The Northern IMC collective have brought with them a bike-powered generator, computer equipment, internet connectivity and a whopping great solar panel to ensure that anyone who has news that they need to get out, who hasn't got a voice elsewhere, can stand up and be counted.
The site here is full of campaigners from a wide variety of backgrounds, working for real grassroots, radical change. A lot of focus when people are talking about Glastonbury festival tends to go on the corporate, commercial aspect of it all, but a large amount of space at the festival is given over to campaigns of all kinds.
Most notably this year is an entire field that has been given to the Climate Camp, which is now packed with tents and people discussing ways to use direct action and community outreach to make a real and noticeable difference in the fight against runaway climate chaos. Several members of the London Indymedia Collective are helping to organise the event here and are actively outreaching to people for the big event this year, the annual Climate Camp.
Also of note is that this years Climate Camp is not going to have the satellite broadcast equipment that the Psand folks have provided in previous years, and so the "Be the media" facility that IMC Northern/Notinghamshire have brought to this years festival is a demonstration of the kind of thing people need to start thinking about organising for themselves in connection with their local neighbourhoods and nearest IMC collective.
Anyone who is attending this years' festival who would like to know more about citizen journalism, Indymedia or just want a good GMO free vegan meal, are encouraged to come find us at the Veggies cafe in the Green Futures field over the Old Railway Track.
Over the course of the weekend, there will be more updates and pictures from Glastonbury, Veggies and the Climate Camp field so keep an eye out for them, but for now here are some pictures to show you all what you are missing! Again, anyone with an interest in being the media, come find Indymedia at the Veggies Catering Campaign pitch, just inside the Green Futures field underneath the giant upside-down McDonalds sign!
Read it, write it, do it!!!
Comments
Hide the following 12 comments
be the media here too!
25.06.2009 16:25
no borders
Totally agree!
25.06.2009 16:38
Please don't see it as a slur on the no borders campaign that we have no presence there (we do but through people who are not as such active in Northern IMC and have been asked to provide coverage, hopefully something will come of this soon), we were specifically asked by the Veggies campaign to provide a facility at their pitch here. If you would like us to cover your campaign, we have the facilities and equipment to do so so please contact us at
JimDog*
e-mail:
imc-northern-contact@lists.indymedia.org
Homepage:
http://leedsbradford.indymedia.org.uk
What the hell has a commercial festival got to do with activism?
25.06.2009 17:45
Activist
:)
25.06.2009 18:46
In Unity, With Strength, Through Action!
nika
re @ Activist
25.06.2009 18:55
good job to all involved, hope you get a lot of interest from the crowds AND have some fun while at it :)
chopped pork
Ghetto
25.06.2009 19:58
good job to all involved, hope you get a lot of interest from the crowds AND have some fun while at it :) "
I'm all for activists breaking out of their ghettos, but surely outreach at festivals like Glastonbury is a large part of why we remain in a hippy/alternative ghetto? I'm not against people doing stalls, etc at festivals by any means, just that things like this are one of the few places where outreach seems to be done? There are already quite a lot of hippy/punk/dreadlocked/alternative types involved within the activist scene aren't there? And yes all sorts of people go to Glastonbury now, but this "outreach" will no doubt mostly be based within the Green Fields part of the site i imagine?
But fair enuff, good luck to all involved, and hopefully a good blag to get folks in!
Anybody and everybody
Not where, but who.
26.06.2009 07:15
doing outreach to. Leeds city center is great. Loads of ordinary people there, who
have little exposure to radical views. Glastonbury on the other hand is full of people
who have lots of exposure to these ideas and choose to ignore them.
One really questions the underlying motives of all these people doing outreach
at Glas*. Could it be the pretty cloths, the trendy people, the cool music?
Still, activists need to rest like everyone else. Just a pity that so many choose
the company of spoilt mindless hedonists.
Obvious
What the fuck is Indyedia doing at Glastonbury?!!
26.06.2009 16:47
unamused imcer
@obvious
26.06.2009 22:00
i worked there 2007 n 2008.
and am definitely far from convinced the people there have had "sufficient exposure to radical ideas".
yeah sure i found most of em complete arseholes, yeah sure they are overwhelming deeply consumed ina consumerist utopia which that fuckin festival epitomises... but that applies to most of the people on Briggate on a sturday afternoon!... i don't particularly want to die in a self-satisfied smug pile of my own radicalism with 2 or 3 others around me who are also yes so very radical, yes as radical as me, so radical that they kept all their wonderful radical ideas to themselves....
spose i'v got embroiled in this cos i;m sick to fuckin death of armchaircomentators rubbishing other peopel who are bothering to make an effort. nonstop slagging, slag, slag, slaggin off endlessly from these armchair commentators.....
s
good luck selling anarchism to the masses with that humourless attitude
27.06.2009 12:47
People just go to Glastonbury to take drugs, see bands and have a good time. Sure it's not perfect, but it's no worse that most other ways people spend their weekends. I've been in the past and had a great time.
A bit of anarchist politics done in a good way goes down a treat there. No use preaching to the converted.
anon
something relevant, maybe?
27.06.2009 22:55
michael
Outreach is outreach - the more the better
10.07.2009 20:09
It's all useful stuff.
Ronny