Dates for your diary from the October meeting

Here are dates for your diary and news updates following our meeting last week in the Fire Station.

In brief:

• Thurs 3^rd Nov- Student outreach at Bristol Academy  1:45pm
• Sat 5^th Nov – Stall at SouthBank Club Market (TBC)
• Thurs 10^th Nov – DATE OF NEXT MEETING, Cornubia
• Sat 12^th/Sun 13^th Nov – Rainbow Warrior, West India Docks
• Sun 13^th Nov - NVDA training day Sunday 13th November
• Sat 19^th Nov - Stall on Gloucester Road (TBC)
• Sat 3^rd Dec  - Stall at Xmas Fair (either Create Centre or Harbourside)
• Wed 7^th Dec - Student outreach at Wiltshire College,  Lackham Campus
• Sat 17^th Dec – Stall at Stokes Croft Xmas Fayre

If you can help at any of the above dates get in touch!    The main contact is Richard:  r.lancaster@blueyonder.co.uk  / 07505 990595.  

In detail:

Thurs 3^rd Nov & Weds 7^th Dec -  Talks to Schools & Colleges

Can anyone can spare a lunchtime to chat to students about Greenpeace campaigns?  We have been invited to have stalls at two venues next month.

City of Bristol Academy is organising a campaign awareness day for our year 11’s - the session will be on Thurs 3rd Nov at 1:45pm and will involve other groups from the community. There will be 75+ students aged 15-16. 

Wiltshire College based in Chippenham is running a Carbon Road show at Lackham Campus on Weds  7th Dec.

Sun 13^th Nov - NVDA Training Day

If you would like to attend NVDA please contact me (Richard Lancaster) ASAP.

Currently booked on the course from Bristol are Richard, Ian,  Begoña, Roz, Aisha and Danai - we also have people coming from Swansea, Nottingham and Poole.  Those travelling from outside Bristol might need to stay over the previous evening so if anybody is able to offer a bed or even some floor space on the night of Sat 12th November for one or two people please could you let me know.  Also let me know if you are able to help in the training day.

This training day is a pre-requisite to involvement in Greenpeace's non-violent direct actions.  The one-day basic training provides an opportunity, through discussion and practical exercises, to explore non-violence, a Greenpeace core value. It covers various concepts, basic techniques and behaviours but does not cover handling equipment or more advanced NVDA techniques. The different types of actions, how to behave when arrested and Greenpeace support systems for volunteers are all explained. 

Sat 12^th/Sun 13^th Nov – Rainbow Warrior, West India Docks

Rainbow Warrior III will be in London on the weekend of 12th/13th November and if you would like to have a guided tour you will need to book in advance here – times are from 10am-4pm both days:-

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/rwiii2011

In the last meeting we watched some short videos showing the building and recent launching of the new Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior III.  If you haven’t seen the videos one of them can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-0vgJhDSgo

Various Dates - Stalls 

Sat 5^th Nov – SouthBank Club Market (TBC)

Sat 19^th Nov - Gloucester Road

Sat 3^rd Dec  -  Xmas Fair (either Create Centre or Harbourside TBC)

Sat 17^th Dec – Stokes Croft Xmas Fayre

The Oceans campaign is ongoing  - we need your help to inspire visitors to our stalls to write or draw messages to the Prime Minister urging him to support the reforms we need.

And from 19^th November we will also be running the second phase of the Volkswagen campaign – there may be costumes!   So, if you can help on any dates get in touch  r.lancaster@blueyonder.co.uk

Thurs 10^th Nov – DATE OF NEXT MEETING, Cornubia

Next meeting is at Cornubia on Thursday 10th November at 7:30pm http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/groups/bristol-east/event/greenpeace-bristol-east-meeting-thursday-10th-november

Other news from meeting

Welcome to New Members

We started the meeting by doing a few introductions and welcoming in some new faces – Jo from Stroud and Aisha, Danai and Albert from Bristol.

Publicising Greenpeace with the Matthew

We have an opportunity to make use of the Matthew in Bristol .  This is the replica of the ship John Cabot sailed in to Newfoundland over 500 years ago ( http://www.matthew.co.uk/).  The skipper approached Lauren and Ian  at the Harbourside market and suggested we might be able to do something to help publicise Greenpeace.  So ideas please – we don’t know what we are being offered but hopefully it will involve a trip round the harbour and/or some time on board with it moored up and some musical entertainment.  Cordelia is following up our ideas with the skipper.

We also wondered if we could link it in some way to the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the forming of Greenpeace.  15th September 2011 marked the actual day but we are being encouraged to do things all year and Head Office are making various resources available.  Please have a look here at this taster of the sort of things they are producing http://bit.ly/oGuKqM

Barbie

Barbie’s maker Mattel has just announced that it as instructed suppliers to avoid wood fibre from companies that are know to be involved in deforestation.  This is great news – for the full story see here:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/mattel-and-barbie-drop-defores...

Oceans

Greenpeace have  launched the next phase of our Common Fisheries Policy campaign – see here: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/oceans

Tar Sands

I now have a copy of the Tar Sands DVD Petropolis (http://www.petropolis-film.com/ ) which has striking aerial footage of the scale of destruction caused by extracting oil in the Alberta tar sands in Canada – running time is 45 mins - please think of ways we can use it.

Volkswagen

Information about the winter phase of the Volkswagen campaign arrived shortly after the meeting.  We are moving into the next phase of the VW campaign during the winter months and want  to organize the following from 19^th/20^th Nov running through to February:

• High street information points, featuring Stormtrooper costumes to get the public to complete action cards to return to Canonbury to send through to VW HQ.
• Campaign themed events with Stormtroopers and the VW films produced during the campaign so far.
• Stalls/events that we have planned after 19^th/20^th November can be VW-themed but we need other event ideas...!

The Europe wide campaign was launched on 28 June involving several Greenpeace offices, including the UK, France, Spain, Belgium, Greece and Germany. The campaign launched with a video http://www.vwdarkside.com/en which explains how VW is blocking necessary action on climate change.  Over 420,000 Jedi have so far signed up to help us turn VW away from the Dark Side.

That probably covers it! 

You can always add a comment below if anything has been missed out.