[matilda] YF n all that

[Dan]

Allo

1. When are we going to have a meeting to talk about the future of the 
building, what YF said, etc?  How would people be with next Monday? 
There's not much more to say than has been said on-list.

To re-cap: YF are in the process of drawing up a lease for LTT, to 
regularise their position and make sure they're at least moving slowly 
towards legality.  They're not vigorously pursuing anyone else in the 
building: although they know things happen here, they're not sure what, 
and aren't going out of their way to find out. Although don't quote me 
on that.

YF own the site - they're the landlords - but Sheffield One are seeking 
developers for it.  I've written to them to find out what stage that's 
at, but no reply yet.  Will give them a call at some point.

Sheffield One are leading re-development for the whole site: 2 acres. 
(See below for link to piccie.)

LTT will, at least, get a lease that has six months notice - which won't 
come into force until that gets signed - which will be a while yet, coz 
the lease has to be negotiated, and the first draft hasn't appeared yet. 
  They reckon that notice won't be given for at least six months - which 
means a year.

I asked them to send a draft copy to me (as well as LTT), coz I can 
hopefully get some folk in Ethical Property Company to glance over it. 
Anyone else who's dead keen to read it when it comes through, get in touch.

2. I've colonised an old unused WIKI I set up for someone last year, 
apty entitled openplanning.net.  Its faster than the old social forum 
site, and a newer version of Mediawiki - if you log in, and watch a 
page, you'll be e-mailed when someone makes a change to that page.

www.openplanning.net

Things to note: links on left to useful resources, and current projects. 
  Porter brook is the first -

http://www.openplanning.net/wiki/index.php?title=PorterBrook

This has been left deliberately sparse at the moment - I have my own 
ideas, as do a lot of other people.  But I thought I'd leave them out 
til we got to meet, and see how folk are feeling.

It also has a guide I've knocked together to get folk started on WIKI 
editing, via the help link.  At some point, a workshop on this would be 
good.

And! Note the 'sorry, no ducks' link on the left.  Would like to know 
what folk think.

The one thing I'd say right now: there's a possibility, however slim, of 
getting some space in the Porter Brook area for community-owned, managed 
and run performance space, as well as many other good things like cafe / 
library.  It could be overseen by a community land trust, takings from 
the rest of the site could subsidise it - as workspaces in the 
workstation do for the Showroom, to the tune of half a million a year.

Equally, it could do the usual CIQ thing and degenerate into a 
conspiracy-fuelled bun-fight, of the kind that helped Hallam step in and 
take the NCPM.  The trick's gonna be coming up with a structure that 
stops that happening.

That's all presuming anyone has any energy for doing anything 
post-no-rent-no-bills...

love

Dan