INTRO


The Groene Voltage was a squatted social centre in Rotterdam. It was situated five minutes from Central Station in a residential area, beside a busy road which leads to the ring and the motorway. It stood on the corner of a block and the four floors above it were also squatted separately as residential space for six people.


It lasted for almost exactly one year, from October 2006 to October 2007. The eviction was not contested, but rather the keys were handed back to the owners (a housing corporation called PWS - Patrimoniums Woningstichting) because they had announced their intention to renovate the entire building. We had on the whole a good relationship with PWS and thus when they showed us the building plans we left. It is currently being stripped before being converted into flats.


WHAT WE DID


The space was an old shop. We had at our disposal a front room with plate glass windows looking onto a small paved area beside the busy road, a back room, a storage room and a kitchen. There was also a cellar the size of the whole ground floor, but unfortunately it was flooded by ground water and thus not really functional. We had to pump it out twice.


What we planned to do was to use the front room for events which other people were welcome to organise and from within our collective to organise a cafe, a film night, an infoshop, a free shop and a free internet space.


All of these activities were planned as political, nonprofit activities. Our stance was anticapitalist and our intention was to politicise the people of Rotterdam and make links to the local community. We also wanted to provide a space for our small scene to meet and socialise. I think our unspoken intentions were to see if we could build something we needed in Rotterdam ourselves and to see if we could work together as a group. All of us must have seen the potential of the project and have been interested to see where it would go.


After trying a few variations, we ended up with the free shop (weggeefwinkel) in the backroom and in the front room we had a bar, a computer corner with free internet, the infoshop and zinelibrary and some sofas and tables. On a typical week we were open two or three nights a week and one afternoon.



WHAT WE ACHIEVED


Not counting a summer pause when we stopped activities for a while, every week we had a cafe on Thursdays serving cheap vegan food. It was called Braaksmaak and for six months before had been running nomadically, cooking at a different squat every two weeks. Most times the food was at 7 and at 9 there was a political theme. This took many forms including a talk on sustainability, a G8 Dissent Network infoavond and presentations from various activist groups.



Any profit from the cafe normally went to support the theme of that night, so we gave (some) money to a group campaign for better treatment of immigrants, a countryside squat, an Indymedia film and many other projects. The cafe did not always make money. I'm still not really sure how that happened. Probably there was money stolen once or twice and also (too many) drinks were given away for free - which was pretty stupid when we sold them so cheap anyways.



The film night showed some great films like Darwin's Nightmare and End of Suburbia but it never really took off. The night was moved from Tuesday to Sunday and then back again, but it did not really help. Only when the night was tied to other meetings did it get more people.



The infoshop came quite fast and had about fifty books on various themes such as anarchism, animal rights, peace movements and environmental action. We had lots of magazines and a zine library with over a hundred titles. Every Wednesday we were open from one until six. Someone always came but it was never busy.



The free shop ended up being our main link to the local community, even if in that meant we were the place where they could dump their unwanted stuff (although that is what the free shop is supposed to be for i guess!). Some people stayed for a chat and a drink and that was nice. The nature of a free shop means that it is always a battle to keep tidy, and as it got bigger this became more of a task. In my view we didn't throw enough crap away. Then the good stuff gets lost in between the broken toys and dresses for old ladies.


We hosted meetings from various groups and oneoff events such as the zine evening. There were also the music appreciation nights - when all the music played came from one particular artist, such as Venetian Snares or Bodycount.



But did we achieve our aims of activating the people of Rotterdam and making links to the local community? Well, in a small way, yes we did. As regarding a space for the local scene, we certainly did that and I still miss it. Further, you can never really judge the full effects of a project, it's like a stone dropped in water - the ripples radiate outwards, whether you want them to or not.

More on this below.