Ideas (Launch report)

Launch report, 27th March 2004:
programme | workshops | indymedia lab | film room | ideas | feedback | media | finance | summing up

Big Ideas

One aim of the day was to have one BIG idea from each workshop.

Health:  For progressive forces to embrace the issue of health as a cause. More money, salaries, resources etc to fund care.

NVDA:  NVDA contact list to help organise direct action events.

Poverty in Sheffield:  Mayday protest against loan sharks and to promote credit unions, community loan schemes and financial awareness.

Sheffield Dreams

There was also space to write ideas on what people wanted to Sheffield to be or to see in Sheffield with no restrictions.

• A city with more diverse nightlife including Amsterdam style coffeshops!
• Large scale water feature in front of railway station
• A large market (Carbrook style)
• A city with pavement cafes in appropriate seasons.
• Become a fair trade city & sweatshop free
• Fully pedestrianised city centre.
• Free public space for graffitti artists, legalizing graffiti and establishing a few rules for free access, which might imply changing current regulations.
• Council to run their fleet on bio diesel/vegetable oil
• Fewer cars (more pirates!)
• Buses that do run, cheap and often!
• More safe bike lanes
• Major cycleway (like a motorway) from new estates in south of Sheffield to Cty Centre.
• Sustainable development only
• A city that respects human rights of people living now and the generations that come after us.
• A city where foreign languages are taught in schools.
• A city with more natives from all countries in the world.
• A city who understands what Copernicus meant.
• No loan sharks, PLC or otherwise.
• An ethical loan company.
• Unity of ALL activists, campaigners, politico’s, religions and community groups – DREAM ON!
• Social forum online calendar.
• Democracy café.
• Women’s safe space/café.
• Smokers safe space/café.
• A service for ‘angry’ men who are perhaps physically violent to help support them to change.
• A service for 'angry' children and wommen who are perhaps physically or socially violent to help support them to change.
• Channel violence into art, including illegal art forms such as graffiti.
• Radical bookshop.
• Collective Indymedia and SSF library, where books, CDs, etc. might be borrowed by members in exchange for other books deposited at the library.
• LGBT centre.
• 100% recycling = zero waste.
• Breakfasts for schoolkids from poor backgrounds.
• More involvement in deciding where council money goes.
• More involvement without stress or excessive encouragement.
• .... More respect for DREAMS Versus facts, for FEELINGS versus data, for THOUGHT versus speed, for TIME versus profit, for Poetry versus Bureaucracy.
• At least One Big celebration similar to the Lantern Parade, in midsommer, with lots of fire-jumping, etc, (which might already be a regularly established event, then to make it bigger). One big happening to the benefit of Waste (Yes, since there could be no recycling without Waste, necessary for a sense of Festivity, abundance and challenge to nature).