Rampart 2.2: new building occupied, roofer needed!

from email, updated 3 April 2008:

Please note that the Naked Punch event this staurday that we advertised in the last newsletter is not happening. We don't know why, we certainly haven't been evicted.

While I'm writing I might as well update you on the progress in our new building. It now has stairs (well the first flight anyway) and a toilet (bucket to flush it) and floor boards pretty much everywhere it needs them.

-- We urgently need help with the occupation and work rota! --

Please contact us at rampart@mutualaid.org or come along to the next Monday meeting at 7pm at old Rampart, but we need help sooner than Monday!

We are also looking for people to facilitate skillsharing workshops for the weekend of the days of action for squats and autonomous spaces. Let us know if you'd like to provide a workshop.

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RampART 1 is still going (of course still under acute threat of eviction) yet our backup space Ramp Part2 which was occupied since new year’s eve was less fortunate and has been.

Undaunted by the loss of our baby Ram Part 2 (they got the IPO on the third try), we’ve already moved into a new space and have started to fix it up to have it ready for the April 11/12 days of action (more details on this in the next newsletter)!

It’s bigger, better location, with a room that has already been sound proofed! The owners have taken out all the stairs so we need help rebuilding them, and the upper floors need the boards relaying.

If you are a roofer please get in contact as the roof has a hole in it - typical, building owners that want to force council planning to accept demolishion (and build yuppie flats) by allowing the building to deteriorate. Well now we’re around to put the place to better use!

– We urgently need help with the occupation and work rota!

Please contact us at rampart@mutualaid.org or come along to the next Monday meeting at 7pm at old Rampart, but we need help sooner than Monday!

JOBS TO BE DONE OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS:
- Fix the first flight of stairs (need 13 planks 104cm long)
- Put curtains up on the first floor
- Replace the floor boards (using screws rather than nails to keep the noise down at this stage)
- Patch up broken windows to reduce draft and keep cold out
- Fix roof
- Plumbing

ROTA: email us at rampart@mutualaid.org

WISHLIST:
- Door bell
- Scaffold planks, any length over 3.5ft and lots of them
- Perspex, glass or windows
- A big piece of lino or water proof advertising banners etc for roof
- Hose, taps, sink and somebody up for doing plumbing

April 11/12 Days Of Action For Squats And Autonomous Spaces

We will be hosting some workshops and a café for the April 11/12 Days of Action.

Some of the workshop ideas that were discussed were: working with electricity, water and plumbing, gaining access and lock picking, window glazing, fitting locks, legal issues, basic DIY, repair and fixing consumer appliances, sound proofing, growing food in squats saving energy - insulation and draught proofing on zero budget, saving / harvesting water, permaculture, etc.

If you have any workshop ideas or would like to get involved, come to our regular Monday meetings at 7pm.

We’re doing a Squatters Estate Agents so if you know of any empties, take a picture, note down condition and details and email us at rampart@mutualaid.org

For more info on the April 11/12 Days of Action, visit: http://april2008.squat.net/

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// UPCOMING EVENTS AT RAMPART //
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RADICAL THEORY READING GROUP MARCH 28TH, 6:30PM

**PLEASE NOTE LOCATION CHANGE**

The group will be meeting at 170-172 Acre Lane, Brixton

Readings:

‘On Neoliberalism: An interview with David Harvey’
(http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/lilley190606.html)

‘The Art of Rent: Globalization, Monopoly and the Commodification of Culture’ (http://socialistregister.com/recent/2002/harvey2002). As usual, any problems ring Debbie at 07904759830

“When they kick out your front door, How you gonna come? With your hands on your head, Or on the trigger of your gun… etc. etc. etc.”

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MAGAZINE LAUNCH FOR NAKED PUNCH REVIEW

Saturday, March 29th, probably 8PM start

Naked Punch review will be holding a launch of Issue# 10 on Saturday night.

with:
Short performances and theatre followed by bands and dj.
Video and Cinema showcase
Art exhibition
Poetry room

Entrance £3 donation (funds towards for future publications)

Naked Punch Review is a quarterly interdisciplinary review and magazine of philosophy, art, politics and poetry run voluntarily by young, unestablished figures in those fields. Contributors have included Antonio Negri, Tariq Ali, Wim Wenders, Arthur Danto, Richard Shusterman, Simon Critchley, Walden Bello, Michael Taussig, Adonis, Mahmoud Darvish among others.The magazine was founded in 2002 by a group of young London-based thinkers.

http://www.nakedpunch.com

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// OTHER SOCIAL CENTRE EVENTS //

EVENTS AT WOMYNSPACE:

Monday:
Welding workshop 7pm - 9pm
Music Jam 8pm

Tuesday:
Welding workshop 10am - 12am
Cafe and Kids space 3pm - 9pm
Practical Herbal Skillshare 4pm - 6pm
Womyns Space Collective Meeting 7pm

Wednesday:
Stencil making 4pm - 8pm
(please bring own scalpel and acetate/cardboard if you can)
Womens Direct Action group 7.30pm

Thursday:
Cafe and Kids space 3pm - 9pm
Photoshop and software share workshop 4pm - 6.30pm
(bring own laptop if possible! But come anyways ;)
mail: jayapapaya@gmail.com
Women’s Discussion Group 6.30pm - 8.30 pm
SEE NOTICEBOARD FOR DETAILS

Friday:
Bar from 7pm

Saturday:
Cafe and Kids space 3pm - 9pm

Sunday:
Womens Health Collective

For more info, contact womenorganise@yahoo.co.uk

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*- BEHIND BARS VIII -*

Queer DIY benefit supporting: International Union of Sexworkers

29th March 08
10pm - 8am

at the Hackney Social Centre
231 Lower Clapton Road, Hackney, E5 8EG (please note: entrance is at the back door of the building)
Door donation

Live bands & acts: Juha, Spiritwo, Skitzopolis, Prolapse, Villain, Roc Roc It, Husbands, Rouge Et Noir
VJs: Oskur, Monogaze, Filippo
DJs: Fake Face, Foll@nes, PJ, Sturamsey, Cheeky Half, Lakuti, Amila, Stay B

http://www.myspace.com/behindbarsbroadcast
http://www.iusw.org
http://www.hackneysocialcentre.blogspot.com

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// OTHER EVENTS IN LONDON //
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TRADE UNION AND COMMUNITY CONFERENCE AGAINST IMMIGRATION CONTROLS

SATURDAY 29th MARCH 2008 10.30am - 5pm

SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H,
Tube: Russell Square, buses: 7, 68, 169

Speakers include John McDonnell MP, trade union activists, and people
who successfully fought back against the immigration system

Called by Finsbury Park RMT

Supported by Piccadilly & West RMT, Camden RMT, Central London GMB, UNITE-T&G 1647 Branch (Catering & Domestic Workers), Ilford & Romford UNITE-AMICUS, Clerkenwell & St. Pancras UNITE-AMICUS, Liverpool University UCU, Liverpool Trades Council, Brent Trades Council, Brighton & Hove Trades Council, Bolivian Solidarity Campaign, Ecuadorian Movement in the UK, No One is Illegal, Papers for All, London No Borders, Global Afrikan Congress UK, LTRC Black & Ethnic Members, Latin Front, Latin Community Association, Nottinghamshire Stop the BNP, No Sweat, Leicester Civil Rights Movement, Leicester Social Forum and more

Info/contacts:
http://www.29thmarch.org.uk

e-mail: davidlandau9@aol.com
tel: 07956 133450 (English) or 07818 6 7192 (Spanish)

Post: Immigration Conference, Dean O’Hanlon, RMT, Unity House, 39
Chalton Street, Euston, London NW1 1JD.

- Every day people are being detained and deported.
- Every day people are being denied education, health care, the right to work and thrown into destitution because of their immigration status.
- Every day people are paid peanuts and made to work in life threatening conditions by unscrupulous employers because of their immigration status.
- Every day people die trying to cross borders.
- Every day Immigration Officers raid people’s homes at dawn and raid migrants at work.

And it is getting worse with new legislation requiring employers to regularly check papers of ‘foreigners’.

BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS! If we get together in our workplaces and our communities we can stop this.

To make this happen trade unionists and community activists need to get together to share experiences, develop tactics and networks, find ways of winning trade unions and other organisations to fight these pernicious controls and say No One is Illegal!

So come along to the conference and make this happen.

There will be plenary sessions and workshops and with plenty of time for discussion, including:

- Resisting immigration controls in the workplace
- Access to education, social services, housing & health
- Resisting deportation
- Resisting low pay and poor conditions
- Domestic work
- Transport industry and immigration controls

There will be a creche. Please let us know if you will be bringing children.

** BENEFIT GIG AFTERWARDS **

No Borders London presents:

LONDON CALLING!

An evening of acoustic political sounds following the Second Trade Union
and Community Conference against Immigration Controls

Sat 29th March, 6pm - midnight

@ The Ivy House pub, 8-10 Southampton Row, WC1B 4AE (next to Holborn tube)

Featuring sets from:
* PJ and Gaby
* Neil Sutherland
* Kelly Kemp
plus more tbc.

Free entry/donations welcome.

http://noborderslondon.blogspot.com

RECLAIM YOUR FOOD, SUNDAYS IN FRONT OF THE RITZY IN BRIXTON, STARTING AT 3PM

Come for free food and a bike maintenance workshop, in front of the Ritzy in Brixton, every Sunday at 3pm

FOSSIL FUELS DAY OF ACTION

Tuesday April 1st
http://www.fossilfoolsdayofaction.org

*Funeral for coal in Parliament square, London*
Meet at 11 AM in Parliament Square
The People & Planet network invites you to join us at an action and mass lobby. We will be building a coal power station complete with 12ft cooling towers in Westminster, while people dressed in Jesters hats and Gordon Brown masks will ‘burn’ a mock Climate Change Bill.
Contact james.lloyd@peopleandplanet.org for more information.
http://www.peopleandplanet.org/nonewcoal

*Protest circus for a coal Fossil Fool, London*
Meet 8 AM at 1 Victoria Street (nearest tube: St. James’s Park)
The London World Development Movement groups are co-ordinating a hilarious protest outside the Department for Enterprise Business and Regulatory Reform (or BERR) to laugh at the minister for business, John Hutton. John Hutton is currently set to make a right fool of the government’s climate policy if he signs off on EON’s new Kingsnorth power station. Everyone’s welcome to join in the collective hilarity and to demand Hutton takes the Kingsnorth decision very seriously. There will be a real circus feel, with jugglers, clowns and acrobats, so don’t hesitate to bring juggling balls or wear your squeaky nose or silly hat.
Protest starts at 8am and will be over in time for you to be at work.
Contact Rachel on 0207 8204900 for more information.
http://www.stopkingsnorth.org

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