If you do not want further news from Unite! then to be removed from our circulation list simply send an email to  unite@unisonfree.net.

This email contains information on the following:

… News that our web site is up and invites you to contribute to its development.
… Reminds you of our open forum meeting on organising to be held on Monday 13 May.
… Seeks your urgent support with publicity/sponsorship of our 'beating racism' forum.

Unite! the Hackney community and workers coalition now has a functioning web site. While certain sections remain 'under construction' it will soon become a community resource. The address is www.unitehackney.org

You can help in its development by sending us details of events for a forthcoming 'diary' page. This can be campaigning events, public meetings, celebrations or anything else that members of the community may be interested in.

Secondly, we want to develop our links page. If your group or organisation has a web page outlining your views, scope of activity, etc., please forward a short introduction and your web address. We welcome links from all groups active within the community, including campaigning, faith, political, cultural and small commercial enterprises. Whatever you do this is another opportunity to give Hackney people the opportunity to find out about you.

How you can help
Please forward all comments, links and updates to  unite@unisonfree.net

Organising

Our open discussion and networking forum will be held at St Luke's Church Homerton Terrace, off Morning Lane E9, on Monday 13 at 6pm. Please be prompt as the meeting will start on time and it will be over by 7.30pm. There is disabled access to the meeting room. To help us anticipate attendance please indicate by return if you intend to attend.

The main discussions will be;

… Publicising the Stephen Lawrence; public forum to be held on 11 June,7.30 p.m., at the Bullion rooms.
… Drop the debt campaign.
… Estates committees; save our cleaners.
… Rights at work group/Public services alliance.
… Networking and fundraising.

How you can help
Bring yourself and your ideas to the forum, alternatively send us your ideas and we can circulate them in advance

Combating racism and fascism- public debate and forum. 11 June 2002
Our meeting on 11 June, 7.30 p.m., at the Bullion rooms could not be more appropriate. The electoral breakthrough of the National Front in France, and the success of the BNP in Burnley, are ominous warnings. Jean Marie Le Pen, famously dismissed the horror and genocide of Hitler's Nazi concentration camps as 'a mere detail of history'. The BNP, which in Burnley now has three democratically elected councillors, was the organisation that provided a 'political education' to David Copeland, the Nazi sympathiser who bombed Brixton and Brick lane, and finally killed in the Admiral Nelson pub in Soho.


Last week, a Jewish synagogue in Hackney was vandalised by adherents of racist and fascist ideology. The very real threat of organised racism and its relationship with the 'respectability' and tolerance of institutionalised racism was a central theme of the report into the murder of Steven Lawrence, and the debate, which arose out of it.

Our meeting will be graced by confirmed speakers Diane Abbott MP, and Roger McKenzie from the TUC, as well as less well known activists who are at the 'coal face' of fighting racism; rank and file black trade union activists, and community representatives.

We hope the forum will lead to the establishment of a permanent community forum dedicated to auditing the institutions within our community, both challenging and helping them to achieve compliance with the obligation not to discriminate.


How you can help
We need support to publicise this initiative. Hackney has a proud history of challenging racism, but it is a tradition that must be constantly remade.

Please ensure that the event is listed in 'agenda' pages of sympathetic newsletters, etc.
Please forward ideas of where we can circulate posters/flyers advertising the event.
We are keen to have community groups formally sponsor the event (this involves no more than committing to publicise the event and to getting some members to attend, a small contribution to the costs would also be appreciated.


Thanks for your support.