Sorry We have moved

We are now at www.occupybristoluk.org    

Occupy Bristol statement about Remembrance Sunday

The military organise Remembrance Day events, and they have communicated with us through our police liaison officer on this issue. The military are happy that we are not in the way and they are completely happy with us staying where we are during Remembrance Day. As we expected, it takes more than a few tents to unnerve the British forces.

They have asked us to observe the minute’s silence, and respect the event. We have assured them that we will. We have never had any intention to do anything else. 

This year, as every year, on Remembrance Day itself, the main ceremony takes place at the Cenotaph. The paths near the cathedral – not College Green itself – are used to line up before the parade. College Green is used by members of the public who want to watch the parade, and that can happen as normal this year.

Many of us have lost relatives in wars and we have the utmost respect for their sacrifices. Some of us have served in the British Armed Forces, have lost colleagues and been injured. They will be joining the other members of the public, laying a wreath at the Cenotaph, after the formal ceremonies are complete.

We hope this clears up any worries or confusion.

*Photo by Dan Holton

A view from an occupier:

My name is Nima. I am 30 years old. I am a mental health support worker. I speak only for myself, I do not represent the camp.

I am here because I believe there is no alternative. The global financial system is in structural crisis. Governments are no longer responding to to the challenges we face as individuals in our communities, as a country or globally. We are in the midst of a downward spiral of a number of crises, financial, economic,
environmental, political and social.

We seek to create a real democracy where we can learn together how to respond to the challenges we are facing. Together we are creating a space through joint agreement, planning and activity. We are learning new skills, developing new abilities and rich human relationships based on trust, care equality and cooperation.

This is a movement in its infancy and we need, as it were, to learn to walk before we can run. We hope that people will realise they are not alone in their struggle to survive this recession and that here is an inclusive space for their voices to be heard. We seek to create a broad based mainstream movement.

Dry camp announcement

Our presence in College Green has brought us face-to-face with significant poverty-related social problems in the city – alcohol and drug abuse, anti-social behavior and mental ill-health. While we want to tackle and change the issues at the heart of these problems we cannot begin this if we our camp is insecure, occupiers feel threatened or those visiting the site get the wrong idea about who weare and what our aims are. We also cannot build a representative group if women feel unsafe to stay overnight at the site. This means sexist, threatening or offensive behavior must be dealt with swiftly.

We have decided as a camp that we can no longer have any drinking on site, we intend to be a ‘Dry’ site.

Those who cannot do this must leave. We will contact the police if necessary.

If you have a drug or alcohol problem, and would like to come back while you are sober, you are very welcome. We do not have the expertise to help you, but welcome your support and will welcome you at the camp whilst you remain sober.

A view from an Occupier

I am a individual occupier who does not speak for the a camp.

My name is Stefan. I am 37 years old. I am an IT consultant. I have three children and it is because of concerns for their future that I am here. I can afford the time. I am successful and have a small mortgage.
I believe that the situation in the world is very serious and that it is the result of powerful interests in Wall Street the money markets and other places manipulating our democracies in their own self interest and effectively having staged a coup. These people are criminals and we need to remove their hands from the levers of power before we can begin the the difficult task of reconstruction.
We have a rising population, dangerous environmental degradation, climate change, loss of soil fertility, peak oil, and now the collapse of our economies and financial integrity. This amounts to a perfect storm and our political elites are unable or unwilling to confront it. Meanwhile the 1% are steadily increasing their wealth and influence and driving us deeper into crisis.
The majority need to come together, as we are doing here, to discuss a a way forward that is in the interests of the many, not the few.

The Capitalist Bloc speaks

Image for illustration, not today’s schedule

I am a individual occupier who does not speak for the a camp.

Dear Sir/Madam

I’d like to point out that the BBC’s constant labelling of the Occupy Movement as ‘anti capitalist protesters’ is inaccurate. I support the movement 100% but along with a huge amount of other supporters, I am not against capitalism , just very aware that it needs huge structural changes.

I feel that your labelling of protesters in such a way paints a picture of trouble makers rather than people from all walks of life who are trying to come up with new ways to improve the economy, environment, health care, education and democracy for all, unlike the true trouble-making corporations, banks and governments who are doing the opposite.

I’ve had huge respect for the BBC for all of my 33 years and always considered it the most balanced and trustworthy media source in the world. So it brings me great sadness that an occasion has arisen which has prompted me to send a complaint. I sincerely hope this phase is just a glitch and not a sign of things to come.

Yours sincerely

Daniel Bromley

Working Group Proposal

Tomorrow a proposal to establish Autonomous working groups will be taken to the 7pm meeting. It is anticipated that it will be uncontentious. (You never know with consensus though!)

The proposers hope that by having a clearer structure it will be easier for our supporters who are not able to stay on camp to engage. The proposal is to establish a number of working groups who will meet regularly at 7pm to plan & get on with work. The proposal is for the following groups to form:

Aims/ Big Picture /Strategy

• A place to discuss what the occupy movement is going to achieve, and how.
•  A good place to start for people coming for the first time.

Infrastructure

• Oversight of construction
• Site planning arrangement of camping space/ working space
• Power supply
• Tent, path & Structure maintenance

Health and Site Safety

• First aid
• Stewarding
• Safe spaces policy implimentation & amends
• Bedding, clothes, tents
• Sanitation – recycling, portaloo, hygiene

Publicity/Outreach

• Creation of leaflets/flyers
• Oversight of Signage
• Maintenance of welcome desk

Kitchen- Food and water

• Maintenance of Kitchen
• Oversight of kitchen rota
• Sources food and water

Communications/Media

• Maintenance of internet resources- email, facebook, twitter, website
• Liaising with the media
• Media lens – monitoring local, national, and international news with particular reference to the occupy movement

Facilitation/Process/Analysis/

• Facilitating communication between different working groups
• Planning and facilitating camp and general assemblies
• Maintenance and oversight of information point

Lawful/Legal/Finance and Donations

• Dealing with external agencies
•  Offering lawful/legal advice to working groups
•  Oversight of Finances and donations

The idea is that these working groups can then feedback on their work & make proposals to the Wed/ Sat general assemblies.

Weekly Structure Proposal

A proposal is being taken to the 7pm meeting tomorrow to use the following as a rough outline. This is clearly subject to change.

Monday

10 am – Camp meeting.

7pm – Concurrent Working group meetings

Tuesday

10 am – Camp meeting

8pm – 11pm Open mic night

Wednesday

10 am – Camp meeting.

7pm – General Assembly

Thursday

10 am – Camp meeting.

7pm – Concurrent Working group meetings

Friday

10 am – Camp meeting.

7pm – Concurrent Working group meetings

Saturday

1pm General Assembly

2-5pm Fun day

Sunday

Day of rest

The Process is partly the Point

 

I am a individual occupier who does not speak for the a camp.

I feel that we are an experiment, not a protest. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Whilst I do feel that there is big picture stuff, external to the camp that we can and will change, I personally feel that it is just as important for us demonstrate alternative and effective ways of doing things.

One of the things that sets us apart from many of the structures we are challenging, is our consensus decision making process. One of the important things about this is that it means everyone gets listened to. Whilst this can be a difficult and time consuming process it is also a really interesting one to be involved with.

The meeting we ran on Thursday night was a fairly mixed example this. The meeting went on for a long time, and eventually no decision was reached. So it failed as a decision making process. But, compared to some early meetings, it was still orderly and people were genuinely listening to each other and people with a wide range of views were contributing, and were heard. I am heartened by the discussions we have been having today around creating relatively autonomous working groups, who will just go and get stuff done. We are learning and developing both our skills and our processes all the time.

The big picture (of trying to make a better world) and the small picture (of all trying to get along in camp, using a consensus decision making process) seem more and more intertwined. We cannot move forward unless we do genuinely listen do all views, and throw them into the mix of looking for solutions. This is what we’re trying to do every day. And perhaps the failure of present systems is that they don’t do that, but simply marginalise views that don’t fit.

Solidarity with the Global Movement

We have been somewhat focused over the last couple of days on our local political situation. This should not detract from the fact that we are a global movement, with global aspirations. We stand together in Solidarity with:

OccupyBath 
OccupyBournemouth
OcccupyBirmingham
OccupyLondon
OccupyNottingham
OccupyManchester
OccupyEdinburgh
OccupyGlasgow

It seems we missed some occupations from this list. And there is a more complete list here http://www.occupybritain.co.uk/

Some Occupiers in the UK have been working on new models of democracy that utilise the Information and communication technologies that are now available to us. In particular they have been working on a direct democracy platform that may enable us to produce a Manifesto

In addition the Global Occupy movement is a creative and artistic endevour, as evidenced by http://occupywriters.com & http://occupydesign.org/

We are at the early stages of working at global level but there are 1769 cities listed here who have arranged meetups. http://www.occupytogether.org/  We stand in solidarity with each and every one of them. In particular our sympathies extend to our fellow occupiers who have suffered state violence at their occupations.

Authored by one of Occupy Bristol. Views expressed here may or may not be representative of the group.