Grassroots Gathering Three.

The third gathering took place in Belfast in October 02. I can't find the blurb that advertised it in advance but when I do I'll put it up here. See below for accounts of what went on.

Third Grassroots Gathering

The Grassroots Gathering in Belfast:

Oct 25-28 2002

@ Giros, 1/5 Donegal Lane, Belfast

The 3rd Grassroots Gathering: The third GrassrootsGathering takes place in Belfast from the 25th - 28th of October 2002(A Bank Holiday weekend in the Republic). It's happening at Giros.The Belfast GG kicks of with a 'critical mass' action on Friday the25th meeting at City Hall at 5.30pm (so bring your bike if you can).

Workshops & discussions will take placethroughout Saturday & Sunday. There are planned around 20workshops, on issues such as gender, direct action, Sellafield,Peoples Global Action, Media Activism, creating social spaces,European Social Consulta, Anti-war Actions. There will beentertainment throughout the weekend with films, games & music(Giros hosts Irelands only d.i.y. venue 'the Centre'). Monday the28th has been set-aside for Actions, which will be planned over theweekend.

Accommodation (crash space) is available, therewill be kids activities, wholesome, tasty, & cheap vegan foodwill be provided. Please contact us & tell us your coming so wehave an idea how many people to expect.

If you have any special dietary/accommodationneeds please contact us so we can accommodate you. Giros disabledaccess is not good if you have special needs please contact us inadvance & we will try to work something out.

Over the weekend volunteers will be needed forvarious task, specifically cooking & helping with kidsactivities. If you'd like to volunteer in advance that would begreat.

Contact:

Grassroots Gathering
C/o Giros
1-5 Donegal Lane
Belfast

grassrootsbelfast@yahoo.com

07759598798
(00447759598798 from ROI)

To find Giros (thevenue, our DIY social centre), you first find the front of the CityHall, walk down that road as far as the Belfast Telegraph building(near the cathedral), turn left, past the Irish News (right), pastthe statue of Lenin (left) until you come to a pub with a tackyflashing red neon sign called the Front Page. Opposite this is analleyway, and down here is Giros.


Where Giros is in Belfast - click on the map for a muchbigger image

On Friday 25th, we kick off with a critical massat the front of City Hall at 5.30, followed by a meeting aboutupcoming anti-war actions at 7pm in Giros, where people can registerfor accomodation.

Sat 26th and Sun 27th, we start at 11 am, andfinish at 6 pm, with three rounds of three workshops each. This isfollowed by general partying. Food is available cheap from the Cafe,supervised play activities for kids is organised, etc. etc. Mon 28this our Food Not Bombs launch, so there's a bit of action, too.

The list of workshops (not comprehensive)is:

Sat:

Direct Action against War
Collectives and Cooperatives
Students against Fees
Campaign against Sellafield
Workers' Control and Sectarianism
Media and Communication
European Social Consulta
Forest Gardening
Shannon Warport

Sun:

Collectives and Social Centres
Arrest and Interrogation
Legal Issues
Reclaim the Streets!
Direct Democracy in the Russian Revolution
Radical Walking Tour of Belfast
People's Global Action
Gender Workshop
Direct Action

More about the Grassroots gathering

 

Grassroots Gathering Mark III - Another Great Success

The weekend of the 26th-27th of October saw over 120 anarchists and other libertarian activists converge on Belfast in a place called Giro's, which is a spacious social centre that is home to the Belfast Youth and Community Group (BYCG). The centre proved to be the perfect surroundings for the gathering, with its café, office space, library and hall making it entirely conducive to political and social interaction, i.e. eating together, getting drunk and shouting about politics.

But aside from that, many concrete plans and ideas emerged from the many workshops during the two days, including the formation of a grassroots network against the war, based on regional structures, the possible staging of Reclaim The Streets Belfast, and the suggestion to hold the next People's Global Action conference in Ireland. In fact the only problem that seemed to occur was that of two or more interesting workshops coinciding and the sheer lack of time to attend everything.

A special word of thanks has to go out to the Belfast crew for all their hard work and the organisation of this, the third Grassroots Gathering. It was a roaring success thanks to their hospitality and meticulous attention to detail!

The next Grassroots Gathering will take place in Limerick on Patrick's Day weekend in 2003. In the meantime, stay tuned for details on local actions and come to Shannon Warport to protest on the 8th of December!

Cliona

Grassroots Gathering In Belfast.

The highly successful 3rd Grassroots Gathering brought together over one hundred environmentalists, anarchists, and other assorted troublemakers from across the island and beyond. There were almost 20 different workshops on a wide variety of topics including Gender, Direct Action, Social Centres, Reclaim the Streets, Sectarianism, and Forest Gardens.

It took place in Giros, which has been a democratically managed social centre in Belfast, with gigs, meetings, a cafe, a darkroom, a library, and in all probability much more, since back when The Cure were fashionable. The highpoint of the workshops was for me, and many others, the "Arrest and Interrogation" one. This was introduced by a member of the Cork Anarchist Alliance, and was pretty much free of waffle, with a down to earth sharing of experiences, mistakes and lessons learned. Apart from no comment, no comment and no comment, important points included the need to talk to arrested persons afterward, as there maybe some trauma, and the importance of not bring information providing things such as ID, notebooks, or switched on mobiles to situations where you may be arrested. Police intelligence gathering and harassment were also talked about.

Given the international situation, unsurprisingly talk about the war took up a lot of time. One excellent workshop was introduced by the Shannon plane spotters of Refuelling Peace. The discussion following this was mostly about schemes to establish a peace camp at Shannon, creating a democratic anti–war network and a call for a further demonstration at Shannon warport. These proposals were then taken to the Morning meeting, i.e. to all folk at Grassroots, not just attendees at one workshop (or at least everyone who had got out of bed).