[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Thurs 23rd, CRD Minutes

[Barry Fineberg]

Dear Mark,

Thank you and Simon for useful meeting notes which capture very well the flavour of  last weeks' discussion. This somewhat fragmentary vision does however highlight the need now to put together some distillation of all that into an initial position statement. This would then hopefully attract some agreement amongst the plethora of complementary groups and organisations 'out there' which, whilst retaining their own particularities, nevertheless can subscribe to a common social democratic understanding and its need for translation into mutually reinforcing action.

The scope for a mobilisation of civil society which that requires might, I believe, be shaped by
what I have for some years described as a spatial order corresponding with appropriate levels of need, a 'natural' organisational principle. The mapping of a hierarchy of social territories, local to global ( communities of communities), and its processes of local civic engagement can then be pursued in a coherent manner through delegative chains of accountability, bottom up. 

My statement to the House of Commons Health Committee (January 2007) responded to their invitation for evidence enabling the design of local involvement networks in the performance of local health and welfare services. This set down the detailed case for and organisation of such networks, which I referred to in our discussion, and which can be accessed in Google under my name. Sorry you could not find it Mark but I it is still there. This framework of approach to a local reconfiguration
of all services, locally controlled and administered, offers I believe an incremental/evolutionary process of change that can be unthreatening to current management, bringing all service patterns into common focus with a plethora of cross-disciplinary agencies (cf Baby P etc), with local publics, and with their representatives. A framework for real democracy?

Cordially yours,

Barry Fineberg.
----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark Barrett 
  To: campaignforrealdemocracy at lists.aktivix.org ; project2012 at googlegroups.com ; londonhousingactionnow at googlegroups.com 
  Cc: barry at fineberg.co.uk 
  Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2009 4:33 PM
  Subject: Thurs 23rd, CRD Minutes


  Hi folks 

  Please find below some notes about last Thurs 23rd's CRD meeting. Thanks for these Simon :-) and to everyone who came and made meeting a good one. Simon I've made a few additions / changes, mainly typos, hope that's ok. 

  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
  From: Simon 

  Hi Mark and James,

  Can you forward these notes/points of the discussion of last Thursday of CRD at the Whitechapel Gallery, 23 July. 10 people were in attendance.

  Recap of last meeting - Discussion about looking for organisations making democratic decison making, some features of those organisations, would be that the individuals/organisations would be the owners of the decison whether through localism, workplace, place of study, the objective of this would be to bring groups together.

  Action points from last meeting - Map of democracy groups in London; calendar of meetings and other group events.

  Proposed items for agenda, (1) Proposal for action/demonstration around land issues, (2) Usury, (3) What do we mean by real democracy, and what other bodies are exploring the issue, (4) Talking circles, (5) Next meeting.

  General discussion around finding a community space.
  Comrade noted that he was working with Land Reform Group with the objective of creating structures that get people working together.
  Maloka - International School of Bottom up Organising - Squating/Requisition.
  Suggestion of film evening showing the Bill Douglas film, 'Comrades' about the Tolpuddle Martyrs and origins of trade unionism
  Vision - Space where powerful decisions are made.
  Campaign for building constituionally based peoples palace.
  Suggestion - Lewisham Bridge School - an example of where people are dissatisfied with what the authorities are doing.
  Also Wards Corner in Seven Sisters. Kew Bridge land occupation 

  Discussion over what spaces means, squatting, hierarchy and bottom up organising.
  Boundary/geographical definition, the high street/town centre is the natural centre.
  Seven is a significant number in terms of townships.
  Discussion - Strong and local powerful communiites.
  People know which postcode they live in, discussion on what areas are most suitable for communities, natural watersheds for example.
  Cannot artificially set boundaries.
  Question - what are people doing in their local communities.
  To be effective, people have to have a conituing purpose for the local management of the area they live in, a purposeful framework.
  Democracy - freedom
  Suggestion - meaning of democracy, democracy halfway between anarchy and fascism [this view needs quite a bit of elaboration, to say the least. MB] & 'the world as a permaculture garden' idea...

  Final round up - what are individuals involved in? 

  Various including 21st Century Network, Ally Pally People's Palace, Tree Watering, supporting other initiatives (eg Wards Corner, Lewisham School), Climate Camp, Ecotort, Government of the Dead and various local community endeavours   

  And Theoretical Projects: 
  Barry Fineberg - see ?? = Barry pls advise
  MB working on CRD manifesto [more on this at end of August] . 

  Dates:
  July 27 Camden Town Hall (Housing Sell Off Campaign, public meeting) 
  August 15 - Picnic (Parliament Hill)
  Aug 27 - Climate Camp http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/gatherings
  August 30th - Peoples Palace meeting at the Royal Festival Hall 

  ---------------------------------------
    
  Next CRD meeting will be either a Monday or Thurs eve in mid / late Sept. 
  More info and calendar details at newly updated, yet still to be tweaked further www.peopleincommon.org (thanks Anna :-)!)

  Finally, Barry, please can you provide us with a link to your work about spatial ordering as I'm struggling to locate via google, would be happy to pass on the info. Also, Barry you may be interested in the work of Anthony Jay, which I posted about before (thanks to Mark Brown for sending me a reminder about this), see at  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6684542.ece  

  Cheers, Mark 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/campaignforrealdemocracy/attachments/20090727/91139e43/attachment.htm>