<DIV>Hi,</DIV>
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<DIV>If people are at all serious about acquiring the Matilda building in the long term on the basis of some kind of common law squatting right, then it is crucially important that you at no point engage in activity that is borderline illegal. </DIV>
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<DIV>This may seem prissy to some of you who might be determined to live lives of transgression, but it comes down to whether it's more important right now to be seen to be radical/challenging/alternative or more important right now to work to keep hold of the building in the long term. </DIV>
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<DIV>Being present in a building in a city centre means that you are already working within a web of legal prescriptions, so you're talking health and safety laws, entertainment laws, etc etc etc. If those kinds of regulation are distasteful to you, then fine, I'm with you, but it would be good not to be seen to be disrespectful of such ways of thinking in this delicate time. Neither do I feel that it would make much sense to play with the ambiguities of the letter of the law. In the long term decisions about the building will likely be made by people who don't tolerate much ambiguity. It would be good to make friends with those people.</DIV>
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<DIV>At this point it would seem to make sense to me to keep doing what you have been doing - fostering a strong, visible, and socially positive/beneficial/transformative community around Matilda. It would help for this to also involve the development of links across many other communities, informal and formal, around Sheffield. I think thinking strategically is vital as long as the possibility of keeping the building remains a possibility. </DIV>
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<DIV>So, ..., (and again, as of yet I'm an external to Matilda cause I tend to be just too busy during the week to come to either the meeting or the social (might be able to make the meeting this week) I would suggest going nowhere near the idea of brewing your own beer for Matilda, despite my admiration for the logic and spirit (!?) of the idea. The more chances there are that Matilda gets embroiled in any legal challenges the less chances there are that you can remain there. It's a mighty lucrative site. It may get demolished anyway. But as long as there is the slightest possibility that it mightn't, I would suggest playing it reasonably safe - there's a lot that can be done without making trouble for yourselves.</DIV>
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<DIV>All the best</DIV>
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<DIV>Anthony</DIV>