[noborders-brum] The Cottage of Content Occupied Social Centre

[phunkee]

Hi Everyone, got some great news!

A boarded up Community Centre in Sparkbrook called the Cottage of 
Content has just been occupied for use as a Social Centre. The Community 
Centre, which includes a garden and a large hall, was closed by 
Birmingham City Council back in May 2005. It has since been boarded up 
and left to rot whilst local people have lost a valuable community 
resource. The Council are due to auction the property off on July 19th 
for 'commercial use', although our occupation of the property seeks to 
prevent this happening and aims to return the Cottage of Content to 
community use.

The Social Centre Collective which includes local people meets every 
Monday at 7:30 pm. Everyone's welcome to attend.

Here's the address: The Cottage of Content Occupied Social Centre, 147 
Kyrwicks Lane, Sparkbrook, B11 1SS

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=408140&Y=284947&A=Y&Z=1

You can get there pretty easily from town if you get on the no. 50 bus 
and get off at Highgate Fire Station, where Moseley Road meets Highgate 
Road (A4540). Then take a left down Montpellier Street, go under the 
railway bridge and the Social Centre is on your right on the corner of 
Montpellier Street and Krywicks Lane.

Here's the mailing list details if you'd like to get involved:

mailing list: scbrum at lists.riseup.net

An embryonic media lab is being setup in one of the rooms with some 
recyled linuxed pc's given to us by edinburgh imc where they were used 
at last year's g8 protests. We haven't as yet got the means to get them 
online, so if you've got any expertise in this area then it would be 
greatly appreciated :)

Off the top of my head, here's the start of a wishlist for the social 
centre:

soft furnishings - sofas etc
computer monitors and mice
working printer
hardware for a wireless setup
paint, brushes and rollers
hoover
cleaning materials
photocopier
paper
kids toys and books
gardening equipment
copper pipe for water - some fool has already entered the property and 
half inched all the water pipe, so we need to get this fixed asap. We 
have sufficient funds from previous social events at the Nursery Social 
Centre to enable this.

a plumber!

phunkee