March 2004 Minutes

This page is an archive of minutes from March 2004. Click here to go back to the main meetings page.

Minutes 18th March
Apple logies:

Alison, Natasha, SJ, Richard Lee, Jez

Kev: noted there's a funding fair on

Tuesday 23rd 11-2 Quaker meeting house

Kev said he'd be going along, just to check it out, maybe meet some interesting people. People

were aware of the problems surrounding funding, but worth just testing the water...

Workshops:

Kev: Richard told him that the Pakistani Advice Centre are most likely to get involved in a workshop with the theme of regeneration. At the mo, they're feeling very excluded from the whole thing, despite efforts to get involved.

Dave: Had a big problem with the No Borders workshop in its present format. Much discussion on this, e.g. Cuthbert: whether to tie in with civil liberties Dan: could involve nuts n bolts discussion of problems related to private landlords housing asylum seekers

Nobody seemed sure whether the Northern Refugee Centre or ASSIST would be involved.

Politics and Power eventually became 'local power and politics', so that it could fit with a later workshop that would be around Nine Ladies and Mansfield Woodhouse.

Dave: argued that the power and politics workshop was the standard bearer.

The Running a campaign workshop: didn't look like we had anyone for this one! The only options, perhaps, were Steve's contacts at Nine Ladies and Woodhouse, but Steve wasn't happy about these issues being subsumed, and argued that they were very live, large and important local issues that were coming to the crunch point.

Steve also point out the way in which these campaigns revealed a huge amount about the corrupt workings of local councils and organisations; hence why it was suggested to connect in some way to the power and politics workshop.

Alex (Nunn, Centre for Public Services): Is there a local Defend Council Housing group? No-one knew.

On how to get feedback from the day, some ideas were:

The final plenary to be broken into two: First half hour, break down into groups Second half hour, feed back and close

Jeff: the first half hour could have TASKS e.g. what was the most divisive issue of the day? What was the one that joined people in the groups together?

Dave: From each workshop, get people to take out 'one big idea' from it, and bring it this half hour session.

Steve and Alice: both thought that there should still be SOME space in the last session for workshop ideas that may have emerged during the day. (There was less certainty on exactly how this would work, but the general consensus was that it would involve large pieces of paper somewhere along the line.)

Alice: CAN had agreed to do a workshop on Creative Action for Social and Political Change - Mat had requested a video player to show a video of the original lantern festival.

Alice: the plan for the day NEEDS to include a plan for future participation. (Dan noted that him and SJ had been talking about doing work on this, but that it hadn't happened yet. Hoped to do something on Saturday.)

Minutes 11th March
Apologies: Cuthbert, Jeff, Dave H

In Attendence: Dan, Kev, Sarah Jane, Dave T, Alice

(Unfortunately due to communication breakdown, we couldn't use the New Roots Cafe and the meeting relocated to Sharrow.)


 * 1) Publicity and Press
 * 2) Kev produced a poster and it was discussed in terms of visual impact, and the draw of the information presented. It was agreed that the colour version was much better and that we should try to get at least a few of these for posting around the city centre.  Various other comments were passed to Kev, though it was considered that poster design was not best done by committee.
 * 3) We discussed the possibility for producing a double sided A5 leaflet with CAN Lantern Carnival on one side. It was agreed that partly because one side would be obsolete before the other, but mainly because we though a double sided leaflet just for info about SSF would be valuable, not to go ahead with this.
 * 4) It was noted that Jase and Alison were doing some anti war leafletting Saturday and we should get some print to them by then. Also, Dave T offered to give out flyers at Stuff't Olive on Friday night.
 * 5) Discussed utilising lantern carnival photo opps and press releases to name SSF event (e.g. simply including the sentence 'CAN which grew out of SSF, launching on 27th of March) and thought it was a good idea. Alice thought CAN folks would probably be okay with that and, I think, Dan was to get in touch with Collette about it.
 * 6) We discussed our own press strategy and basically left it til nearer the time on the grounds that you need to send them out three to four days before the event (or by the Monday before for weeklies. See press info  here.
 * 7) Food
 * Agreed that our number one plan at the moment is to get New Roots doing a food stall. However, Dave T is getting in touch with some not-for-profit caterers to see if they can do anything at such short notice.
 * 1) Music and Poetry
 * Question-marks raised over some of the musicians previously touted for lunchtime entertainment. Agreed that that should be open for networking and therefore we shouldn't provide too much distraction. Dave T said he'd try to get in touch with musicians who would be willing to play gentle background stuff.  Alternatively, we could have recorded music, though there's obviously extra equipment required.  Dave T also mentioned asking the Buddhist Punk along.
 * 1) Workshops
 * We worked through the various workshop titles, agreeing changes and discussing various possibilities. I haven't got any notes for what we decided on, but Dan has, so watch this space for updates.

As usual, apologies for what's missing, feel free to add to this.

End. Peaceprotester 12:53, 12 Mar 2004 (GMT)

Minutes 4th March
Apologies: Kev Dave SJ

Only three of us at this meeting - Dan, Alison and Chris Croome.

My notes are a bit shoddy, but some things covered were:

1. Getting some films shown on the day

2. Have a workshop or space for: a) Indymedia - getting community groups that are present to write up and post a story. b) Open source software

3. Workshops: Alison pushed the fact that we NEED to get the day plan nailed down, and work out who is doing what. Themes covered were: Public services and privatisation No borders, civil liberties etc (we did cover others, but they're not in my notes!)

4. Getting a table of literature there - Chris thought of Nick n Helen

Er... doesn't seem to be anything else in my notes!

Dan