy people in attendance, was a life changing experience.
“Peakspeak-1 motivated me to take the plunge and change direction so that in the year that followed I have almost completed an MSc in Renewable Systems Energy Engineering, and hope to make a career in that area going forward, and contribute to the coming problems in some way,” wrote a previous attendee.

The speakers include:

• Donnachadh McCarthy, author of Saving The Planet Without Costing The Earth (3acorns.co.uk);
• Chris Vernon, of PowerSwitch and OilDrum UK, with analysis of UK power supply; Norman Church with his follow up to Systems and Interdependencies;
• Doly Garcia speaking about Peak Oil Action in Brighton, and Naresh Giangrande who will be discussing Biofuels on the back of Hubbert’s Curve.

The emphasis, however, will be on everyone participating.There will also be an opportunity to see and discuss “The Power of Community : How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” as well as a workshop in learning how to “ Build Networks and Relationships for a Post Peak
World.” And as last year, there will be the PeakNik’s Picnic.

Entry is free but you will need to register in advance as places are limited. Email
info@powerswitch.org.uk or call 020 8123 2500.

The event takes place at the eco-friendly BedZed Pavillion, BedZed, in Hackbridge, Surrey, 25
minutes by train from London Victoria. More details about BedZed can be found at www.bedzed.org.uk.

PowerSwitch.org.uk is dedicated to raising awareness of Peak Oil. More information can be found at www.powerswitch.org.uk and details on other Peak Oil events can be found (and added) at www.powerswitch.org.uk/peakoilevents

info@powerswitch.org.uk

Technorati Tags: peakoil london events energy post-carbon

Via the Creative Forum list

See also:

• London Free School
• The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
• Indymedia Film Festival 7th – 15th July
• TODAY: rampART FREE COMMUNITY CINEMA
• Prophecy, Peak Oil and the Path for the Faithful