[ssf] Draft announcement for post-meeting

[Dan]

Hi!

Here's a draft for the first announcement e-mail of 2005, which we can 
comment on / amend tomorrow eve before sending out Thursday eve / Friday 
morning.

A few points first though:

1. How do we feel about sticking other political and cultural goings on 
too?  Sheffield Social Forum stuff first, a big line, all other events 
in the coming month. A request for people to send in their event.

2. We should rotate the drafting, but I think the principle of making a 
draft before a meeting and getting it approved / amended at a meeting is 
a good one - if only because people will bring announcements of events 
we didn't know about.

So:
-------
Sheffield Social Forum says 'Happy New year!'

But... can it really be February already?  How time flies! Not quite 
fast enough for those of us pining for Springtime... alas we'll have to 
wait for Daffodils a little longer.

As with daffy bulbs, though, there's a whole heap of activity occurring 
underground we'd  like to tell you about, in the hope that you'll want 
to help bring it al into blossom...

Sheffield Social Forum's first foray into 2005 is to be a 'Big Open 
Meeting' loosely titled *'Why Don't You?'* (See attached poster.  Don't 
be put off by the broken TVs, we're lovely people really!)

It's going to be:
Thursday 17th Feb
7 to 9.30pm
St. Andrew's Church Hall
Upper Hanover Way

It'll be a kind of mini-social forum, with food n drink n good company - 
as well as productive talk and action-planning.  Here's a list of some 
of the things we know will be going on - and please let us know if you 
have something you particularly want to talk about.

*The G8 comes to Sheffield in June, as well as Scotland in July - Make 
Poverty History Sheffield [website?] are using the chance to push hard 
for an end to global poverty, and Peace in the Park organisers are 
getting involved too.

*Peace in the Park itself will be taking place on Saturday June 11th.  
[Website?] SSF will be hosting a 'Speakeasy' tent there, and working 
with others to prepare, for example by going into schools to run 
awareness-raising workshops around global issues - with the ultimate 
goal of hosting a 'youth parliament' (or something less stuffy) at Peace 
in the Park

*Sheffield now has its own 'Sheffield 2 Venezuela preparatory 
committee', who are working to get a delegation to Venezuela in August 
for the Youth and Student Festival there.  Hopefully, they'll be coming 
along too.

*The Burngreave Masterplan has ruffled some feathers, entailing as it 
does large-scale demolition, and triggered a local fight-back.  SSF is 
getting stuck in, looking for ways to hold planning minister Keith Hill 
to his words... which were, rather shockingly, 'Let the People Decide!'

*Building on previous work done around the impending disability welfare 
cuts, we'll be working to raise awareness of what's going on, on the 
hardships faced by people on disability benefits - and how much worse it 
could get if Blair gets his way.  How can we support a group who are so 
often ignored and sidelined?  Can you help too?

*Get yer creative juices flowing!  Creative Action Network - those 
responsible for Sharrow's awe-inspiring lantern carnival, will be there 
on the 17th, as well as various other folk looking to put their creative 
talents to good use.  If you want to come and join in, there'll be 
opportunities to talk about and plan any number of possibilities, 
including...

*A new Sheffield radical newsletter!  Radical means 'getting to the root 
of things'.  A plan is afoot to launch a monthly newsletter, in 
conjunction with Sheffield Indymedia, with this aim in mind.  It won't 
just be dull leftie politics, though.  Supported by a fortnightly 
writing and creativity workshop, and due to launch its first issue at 
the end of March, we hope this will be an exciting read, as well as 
bringing together in one place all the month's best political and 
politico-cultural goings on in Sheffield and beyond.

*Democracy Cafes now carry on under their own steam, first Tuesday of 
every month at the Blue Moon.  But are they steering the right path 
between freeform and agenda-driven?  And just how good is Blue Moon's 
cake?  (They're not paying us, you know!)

*... and of course, Sheffield Social Forum itself!  We need more bodies 
to keep the good ship SSF afloat in 2005.  There's lots to do, as you 
can see.  It's going to be fun, but it'll be hard work!  Particularly, 
it would be *great* to know what kind of events and speakers you would 
want to see in the coming year, so SSF can make a forward planner.

*Oh and *please* bring your ideas too: you *can* make a difference!

Hope to see you on the 17th.

Some p.s's:

1. Please tell other people: word of mouth is the best advertising!
2. If you want to get more stuck in to the day-to-day machinations of 
organising, you can subscribe to the discussion list at:
http://lists.aktivix.org/mailman/listinfo/ssf
3. I'm the named contact at the minute: that's Dan on 07968 997861 or 
dan at aktivix.org