Seedling swap and sale, Sunday 19 May, Preston Park

Where:	Pre­ston Park demon­stra­tion garden , The Ride, Pre­ston Park, Brighton BN1 6HN (UK).
Date:	19 May, 2013
Time:	11:00 — 14:00
Event description:
Come and swap or buy seed­lings for your garden! Have you got some spare seed­lings you’d like to swap for some new and dif­fer­ent vari­et­ies? Or per­haps you had the best inten­tions to sow some seeds but just didn’t get around to it? Join us for the swap and sale, plus seed­bomb mak­ing and com­post­ing activ­it­ies by our veget­able garden in Pre­ston Park.This event is organ­ised jointly by the Food Partnership’s Har­vest pro­ject and BHOGG (Brighton & Hove Organic Garden­ing Group).Part of the Brighton Fest­ival Fringe.

LISTEN HERE Shocking reports from Public Meeting on Fracking held May 15^th.

LISTEN HERE TO MEETING IN FULL

Speak­ers:
Dr Mari­ann Lloyd-Smith — Inter­na­tional expert on tox­ics and con­tam­in­a­tion and advisor to the anti-fracking move­ment in Aus­tralia
Tony Janio B&H Coun­cil Con­ser­vat­ive envir­on­ment lead
Howard Johns — founder of South­ern Solar and expert in local energy solu­tions
Tony Bos­worth — Friends of the Earth Energy Campaigner

Frack­ing for shale gas is one of the hot­test envir­on­mental issues of the moment. Exper­i­ence from the US has raised con­cerns about con­tam­in­a­tion of water resources and air pol­lu­tion. Pro­pos­als for shale gas drilling in the UK have led to vig­or­ous local opposition,but the Gov­ern­ment is determ­ined to press ahead. Its sup­port­ers say shale gas is a key part of our energy future , but what will be its impact on the local envir­on­ment, on tack­ling cli­mate change and on energy bills

LISTEN HERE TO CAROL DAWES FROM FRIENDS OF THE EARTH ON THE IMMINENT  EXPLORATORY DRILLING AT CUCKFIELD

See lively intro­duc­tion of the Dangers of Fracking

FOE’s report on Frack­ing is here: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/shale_gas.pdf

AND A STORY NOT OF CUCKFIELD SUSSEX BUT OF COOK’S VALLEY  USA AND THEIR EXPERIENCE OF FRACKING

This story is the first install­ment of Truthout’s Frack­ing Road Trip series on the wide-reaching impacts of the frack­ing industry.  

The bluffs rise up gently from the rolling hills and farm­lands of Wisconsin’s Chip­pewa County. For years, the bluffs stood silent as small farm­ing com­munit­ies grew around them. The bluffs are too steep to farm and most of the trees in the area grow on the tops of bluffs and around their rolling slopes and steep faces. It’s unusu­ally cold for April and trees stand as sil­hou­ettes against a layer of snow.

This scene is quickly inter­rup­ted at the inter­sec­tion of two county roads in the small town­ship of Cooks Val­ley. A large bluff behind a farm has dis­ap­peared. The bluff has been blas­ted, churned up and turned into giant piles of sand. The sand will soon be trucked off to a pro­cessing plant, loaded back into trucks or per­haps onto a wait­ing train and then shipped to oil and gas fields in other states.

The sand will be mixed with water and chem­ic­als and forced deep under­ground to break up rock and release pre­cious fossils fuels. This isn’t the kind of sand you find at the beach; it’s silica, or “frack sand,” a car­ci­no­genic dust and a key ingredi­ent in the hydraulic frack­ing pro­cess which has facil­it­ated a nation­wide nat­ural gas boom and, accord­ing to oppon­ents, an ongo­ing envir­on­mental crisis. Silica particles are uniquely shaped and prop open frac­tures in the under­ground rock to free the oil or gas.

Cooks Val­ley may be far from the oil and gas fields, but like the rural neigh­bor­hoods in states where frack­ing rigs and gas pipelines have replaced pas­tures, the frack industry’s demand for nat­ural resources has pit­ted neigh­bor against neigh­bor and turned this once tight-knit com­munity upside down.

In the Shadow of the Mine

A frack sand pro­cessing plant in Maiden Rock, Wis­con­sin. (Photo: Mike Lud­wig)Jane Sonnentag is a busy woman. Sev­eral chil­dren bounce around her humble kit­chen as she holds her young­est child and laughs as she recalls her father advising her not to marry a farmer. She did not take his advice, and now Sonnentag and her hus­band Louis are rais­ing seven chil­dren on their 160-acre farm nestled between the rising bluffs of Cooks Val­ley. Sonnentag has lived in the area all her life and her fam­ily has farmed there for gen­er­a­tions. Her farm, she says, is a “little piece of heaven.” But Sonnentag’s farm is not as heav­enly as it used to be.

Since 2011, when a massive, out-of-state energy firm won a per­mit to set up shop in their neigh­bor­hood, the Sonnentags have lived in the shadow of a 234-acre frac-sand mine loc­ated on the bluffs behind their farm and home. Sonnentag explains that as many as 400 trucks, laden with silica sand or wastewa­ter from a sand-processing plant, may roll past their home in a day. “I’ve got 400 trucks and seven kids and a yard this size … it’s not fun, you know, being by a stop sign, really,” says Sonnentag. “It’s like David verses Goliath, except I don’t have a slingshot.”

For gen­er­a­tions, mom-and-pop–sized mines in Wis­con­sin have sup­plied silica for a vari­ety of pur­poses, ran­ging from water fil­tra­tion to road pav­ing. But in recent years, the industry has grown expo­nen­tially as the frack­ing boom in other states such as North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania has increased the demand for silica across the coun­try. Big min­ing and energy com­pan­ies have swooped into rural com­munit­ies like the Sonnentag’s to expand exist­ing mines and break ground on massive new ones, turn­ing Wisconsin’s west­ern bluffs into giant piles of sand and its rural towns into cen­ters of sand ship­ment and pro­cessing. There are now 70 act­ive mines oper­at­ing in Wis­con­sin, along with dozens of pro­cessing facil­it­ies. Three mines, each more than 100 acres in size, are cur­rently oper­at­ing within miles of Sonnentag’s home in Cooks Val­ley, a small town­ship of less than 1,000 people.

EOG Resources, a massive energy firm and former Enron sub­sid­ary (known at the time as Enron Oil and Gas), oper­ates the mine near the Sonnentags’ home. The company’s local office told Truthout to con­tact its Hou­s­ton office for com­ments on the mine and its impacts on nearby farms, but a rep­res­ent­at­ive there failed to respond to sev­eral inquiries.

When EOG Resources was blast­ing apart the bluffs, Sonnentag says, the shock would shake her house. Once a blast knocked her to the floor. At times, dust from the min­ing oper­a­tions would invade their farm. EOG Resources would dis­patch a couple of water trucks every hour to wet down the dust and keep it out of the air, but the effort was “like tak­ing a thimble to a dust bowl.” With dust blow­ing in the wind and hun­dreds of trucks passing their house every­day, the Sonnentags became increas­ingly con­cerned about their health. “There were not a lot of days we could go out­side, because we have two kids who have asthma,” Sonnentag says.

Silica dust is a known car­ci­no­gen and has been linked to lung dis­ease and can­cer among work­ers, and the fed­eral gov­ern­ment has set lim­its on silica expos­ure for the work­place — but has not set lim­its on pub­lic expos­ure. The frack sand industry in Wis­con­sin routinely assures the pub­lic that air­borne silica poses no proven dangers to the pub­lic, but without any fed­eral or state reg­u­la­tion of expos­ure, the industry’s assur­ances do little to ease Sonnentag’s mind. What if silica is the next asbes­tos, she won­ders? Her fam­ily never signed up to be “test dum­mies.” And what about the water? Point­ing toward the mine, Sonnentag says that EOG Resources is cur­rently truck­ing wastewa­ter from its sand-processing plant, where the sand is treated with water and chem­ic­als, and dump­ing it back into the mine. “I always thought my kids would want to live here long after we’re gone, but now I don’t know. There might not be any air to breath and water to drink.”

Reg­u­lat­ors Stretched Thin

The Wis­con­sin Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources (DNR) reg­u­lates sand mines as “non­metal­lic mines,” a class that includes the small gravel pits and lime­stone mines that have long oper­ated through­out the state. Tom Woletz, the DNR point per­son on frack sand, tells Truthout that DNR has reg­u­lated sand mines in this way for years, but now the frack-sand rush has brought much lar­ger mines to the state. “The fugit­ive dust, that is a poten­tial prob­lem, and that’s what people are con­cerned about,” Woletz says.

DNR requires mine oper­at­ors to mon­itor silica dust emis­sions and report them to the state, but DNR offi­cials rarely visit the mines in per­son. Fed­eral fund­ing requires the agency’s lim­ited staff to focus on major sources of air pol­lu­tion such as large metal­lic mines.

“Some of these mines are never going to see a DNR air inspector at all unless there is a com­plaint,” says Woletz. “We could use more people on the ground to make sure that these people are doing the appro­pri­ate things.” A state budget pro­posal could add two more com­pli­ance officers to the DNR staff, and Woletz says DNR could always use more people. But much of the respons­ib­il­ity to keep silica out of the air in rural neigh­bor­hoods falls on the industry, he says, and DNR can’t always be there to hold its hand. “There’s some really good [oper­at­ors] out there, and there’s some that have a ways to go,” he says.

In 2012 alone, the DNR issued viol­a­tions to at least 15 frack-sand oper­at­ors in the state, accord­ing to state records.

Under state rules, a mine loc­ated near a child care cen­ter or a neigh­bor­hood oper­ates under the same pol­lu­tion stand­ards as a mine loc­ated in the middle of a forest, accord­ing to Woletz. In many cases, it’s up to the county or local gov­ern­ment to reg­u­late truck­ing, mine loc­a­tions and land use. With some res­id­ents sup­port­ing local meas­ures to pro­tect their homes and farms and other res­id­ents eager to cash in on the sand rush, local con­tro­ver­sies over sand mine reg­u­la­tion have cre­ated bru­tal divi­sions in com­munit­ies that would oth­er­wise be mod­els of Mid­west­ern neighborliness.

“There are fam­ily mem­bers up in Chip­pewa County that may never talk to each other again, ever,” Woletz admits.

That’s a famil­iar story to Sonnentag, who was involved in a local push to reg­u­late the sand mines in Cooks Val­ley under a local ordin­ance that was opposed by local landown­ers, includ­ing her neigh­bors. “Sand has dic­tated everything in this town … pit­ted neigh­bor against neigh­bor,” she says. The best man at her wed­ding will no longer talk to her. He wanted to start a mine on his land, Sonnentag says, and saw her fam­ily and other sup­port­ers of the ordin­ance as stand­ing in his way.

“It’s unfor­tu­nate, because he’s no closer to get­ting that mine star­ted than I am to becom­ing a veget­arian,” Sonnentag says with a grin.

A Frac­tured Community

Sleet is turn­ing the snow to ice out­side of Sonnentag’s house, but her kit­chen, busy with young chil­dren arran­ging pots and pans on the floor, is warm and cozy. Sonnentag chats with Vic­toria Trinko, who lives a few miles up the road on a small farm loc­ated across the street from a frack sand mine. The two women are dis­cuss­ing the local polit­ics sur­round­ing the ordin­ance they fought for years to put in place in order to reg­u­late the sand mine operations.

“It’s really split our com­munity apart,” Trinko says.

Earlier that morn­ing, Trinko had returned to her home after volun­teer­ing at a Sunday pan­cake break­fast. She says the turnout was good con­sid­er­ing the cold weather and a bit of friendly com­pet­i­tion from another pan­cake break­fast at a local church. She takes a seat in her liv­ing room, where she has agreed to be inter­viewed by Truthout. A pic­ture of her daugh­ter, who is now study­ing abroad, hangs above the mantle. The con­ver­sa­tion quickly turns to sand.

Trinko is the Cooks Val­ley Board clerk and kept notes on the battle over the ordin­ance, which was first drawn up and passed in 2008 after res­id­ents learned that sand mines might open in the neigh­bor­hood. The ordin­ance addressed noise from blast­ing, hours of oper­a­tion, silica dust con­trol and the num­ber of trucks allowed to rumble down the roads.

Landown­ers who wanted to lease their prop­er­ties to min­ing com­pan­ies or open their own mines quickly hired a law­yer and sued the town to defeat the ordin­ance. It amoun­ted to a “zon­ing ordin­ance” and was not prop­erly filed with the county, they argued, and a local judge agreed.

“So we appealed,” Trinko says, “and that made them all angry.”

What fol­lowed was three years of lit­ig­a­tion and show­downs in the local town hall. At one point, the town board was accused of embez­zle­ment; at another, the pro-mining landown­ers tried to take over the board and dis­miss Cooks Valley’s vil­lage powers, which, under state law, grant the town­ship the author­ity to pass ordinances.

“It’s got­ten really, really nasty,” Trinko says.

Neigh­bors have sued neigh­bors, and Trinko her­self was sued (along with two board super­visors) over open records laws. Mean­while, the town board con­tin­ued to appeal the chal­lenge to the min­ing ordin­ance, which even­tu­ally landed at the Wis­con­sin Supreme Court. As clerk, Trinko had been keep­ing notes through­out the whole fiasco, and even­tu­ally, she had to hand them over to the highest court in the state.

“I was very proud of myself, I guess, or sat­is­fied, that my paper­work held up in the [Wis­con­sin] Supreme Court,” Trinko says with a smile.

In 2012, the Wis­con­sin Supreme Court reversed an appeals court decision and ruled in favor of the Town of Cooks Val­ley, and the town­ship was finally allowed to begin enfor­cing the reg­u­la­tions it ori­gin­ally passed in 2008. As the battle over the ordin­ance wove its way through the courts, how­ever, three mines were estab­lished in Cooks Val­ley, includ­ing those near the Trinko and Sonnentag farms. To date, the town­ship has only com­pleted the per­mit­ting pro­cess for one mine under the ordin­ance. A draft per­mit pre­pared by the town­ship for the EOG Resources mine includes man­dat­ory air mon­it­or­ing and a $112,500 fee to be paid to the Sonnentag fam­ily, so they can build a new house, across the street and farther away from the mine’s truck­ing route.

For Trinko, the mat­ter of sand min­ing con­tin­ues to be a big part of daily life. As town clerk, she receives per­mit notices and posts them in pub­lic places such as the local bar. But there are more per­sonal issues as well. In 2011, after the mines began dig­ging into the bluffs, Trinko said she could “chew on dust” when work­ing out­side her house. Soon she would have a sore throat, but not the cold that usu­ally accom­pan­ies it. She says the symp­toms dis­ap­pear when she travels to visit rel­at­ives in other states.

Trinko now believes she has developed asthma from liv­ing near the sand mines. She saw a breath­ing spe­cial­ist who told her that the breath­ing prob­lems were related to her liv­ing envir­on­ment, but the spe­cial­ist refuses to go on the record with report­ers due to the ongo­ing controversy.

Trinko says her daugh­ter is wor­ried the air pol­lu­tion may be short­en­ing her life, but she wants to stay on her farm. It has been in her fam­ily since her father bought it in 1936. Trinko points out the win­dow to a bluff rising bey­ond the next pasture.

“That bluff … that’s where my dad grew up,” Trinko says. Frack-sand min­ing and pro­cessing con­tin­ues nearby, and another facil­ity in the area is under devel­op­ment. “It would be very sad to see all the trees dis­ap­pear. Plus, I am breath­ing this stuff.”

Top Activism Story: Petition & Demo Enough food burnt to feed 10K

Every year the UK burns enough food as fuel to feed 10 mil­lion people. The use of food crops as bio­fuels is driv­ing hun­ger and land­grabs. This is mad­ness in a world where one in eight people already go hungry.

Lots of people still think that bio­fuels are a great, green energy solu­tion. That’s why we need as many people as pos­sible find out that bio­fuels are driv­ing hunger.

Please for­ward this info on to a friend or share the infographic on social media using the below icons.

If you’d like to do more to help tackle the causes of global hun­ger, join us in Lon­don on Sat­urday 8 June for the Big IF rally, where thou­sands of people from across the UK will come together in London’s Hyde Park to demand our gov­ern­ment and other G8 lead­ers take action — includ­ing stop­ping burn­ing food for fuel.

Lucy Hurn
Bio­fuels Cam­paigner
Action­Aid UK

Top Human Rights: Special Report on Guantanamo Hunger Strike

Radio Free Brighton’s Maria McE­voy exam­ines the issues around the hun­ger strike at Guantanamo Bay with con­sult­ant neur­o­lo­gist and human rights cam­paigner David Nich­oll, Joy Hurcombe of the Save Shaker Aamer Cam­paign, Clara Gut­ter­idge Human rights law­yer form­ally with reprieve.org and her fel­low RFB reporter Mis­sie, who is work­ing with young people from Pri­ory School amnesty group who are join­ing the cam­paign.  Listen here

Update: Brighton & Hove MP Car­oline Lucas called for the Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron to per­son­ally inter­vene and phone Pres­id­ent Obama now to secure the release of Shaker back to the UK and his fam­ily. Watch the video at  bit.ly/104K63

Read on if you want to find out more about this story

FORMER GUANTANAMO CHIEF PROSECUTOR LAUNCHES FAST-GROWING ONLINE PETITION TO CLOSE GUANTANAMO

• Col. Mor­ris Davis, former Chief Pro­sec­utor at Guantanamo Bay from 2005 to 2007, launches peti­tion on Change.org call­ing on Pres­id­ent Obama to take con­crete steps to close Guantanamo Bay Deten­tion Center.
• Over 75,000 sign onto Col. Davis’ peti­tion in less than 24 hours, fol­low­ing Pres­id­ent Obama’s vow in a press con­fer­ence on Tues­day to renew efforts to close Guantanamo Bay.

WASHINGTON, DC – Col­onel Mor­ris Davis, who was the Chief Pro­sec­utor for Ter­ror­ism Tri­als at Guantanamo Bay from 2005 to 2007, has launched a rap­idly grow­ing peti­tion on Change.org call­ing on Pres­id­ent Obama to ful­fill his prom­ise to close the Guantanamo Bay Deten­tion Center.

As the Chief Pro­sec­utor for Ter­ror­ism Tri­als at Guantanamo Bay. Col. Davis per­son­ally pro­sec­uted Osama Bin Laden’s driver Salim Ham­dan, David Hicks, and Omar Khadr. Davis stepped down from his post due to dis­agree­ment over the use of cer­tain inter­rog­a­tion tech­niques. Since leav­ing his post at Guantanamo, Davis has become one of the prison’s most out­spoken crit­ics. On Tues­day, he star­ted a Change.org peti­tion call­ing on Obama to ful­fill past prom­ises to close the deten­tion facil­ity and to trans­fer the 86 detain­ees cleared for release.

“As the Chief Pro­sec­utor for the Ter­ror­ism Tri­als at Guantanamo Bay, I saw many things that I regret see­ing. Since its begin­ning Guantanamo has been costly, inef­fi­cient, and mor­ally wrong,” said Col. Mor­ris Davis, who launched the cam­paign on Change.org. “Now there are over 100 inmates on hun­ger strike to protest their cur­rent situ­ation. Obama must uphold the prom­ise that he made on Tues­day and close Guantanamo Bay Deten­tion Cen­ter before someone dies.”

In less than 24 hours, over 75,000 people have signed onto the peti­tion, and it has been covered in the Guard­ian, BBC, and The Huff­ing­ton Post.

The peti­tion is part of a grow­ing grass­roots move­ment around the issue. Wit­ness Against Tor­ture has coördin­ated people around the coun­try to fast in solid­ar­ity with the hun­ger strike, hun­dreds of let­ters have been writ­ten to the pris­on­ers, and hun­dreds of phone calls have been made to the Depart­ment of Defense, White House, and US Military’s South­ern Command.

As of May 1, over 100 inmates out of 166 total pris­on­ers were on hun­ger strike at Guantanamo Bay. The hun­ger strike began with a few men in Feb­ru­ary in protest of cur­rent prison con­di­tions, and it is estim­ated that 21 are cur­rently being force fed.

“Col. Davis is using Change.org’s tools to suc­cess­fully con­nect with thou­sands of people who sup­port his peti­tion to close Guantanamo Bay,” said Emilia Guti­er­rez, cam­paign man­ager at Change.org. “It’s clear his cam­paign is res­on­at­ing with people.”

Journ­al­ists inter­ested in set­ting up an inter­view should use the con­tact details at the top of the page.

Live sig­na­ture totals from Col. Davis’ petition:

• www.change.org/CloseGitmo

Journ­al­ists in con­tact­ing the US Depart­ment of Defense Press Office should try:

United States Depart­ment of Defense

• (703) 697– 5131

For more inform­a­tion on Wit­ness Against Tor­ture, please visit:

• http://witnesstorture.org

For more inform­a­tion on Change.org, please visit:

• http://www.change.org/about

Change.org is the world’s largest peti­tion plat­form, empower­ing people every­where to cre­ate the change they want to see. There are more than 35 mil­lion users in every coun­try who use our tools to trans­form their com­munit­ies – loc­ally, nation­ally and globally.

Listen here new show from Freya Lyte Amnesty

Freya is a mem­ber of the Brighton Amnesty Inter­na­tional group (she appeared on Mike Fischer’s show in the past) and is cur­rently study­ing for an MA in Human Rights at the Uni­ver­sity of Lon­don. Her pro­gramme fea­tures inter­views with rep­res­ent­at­ives from Brighton-based char­it­ies, Age UK and Assert and the national organ­isa­tion, the Brit­ish Insti­tute of Human Rights.  LISTEN HERE or on wed­nes­day 11am

New: Scott and Rob Show Fridays 7pm and listen here

Scott, study­ing Lin­guist­ics, and Rob, study­ing Film & Screen, come together for their first radio show. Two charm­ing stu­dents let loose on the air­waves. Cov­er­ing everything from films to news, the Brighton uni­ver­sity stu­dents mix wit and charm whilst doing their best not to swear and offend. LISTEN HERE TO THEIR LATEST SHOW

Listen here: Pete West on the Biosphere Project now extended to Adur.….

LISTEN HERE TO PETE WEST

Coun­cil­lor Pete West came in to talk about the Bio­sphere Pro­ject.
Together we will cre­ate a world-class envir­on­ment, that is eco­nom­ic­ally suc­cess­ful and enjoyed by all – forever

The ‘HERE HERE’ cam­paign seeks to bring people and nature closer together, in the Brighton & Hove and Lewes Downs area, through becom­ing a UNESCO Bio­sphere Reserve.Info http://biospherehere.org.uk/what-on-e… After a suc­cess­ful 12 week pub­lic it has been decided to extend the pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the Bio­sphere bid until 22 May.
Coun­cil­lor Pete West St Peter’s & North Laine ward Chair of Envir­on­ment & Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Com­mit­tee
Mem­ber of Policy & Resources Com­mit­tee
Mem­ber of Trans­port Com­mit­tee
Mem­ber of the South Downs National Park Author­ity (SDNPA) (BHCC appointee)
Mem­ber of SDNPA Resource & Per­form­ance Committee

Sussex-born, Pete is a father of three young chil­dren. He has an MA in Engin­eer­ing with Busi­ness Management.

New Show Lewes Priory Amnesty Group: Listen here

A warm wel­come to this inspir­a­tional group of young people who recently vis­ited the For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Office demand­ing answers as to why our gov­ern­ment has, as yet, been unable to secure the return of Shaker Aamer, Brit­ish res­id­ent cleared for release, from Guantanamo Bay. They will be bring­ing human rights issues to our atten­tion each week with their new radio show.  Listen here to our intro­duct­ory inter­view with them

Make Tea Not War May 14^th, 27^th and 28^th The Warren

Sup­ply & Demand presents

Primark admits responsibility but more needed Sign Petition

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/primarkjobs-mango-matalan-ensure-safety-for-workers-compensate-victims-of-building-collapse

Free University Launch Blind Tiger Club May 22^nd

LISTEN HERE TO ALI GHANIMI

On 22 May, Free Uni­ver­sity Brighton (FUB), the community-led ini­ti­at­ive offer­ing edu­ca­tion ‘for love, not money’, offi­cially launches. Hos­ted by The Blind Tiger Club, the launch party, like the pro­ject itself, prom­ises some­thing for all: inspir­a­tional speak­ers, speed learn­ing, live music and more.

Among the speak­ers are Brighton MP, Car­oline Lucas, award-winning local author John O’Donoghue and note­worthy aca­dem­ics who will offer altern­at­ive per­spect­ives on edu­ca­tion and the blos­som­ing free uni­ver­sity move­ment. Local bands Red Dia­mond Dragon Club and Funge will be play­ing excit­ing fusions of hip-hop, elec­tro, folk, jazz, funk and grunge. If that isn’t enough to tickle your taste buds, have a go at speed learn­ing, heady and chaotic like speed dat­ing without the disappointment.

Organ­iser of the launch, Ali Ghan­imi, set up FUB in response to cuts in adult and higher edu­ca­tion. She said “This is about reclaim­ing edu­ca­tion and mak­ing it access­ible to all of us. ”

Free courses, talks and work­shops are being made avail­able in pub­lic spaces, such as lib­rar­ies and cafes, thereby pla­cing edu­ca­tion in the heart of the com­munity. Stu­dents are invited to choose what they want to learn using the website’s ‘wish list’ in the hope those teach­ers will come for­ward. The menu will be diverse, from aca­demic to prac­tical. Cur­rent courses range from crim­in­o­logy to using Twit­ter and from eco­nom­ics to read­ing music.

The response to FUB has been con­sist­ently pos­it­ive. Says Ghan­imi, “There’s an increas­ing con­cern about what’s hap­pen­ing to edu­ca­tion and people love the concept of cre­at­ing our own, altern­at­ive system.”

1. The launch party is on Wed 22 May, from 7pm – late at The Blind Tiger Club, 52–54 Grand Parade, Brighton.

2. For fur­ther inform­a­tion on Free Uni­ver­sity Brighton, con­tact Ali Ghanimi

contact@freeuniversitybrighton.org

3. Free Uni­ver­sity Brighton’s motto is ‘edu­ca­tion for love not money’. This is to emphas­ise the value of edu­ca­tion and the uni­ver­sal love of learn­ing as well as remind­ing us that edu­ca­tion can only be access­ible to all if it is free.

4. As well as put­ting on it’s own edu­ca­tional events, Free Uni­ver­sity Brighton will be act­ively pro­mot­ing any other free learn­ing events across the city.

5. This is a resource for the whole com­munity. We wel­come and encour­age any­one to get involved by offer­ing to teach, run and host edu­ca­tional events for free.

6. Web­site: www.freeuniversitybrighton.org Twit­ter: @FreeUniBrighton

Listen here:Weekly Play B.U. Drama Society Mort Terry Pratchett

 LISTEN HERE TO PART 1                                                                                LISTEN HERE TO PART 2

Listen here to Brighton Uni­ver­sity Drama Society’s excel­lent adapt­a­tion of this won­der­ful Dis­cworld Novel. By Terry Pratch­ett
Adap­ted for stage by Stephan Briggs
Dir­ec­ted by Chloe Senior
Asst Dir­ector: Alex Huetson. Thanks to Oli Chase from Under the Bridge Stu­dios for record­ing the event

Ori­ginal art­work :Cath­er­ine Faulkner. Sound Design: Nikita Alvaro.

Listen here for Matt Peacock’s Latest Composition!

: Brighton Clas­sical Music

Hurray: One Planet Living Status for Brighton and Hove

Leader of Brighton & Hove City Coun­cil, Cllr Jason Kit­cat, accept­ing the One Planet Liv­ing status for the city from BioRegional’s Chief Exec­ut­ive, Sue Rid­dle­stone OBE. (BioRe­gional is the accred­it­ing body).

The present­a­tion took place at the sus­tain­able hous­ing pro­ject on the Bris­tol Estate yes­ter­day (19÷4). Sup­port­ers of the pro­ject were also present.  

More inform­a­tion about OPL city status:

http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1278354

Brighton & Hove City Coun­cil has already intro­duced ’10 One Planet Liv­ing prin­ciples’ to help plan, deliver, develop and com­mu­nic­ate sus­tain­ab­il­ity mes­sages. These prin­ciples have led to a wide range of achieve­ments including:

·         1400 loft insu­la­tions; 1100 cav­ity wall insu­la­tions; 1500 heat­ing improve­ments; and 150 solar hot water heat­ing sys­tems installed in recent years

·         Tri­alled com­munal recyc­ling for 3,200 house­holds with 70% increase in recyc­ling by weight col­lec­ted – now being rolled out to most of the city

·         Intro­du­cing pool bikes for coun­cil busi­ness jour­neys totalling 1,300 miles in the first year

·         A highly suc­cess­ful Food Part­ner­ship and a hun­dred local food pro­jects in the city

·         A re-established Fair Trade Steer­ing Group in the city which organ­ises reg­u­lar Fair Trade events

·         Becom­ing a Liv­ing Wage employer and sup­port­ing the city cam­paign to sign up other employers

The 10 prin­ciples to reduce our eco­lo­gical foot­print to One Planet level and cre­ate a strong, local eco­nomy and com­munity are:

Zero car­bon

Mak­ing build­ings more energy effi­cient and deliv­er­ing all energy with renew­able technologies.

Zero waste

Redu­cing waste, reusing where pos­sible, and ulti­mately send­ing zero waste to landfill.

Sus­tain­able transport

Encour­aging low car­bon modes of trans­port to reduce emis­sions, redu­cing the need to travel.

Sus­tain­able materials

Using sus­tain­able healthy products, with low embod­ied energy, sourced loc­ally, made from renew­able or waste resources.

Local and sus­tain­able food

Choos­ing low impact, local, sea­sonal and organic diets and redu­cing food waste.

Sus­tain­able water

Using water more effi­ciently in build­ings and in the products we buy; tack­ling local flood­ing and water course pollution.

Land use and wildlife

Pro­tect­ing and restor­ing biod­iversity and nat­ural hab­it­ats through appro­pri­ate land use and integ­ra­tion into the built environment.

Cul­ture and community

Reviv­ing local iden­tity and wis­dom; sup­port­ing and par­ti­cip­at­ing in the arts.

Equity and local economy

Cre­at­ing biore­gional eco­nom­ies that sup­port fair employ­ment, inclus­ive com­munit­ies and inter­na­tional fair trade.

Health and happiness

Encour­aging act­ive, soci­able, mean­ing­ful lives to pro­mote good health and well being.

One Brighton – One Planet Liv­ing Pro­ject with BioRe­gional
One Brighton’ is the first new devel­op­ment to embody the prin­ciples of ‘One Planet Liv­ing’, a joint ini­ti­at­ive of BioRe­gional and the World Wild­life Fund, inten­ded to enable the cre­ation of sus­tain­able com­munit­ies, with Brighton & Hove City Coun­cil, as the Plan­ning Author­ity. One Brighton is a mixed devel­op­ment in the New Eng­land Quarter com­pris­ing 172 res­id­en­tial units. Loc­ally it will serve as an exem­plar of sus­tain­ab­il­ity help­ing to raise the bar for future devel­op­ments.  

Help re-establish repertory theatre in Brighton&Hove

Brighton Rep Theatre has been set up by Matt Lloyd Dav­ies and Sally
Davis to fill what we see as a void in the Brighton and Hove Arts
Com­munity, spe­cific­ally Brighton Theatre.
Rep theatre nowadays is dis­ap­pear­ing coun­try wide and we wanted to
change this.
Brighton and Hove has a tour­ing house, present­ing pre and post West
End Tours. We felt we needed a theatre where local act­ors, dir­ect­ors
and writers could work con­tinu­ally without hav­ing to always travel to
Lon­don. A space present­ing our own pro­duc­tions, using local theatre
pro­fes­sion­als, of which there are thou­sands in Sussex.

We are work­ing local com­pany Drink in Brighton to cre­ate an intim­ate
40 seat pub theatre in the base­ment at The Globe bar, Middle Street,
Brighton. The venue will be ours exclus­ively for the dur­a­tion of the
fringe. We aim to cre­ate a relaxed envir­on­ment that will appeal to
reg­u­lar theatre goers and to people who see shows less fre­quently. The
space will be used dif­fer­ently for each play mak­ing to most of the
unusual layout.

We hope this will grow to re-establish Rep­er­tory Theatre within
Brighton and Hove which is a thriv­ing, arts lov­ing com­munity. Giv­ing
work to local artists and tech­ni­cians and adding to the arts scene:
Brighton Rep Theatre

We are present­ing 3 plays over the course of the fringe with a total
of 30 shows with local act­ors. Each play is show­ing through­out the
month with cross cast­ing.
•       Bash            by Neil Lab­ute
•       Small World             by Ray Anthony (premier)
•       Cus­tard Capers  by Whizz Bang Pop (children’s show)

Press Nights
•       Bash                     Sunday 5^th May   7.00pm
•       Small World             Tues­day 7^th May    7.00pm
•       Cus­tard Capers                Sat­urday 11^th May 12.00pm

We wel­come all cov­er­age, reviews and feed­back. We would love to hear
your thoughts so we can con­tinue this pro­ject after the fringe to the
best of our abil­ity and in col­lab­or­a­tion with local media. Indi­vidual
press releases will fol­low. Full dates can be found on our website.

Cast 2013
Sally Davis, Peter Sun­dby, Helen Pepper-Smith, Derek Hor­sham, Joanna
Oast­ler, Mark Healey, Amy Sutton.

Dir­ect­ors & Pro­du­cers
Mat­thew Lloyd-Davies & Sally Davis

www.brightonreptheatre.co.uk
info@brightonreptheatre.co.uk