Naked Swimming, Music, Protest and More! What’s going on in Brighton and Hove.

Thursday May 17^th

Teach the ‘IDAHO Lesson’

Mak­ing schools safer and improv­ing learn­ing achieve­ment for all!

Marks Inter­na­tional Day Against Homo­pho­bia, Bipho­bia and Transphobia.

The event is at the Old Steine, Brighton.

For fur­ther inform­a­tion, please con­tact Eric Page on 01273 294638.

Fri­day, 18^th May

Sunday, 20^th May

Brighton Fest­ival Fringe con­cert: Rachel Fryer (piano)

The former Green city coun­cil­lor plays Bach’s Gold­berg Variations

St. Michael’s and All Angels Church, St. Michael’s Place, Brighton, 6 p.m.

Wed­nes­day May 23^rd

Cli­mate Jobs Cara­van vis­its Brighton

Pro­mot­ing the One Mil­lion Cli­mate Jobs report.  The Cli­mate Jobs Cara­van will visit over 25 towns and cit­ies.  It will argue that the cre­ation of one mil­lion cli­mate jobs could help solve both the eco­nomic and envir­on­mental crises we are facing.

More details: www.climate-change-jobs.org/node/14/pamphlet and www.climate-change-jobs.org/caravan.

For more updates and to fol­low the Cara­van on twit­ter: @climate_caravan or the web­site: www.facebook.com/groups/253497651395542/.

Fri­day 25^th — Sunday 27^th May

The Hanging Gar­dens of Brighton

In the Old Steine Gar­dens with live music, cab­aret and food

Sat­urday, 26^th May

Action for Access: Shore­ham Downs walk

By car: there is a car park on the A283 near Dacre Gar­dens (not recom­men­ded as this is not a cir­cu­lar walk, so drivers will need to walk back another mile after Erring­ham farm!).

Tues­day 29^th May

Sus­sex Equal­ity Group meeting

7 — 9 p.m. at The Friends Meet­ing House

Brighton Sus­sex Equal­ity Group is a vol­un­tary organ­isa­tion work­ing to reduce income inequal­ity in Sus­sex to make a bet­ter local soci­ety for everyone.

More inform­a­tion: www.sussexequalitygroup.org.uk or con­tact Stu­art at stuart.hill@sussexequalitygroup.org.uk.

Fri­day and Sat­urday, 15^th-16^th June

A national show­case of the latest tech­no­lo­gies which per­form a cru­cial role in pro­tect­ing the envir­on­ment and mak­ing our daily busi­ness and home lives more effi­cient.  Over 100 exhibitors.

Tues­day, June 19^th

Brighton Café Scientifique

Detect­ing earth­quakes and nuc­lear explosions

Cyril Isen­berg, Uni­ver­sity of Kent.

Latest Music Bar, Manchester St, Brighton; 7.30 for 8 p.m.

www.café-scientifique-brighton.org.uk, e-mail: contact@brightoncafesci.com.

Out­side Brighton and Hove

Wed­nes­day May 23^rd

On London’s Oil Road: A jour­ney to the heart of the energy eco­nomy
Trans­ition Walks, in asso­ci­ation the Ram­blers Asso­ci­ation.

Starts at 6.30 p.m.  Tickets: £5 + 75p book­ing fee from http://oil-walk.eventbrite.co.uk/, who will notify the exact start­ing point to all those who have registered one week before the event.
www.festivaloftransition.net/walks/oil-walk

Fri­day, July 27^th – Sunday, July 29^th

Reclaim the Fields: Sum­mer Gathering

The Cler­vaux Trust, Croft-on-Tees, Dar­ling­ton, DL2 2LF

Sug­ges­ted dona­tion: £5 a day — includes all meals

Book­ings or more info:  rtfsummergathering@gmail.com, www.reclaimthefields.org.uk

Global Tool to Gauge Earth’s & Humanity’s Vital Signs Launches in Africa

“We can no longer afford to make decisions without really see­ing the full pic­ture of what is hap­pen­ing to the planet… We need to put our fin­ger on Earth’s pulse.” - Dr. Sandy Andel­man, Con­ser­va­tion International

That is the motiv­a­tion behind an innov­at­ive new food secur­ity ini­ti­at­ive launch­ing today by Con­ser­va­tion Inter­na­tional and in the U.S. and Africa, with a new $10m U.S. three-year grant  from the Bill & Melinda Gates Found­a­tion, announced in Rome. The Africa Mon­it­or­ing Sys­tem is a com­pre­hens­ive, integ­rated policy tool to help decision makers and investors in Africa see the big pic­ture as they con­sider places and pri­or­it­ies for agri­cul­tural intens­i­fic­a­tion, par­tic­u­larly with regard to the tradeoffs and bene­fits to com­munit­ies and eco­sys­tems. Why is this import­ant? For the first time, these decision makers will be able to see all the data, gathered in a stand­ard­ized way, in one place — rather than search­ing for met­rics from vari­ous and incon­sist­ent sources. This hol­istic view will help to act like an early warn­ing sys­tem for nature, reveal­ing when eco­sys­tems that sup­ply fresh water, pol­lin­at­ors, arable soil, and other ser­vices which are essen­tial to agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion, become in danger of degrad­a­tion or col­lapse. It will also though, track meas­ures of human well-being such as live­li­hood and health, which are dir­ectly affected by the eco­sys­tem health sup­port­ing people.

Inter­ested in learn­ing more? Please read our full press release on the Activist’s Corner page of SHOWS, or con­tact me if you are inter­ested in speak­ing with Dr. Andel­man, the Exec­ut­ive Dir­ector of the Africa Mon­it­or­ing System.

Thank you,

Kim McCabe, Con­ser­va­tion International

New Radio Free Brighton Shop — buy goodies online!

We know you guys love Radio Free Brighton. We know you want to sup­port us. So here at RFB towers, we set our heads to pon­der­ing and decided to skin two cats with one mixed metaphor.

Intro­du­cing the new Radio Free Brighton Shop!

Read more…

Listen Here — Biodiversity and Language Diversity in World’s Threatened Hotspots

Did you know that:

• 70 % (4,824) of the worlds known lan­guages occur in these 35 Hot­spots and 5 wil­der­ness areas, which is an area that is less than a quarter of the Earth’s land surface.
• In the hot­spots, 1,553 of the lan­guages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people and 544 of those have less than 1,000 speakers.
• The Wil­der­ness areas have 1,251 lan­guages with fewer than 10,000 speak­ers and 657 are spoken by less than 1,000 people.

Suz­anne Romaine, Mer­ton Pro­fessor of Eng­lish Lan­guage in the Uni­ver­sity of Oxford,  pre­dicts between 50–90% of known lan­guages will have dis­ap­peared before the end of this cen­tury. She joined us here on Radio Free Brig­hon to dis­cuss this, and the impact that it will have for future generations.

Listen in on Thursday the 17^th at noon (repeated at mid­night) to hear more, or check it out here right now.

Find out more about the issue here. And for fur­ther examples of Suzanne’s work please look here.

Local Students to Design Greener Schools

Local Schools have begun a com­pet­i­tion, in part­ner­ship with the Eco Tech­no­logy Show to make their schools greener and more energy efficient.

All local primary and sec­ond­ary pupils have been chal­lenged to come up with ways to reduce their schools’ impact on the envir­on­ment in one of the fol­low­ing areas: water, waste, energy and transport.

The dead­line for the designs is on May the 17^th, and the win­ning designs will be announced and exhib­ited at the Amer­ican Express Com­munity Sta­dium at the Eco Tech­no­logy Show 2012 (15−16 June), where it will be seen by thou­sands of visitors.

’”Robyn Steer, Cre­at­ive Arts Coördin­ator, Albion in the Com­munity, said: “The pro­ject was set up to engage young people in an eco-discussion and to give them the oppor­tun­ity to act­ively explore what their school already does that is ‘green’.

“The pro­ject lets Brighton and Hove’s young people audit their school’s exist­ing eco-projects and take cre­at­ive con­trol in design­ing how their school could be even greener.

“All of the schools involved so far are eco-schools, but this pro­ject enables them to look that bit fur­ther and see what else they could do – with no budget set, the pro­ject really encour­ages blue-sky think­ing. It’s also open for any new local school to get involved and I am really excited to see what they design!”

Nic­ola Gun­stone, dir­ector at the Eco Tech­no­logy Show says: “Envir­on­mental aware­ness and sus­tain­able beha­viour is becom­ing increas­ingly import­ant within schools, to help the younger gen­er­a­tion bet­ter under­stand the issues facing our planet and to look after their environment.

“The Eco Tech­no­logy Show at Brighton’s Amex Sta­dium is a great day out for local fam­il­ies, as well as school groups and teach­ers. It provides access to the best sup­pli­ers of sus­tain­able products to help min­im­ise waste, improve energy effi­ciency and reuse products for use in homes, schools and busi­nesses. It’s also the place to gain cla­ri­fic­a­tion on envir­on­ment­ally focused gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions which will be covered in a series of free sem­inars on the exhib­i­tion floor.

“Fur­ther­more, activ­it­ies and inter­act­ive ele­ments of the show to ensure it’s an enter­tain­ing day out for fam­il­ies and schools. Vis­it­ors can try out the latest trans­port equip­ment on our free Test Track, such as the Seg­ways, and check out the latest Eco cars and scoot­ers, includ­ing the brand new Renault elec­tric car the Twiz and the new solar powered e-trikes. Do also come and taste and shop in our sus­tain­able food mar­ket or join one of the many prac­tical work­shops and seminars.“‘

For fur­ther inform­a­tion please see www.ecotechnologyshow.co.uk

Mouslecombe School at Under the Bridge

On Thursday the 3^rd of May Under the Bridge Stu­dios, the home of Radio Free Brighton, Music for Kids and many oth­ers, was proud to have a group of tal­en­ted chil­dren from the local Moulse­coomb School come and vist. Whilst here they were given the chance to record a song of their choos­ing with some of Brighton’s most tal­en­ted musicians.

The res­ult, a cover of Aloe Blacc’s I Need a Dol­lar, can be listened to here. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Brighton Energy Coop launches 16^th May

We launch our scheme on Wed­nes­day 16^th May, 7.45pm at the Friends Meet­ing House in Brighton.

Brighton MP Car­oline Lucas will give an intro­duc­tion, and newly-elected leader of Brighton Coun­cil Jason Kitkat will also say a few words. Then the dir­ect­ors of Brighton Energy Coop will out­line the scheme, and answer any ques­tions you might have.

It’s also a chance to pick up a copy of our share invit­a­tion, which will also be avail­able on this web­site after the event.

Newly-elected coun­cil leader Jason Kitkat will also say a few words

Do come along and feel free to invite invite friends and  neigh­bours. It’s a great oppor­tun­ity to learn of our jour­ney to this point and about the details of this excit­ing scheme. In the mean­time, if you’re inter­ested in invest­ing, you can pledge your invest­ment here.

Listen Here — Panel Discussion with Simon Bright, Director of “Robert Mugabe…What happened?”

After the free show­ing of the film Robert Mugabe…What Happened? (Dir Simon Bright), there took place a fas­cin­at­ing and inform­at­ive panel dis­cus­sion , chaired by Ian Scoones (Insti­tute of Devel­op­ment Stud­ies, UoS).

Screened to packed houses in South Africa, Bel­gium, Hol­land and the UK,
this crit­ic­ally acclaimed film is a defin­it­ive account of Mugabe’s life.

You can here the panel dis­cus­sion here in full.

Also, check out our Radio Free Brighton inter­view with Mike Holdgate about his time teach­ing in Zim­b­abwe here, or listen to it as our Wed­nes­day Spe­cial Interest story on Wed­nes­day at noon (repeated at mindnight).

Listen here :Brighton and Hove Women Against The Cuts

Radio Free Brighton talks to Brighton & Hove Women Against Cuts.  BHWAC is a group of local women who have come together to take action against the coali­tion cuts. This is their first ever exper­i­ence of doing a radio show and we thought it a ter­rific start! Brave girls! They are very well informed and we hope to have them back on a reg­u­lar basis to keep us up to speed with the changes,  the many ammend­ments, and what people can do to oppose the cuts.

http://www.mixcloud.com/RadioFreeBrighton/brighton-and-hove-women-against-the-cuts-/

Listen here Bryan Calcott on Work Experience

Bryan is cur­rently vis­it­ing us from Mac­cle­s­field doing a week’s work exper­i­ence. Bryan’s brother Mark is in We Walk In Straight Lines who reg­u­larly prac­tise at our rehearsal stu­dios.  Bryan got his first taste of radio when he chat­ted with Rob about his love of live music and played us some tunes he’s been dig­ging at the moment, includ­ing tracks  by Fei Comodo and Miss May I. Listen here to his first ever radio show

http://www.mixcloud.com/RadioFreeBrighton/bryan-selects-some-of-his-favourite-metal-tunes/

Bryan drums for metal band Araxa, who have a female vocal­ist. They’ve just start put­ting together some of their own tunes, and hope to start gig­ging out in nearby Manchester soon. Watch this space!

You can find out more Araxa by vis­it­ing their face­book page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Araxa/328154910575324

If you – or someone you know – would be inter­ested in doing work exper­i­ence at our stu­dios feel free to email us at  studio@radiofreebrighton.org.uk

Stop the Internet Big Brother Law

“The gov­ern­ment wants to give itself new powers to spy on our inter­net and email use in real time — but a massive national out­cry can save the inter­net and stop the big brother law.

Pub­lic out­rage is grow­ing and news reports sug­gest that Cameron and Clegg are being forced to slow down their march to secure dra­conian powers to spy on what we do online. If we pile on the pres­sure now, we can per­suade them to back off the big brother bill for good.

The last time this was mooted in Par­lia­ment it failed pre­cisely because of strong pub­lic oppos­i­tion. Our call to Cameron, Clegg and Home Sec­ret­ary Theresa May can pro­tect our pri­vacy and save the inter­net. Sign the peti­tion to beat back big brother and for­ward widely.” (taken from Avaaz.org)

You can sign Avaaz’s peti­tion to halt this sin­is­ter bill here and find out other ways to get involved

Amnesty Internation UK — Tell Shell: Own up, Pay up and Clean up the Niger Delta

Amnesty Inter­na­tional UK -

Tell Shell: Own up, Pay up and Clean up the Niger Delta

 Emmanuel Kuru used to have his own fish­ing busi­ness in Bodo Creek in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. His wife, Cecilia Teela, col­lec­ted shell­fish – the money she made paid for the chil­dren to go to school and a new roof for their house.

But in 2008, a pipeline owned by Shell failed. Oil poured into the creek, des­troy­ing Emmanuel’s boat and nets, and killing most of the shell­fish. The com­munity had driven away poverty, Emmanuel says, but now they are unable to fish it has returned. The oil spills have still not been cleaned up.

Shell’s activ­it­ies in the Niger Delta are rob­bing people of their live­li­hoods, mak­ing them sick and ruin­ing their lives. Ask Chief Exec­ut­ive Peter Voser to own up, pay up and clean up the Niger Delta

Since the com­pany now known as Royal Dutch Shell first dis­covered oil in the Niger Delta in 1956, the region’s oil reserves have gen­er­ated bil­lions of dol­lars for Shell and other multinationals.

But for people liv­ing in the region, the oil depos­its have been a curse. Thanks to the oil industry, many rivers, man­grove swamps and farm­ing lands are poisoned and the air people breathe is polluted.

It’s time for Shell to own up to what they’ve done to the Niger Delta. We want them to put up an ini­tial $1 bil­lion (£630 mil­lion) to kick start the clean-up. Sign our peti­tion now

That may seem a lot of money, until you con­sider the com­pany recently pos­ted an annual profit of $28.6 bil­lion (£18 bil­lion) – or more than $3.2 mil­lion (£2 mil­lion) profit per hour. Mean­while, once proud res­id­ents of the Niger Delta like Emmanuel Kuru are reduced to beg­ging to get by.

Tell Shell we won’t tol­er­ate them put­ting profit before people. Sign our peti­tion – own up, pay up and clean up the Niger Delta

 http://action.amnesty.org.uk/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1194&ea.campaign.id=14557&utm_source=Email&utm_medium=mass_email&utm_campaign=CA&utm_content=shell_link3

Say NO to Monsanto

About Say NO to MONSANTO

Among other places in the world, India is being hit hard with Monsanto’s greed. The Indian farm­ers are being forced to use pesti­cides on their crops to kill the weeds. These crops were genet­ic­ally altered to with­stand the pesti­cide, how­ever this pesti­cide costs money — lots of money. The farm­ers’ anim­als are dying, wild­life is dying from the pesti­cide, and the high cost is put­ting many into worse states of poverty than before. These people need to be heard. Reports have now been con­firmed that more and more farm­ers are drink­ing this pesti­cide to com­mit sui­cide because they are shamed and can­not afford to sup­port their families.

Mil­lions Against Monsanto Cam­paign for “Round-Up Ready Soy Beans“
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

Indian farm­ers are restric­ted from buy­ing cheaper, more fuel effi­cient cars.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/IndianCottonFarmersBetrayed.php

This Cause’s pic­ture is taken from the web­site
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.geocities.com/Northstarzone/monsanto3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.geocities.com/Northstarzone/MONSANTO.html&h=312&w=450&sz=34&hl=en&start=5&sig2=M8a1tNvJfLMIJ6gSEPwd5Q&um=1&tbnid=k2KdnLxkJTCWqM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=127&ei=IFQCSJ76Hpf0eZWn_CI&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmonsanto%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENUS254%26sa%3DN

1. Crops should not be genet­ic­ally engineered

2. People should be able to choose how to grow and take care of their own farmland.

3. Monsanto should not be allowed to mono­pol­ize the worlds crops.

Concordia Volunteers Interview 21^st March 2012

Radio Free Brighton inter­views Francesca from Con­cor­dia to dis­cuss their inter­na­tional volun­teer­ing pro­jects and play music from local bands.

http://www.mixcloud.com/RadioFreeBrighton/concordia-volunteers/

This week’s Spanish Show Thurs 1pm Special Guest Alberto Martinez