Organise BT 2010

Organising Biketour 2010 „20th Anniversary“

Route

Overview

The Ecotopia Biketour will move from Northern England, through France, Belgium, (maybe the Netherlands) and Germany. One of our biggest stops will be the Camp Action Climat, close to Le Havre from the 22 July - 1 August. Rough route on googlemaps: [1]

The list: Activist/Ecologist Events in europe, summer 2010

How did we come to this proposal? We decided to evaluate all events, camps and gatherings together, instead of automatically going to an Ecotopia gathering now.

Here is a list of activist events on or near the general route(s) we are talking about, between June & August. List items in bold are the ones we think we will be able to go to. Add anything else that you hear about. The list can also be seen on an open edit google map at http://bit.ly/ceNwc6

• 21 May - 5 June, Solidarity bikeride making links between communities resisting fossil-fuel extraction, from Merthyr, Wales to Rossport, Ireland. [2] --> Maybe this could even link up with the ecotopia biketour ?!?!?!?!

• 12th June Naked bikeride, London, England [3]

• 19th June Naked Bikeride, Brussels, Belgium (to be confirmed)

• June (exact dates tbc) - UK National Climate Camp Gathering, probably in Leeds

• 21-25 June - Interference art/activism event being organised by Mark, London, England

• 23rd June - 24th August: Baltic Sea Info Tour, Nuclear Heritage [4] to raise awareness aginast radioactive polution of the baltic sea

• 25th June Critical Mass, London, England (& Brighton England)

• 26-27 June - Exmouth Exodus - SW England equivalent of Dunwich Dynamo (see below) [5]

• 28 June - 1 July Towards Carfree Cities Conference IX - York, England

• 2nd July - 28th Aug Otesha project starts cycling, Lands End, Cornwall, England

• 2-7 July - Tour de Elbe, international CZ-D ride from Decin /CZ/ to Magdeburg /D/ to promote Elberadweg

• 3-4 July - EuroVeloGex - [6] followed by a 3-days cycling 5-7th July.

• 4-5 July - bikes not cars festival Amsterdam www.bikesnotcars.wordpress.com

• 1-4 July 2010 "Velorution Universelle" a big critical mass in Paris, France [7]

• 3 July - 15 August "AlterTour" tour-de-france for a non-doped planet, France [8]

• 1-6 july 2010 YOUPEC Geel, Antwerp, Belgium

• 8-11 July FOIBOS greenways conference, Budapest, Hungary

• 22nd July - 1st August Camp Action Climat (french climate camp [9]) near Le Havre, France.

• 23-25 July The Big Tent, Falkland, Fife, Scotland

• 25 July - 7 August - Tour de Natur (cycling tour middle of germany) www.tourdenatur.net

• 23-27 July Peace News Summer Camp, Oxfordshire, England [10]

• 24-25 July Dunwich Dynamo, London-Suffolk (east coast), England - 190km overnight bike ride, not really an activist event, but one of the biggest mass participation, not-sport, bike events in the UK [11]

• 25. july - 01. aug. Sieben Linden Sommercamp 2010

• 30th July Critical Mass, London (& Brighton England)

• 1-21st August Ecotopia, Flaeming, Germany

• 4-9 August – Earth First! Summer Camp, Derbyshire, UK [12]

• 21st-29th August Klima Camp, Erklenz, Germany

• 30. August - Pedal Power Day at Freestate Swomp Amsterdam http://swomp.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/pedal-power-dag-zondag-30-augustus/#more-920

• 27th september - 5th of october No borders camp, brussels. Probably interesting for people who want to travel on after BT.

• ongoing: Rossport Shell to Sea solidarity camp, Ireland [13]
• ongoing: (right now, at least!) Mainshill Solidarity Camp, southern scotland [14]
• ongoing: http://www.lappersfort.tk/ a occupied forest in Belguim, people are resisting against the destruction of the forest - worth a visit
• ongoing: Major environmental in countries like Ukraine !

Dates not set yet:

• We don't think UK Climate Camp regional groups & national gathering are not working on summer camps yet - but it's very possible that there will be several summer Climate Camps across the UK in 2010.
• Belgium Climate Camp
• YFoEE Summer Camp, probably early August, Poland
• Reclaim the Fields [15] maybe Hungary, maybe germany or Poland (near the border)..

Next Questions for the route: UK

We will be riding in the UK from 26th June to around 20th July, from Northern England to (probably) Portsmouth to take a ferry to France - at the moment what is needed most in the UK are co-ordinators/hosts/route testers for smaller 2-3 day chunks of the route along the way. The exact route will be determined by the people who come forward to do this, so please contact us if you'd like to get involved.

How to get to the start point:

• We need ideas how to come to the tour, how to reach York or any other starting point by cheap bike friendly transport on the surface, as there are the German wochenend ticket, mitfahrzentralen/ ride sharing, night train offers, the Czech bus student agency (do they take bikes?) Who wants to expand the list and fill it with details ?

Best ways to get from the UK to the continent:

• Mark has done some price research on all the possible route to France, Belgium & Netherlands http://bit.ly/dzeFXJ The cheapest ferries are the ones from Dover, and tickets get more expensive further away.
• School holidays in England and Wales start Fri 23 July so we should cross the channel before then to get cheaper tickets.
• We also need to consider using a bus/van if it makes taking bikes on the ferry cheaper
• It is possible to hitchhike ferries – we could reserve some days for it, so the whole group has time to give it a try. Who could check out, which ferries work well, how it works and stuff ?
• We could also ask the ferry company to sponsor us, give some free transport or at least a discount. Someone up for checking that out ? Maybe we should wait with that till our website looks fresh.

Route questions for the rest of Europe

• • who would like to coordinate the Tour in The Netherlands ? We have quite some dutch people on the bt-org list. It is the bike country of Europa, with Groningen as best example city – 50% of all trips on bike. In Groningen there is Marij, a bt-veteran and other ecotopia people. Janneke´s mother wants to help out with the route! we can contact her as far we know that we will go to the netherlands.

• • in Germany we can cooperate with janun[[16]] for lower Saxony. Someone up to coordinate things ? Jan has the contact of Arne, a janun and bt veteran. Also there is the wendland on the way, a region which resists an atomic waste dump since decades. And the ecovillage „sieben Linden“ could be on the route. Jan and Moritz currently live in Germany.

• • What about Belgium ? Luxembourg ? Jan has good contacts there. Bt has never been there, at least not this millennium. But its hilly and a bit out of the way.

Other Route Ideas

here is a list of the other ideas we had on Route 2010. if u want to give one of them energy, please do so on the bt-org list or write to info[at]ecotopiabiketour.net

The Tour

here is the space to put ideas about the 2010 tour in general

Content/ Slogan

On sat 16 january there was a brainstorm chat on skype about a theme for BT2010, read the full chat here. summary: theme proposals nuclear, climate justice, traffic, link theme to biodiversity, renewable sources of energy ? Climate justice could be a general theme where all other things can fit in/are related to. Everyone in chat was interested in this theme. Disadvantage of a wide theme is too loose focus, maybe its good to chose one angle. Climate justice has it a set stamp of ideologies, and actions to take, according to Laura, she would love to give a workshop about it! More ideas connected to Climate justice as theme could be:

• the idea to meet with indigenous people from the global south and link BT to their experiences: to take their voices with us (as they probably can not join us, but should be heard). (laura wants to add here: she didn't mean indigenous people from global south -indigenous people, but also/and/or voices from global south)
• to link climate justice to practical stuff like recycling food, materials etc
• to address the green-washing problem: the problem of presenting renewables as green capitalist solution, the problem of carbon trading
• focus on voluntary simplicity, on using less, on people self.organization.... (we could make up a set of principals that consumption matters..)
• fits well to french climate camp (which could be our destination)

older notes: i am especially excited about the opportunity to give some profound content to bt, with wcn help. we will travel a lot of towns, where the bike is already used a lot. but still there is such a long way to go for people to live sustainable ! "towards carfree cities" as a possible motto for the tour - but with a comprehensive website and good material to present this during the tour. i love the carbusters magazine, we would have to make a "best off" in the format of a biketour, a travelling exhibition with interactive elements called actions  ;)

to have bt starting for days before the conference and let it be embedded in the conferences press strategie - a more close cooperation than ever, bt being more integral part of the conference

Action/Theater/Propaganda

inspired by [otesha] I would really like to see some preparation of an action, something creative, some theater play or such. Such creative work as a theater play is sooo good for group dynamics and so much fun. It would need one person, who wants to come to the start and knows a bit about theater, to work with the group on the piece, creating something which people coming later can easily join. More ideas include: To carry an exhibition, to carry a slide show, to prepare some workshops for the participants as well as for the public – all connected to the theme “towards carfree cities”

Janneke´s mother wants to help out with the route, sleeping places.. in the north of the netherlands (Friesland). She could prepare an action there against a highway.

Calais – moritz has some friends who are involved in actions and initatives trying to help the refugees whos camps are destroyed in Calais France. If we´re crossing the ocean from the UK to France that could be a stop for an action/helping out. I will ask my friends if they could imagine to prepare something or at least ask other people who maybe would like to have a nice biketour around and are willing to organise something. Could be connected to the topic climate refugees.

Seeds for Change Lancaster (a workers' coop offering activist trainings), they'd be up for giving us consensus, facilitation and other workshops as long as it is during the week, because summer weekends always are really busy.

Office Backup

it would be really great, if the tour would have a office backup while traveling, someone who has all the modern communication channels open for the people on tour, do a bit press work, answe the phone and mail, update the website, upload photos and stuff like that. Who would like to do that ?

Veterans

we could invite all the old people. Hey karl or mihail, is that not something for u ? we should also still have the kids trailor around somewhere, no ?

Staff

at the moment there is no payed staff. We do not have a club or ngo behind us. Just a group of more or less engaged volunteers. Should we change that ?

Volunteers

Moritz & Laura are our international co-ordinators for 2010.

Moritz will be based in Mainz, Germany and Laura will be doing EVS with FoE FLanders & Brussels, being based in Gent, Belgium from beginning of March 2010. Her main project there will be co-ordinating BT 2010!

Mark is [one of?] regional co-ordinators for England, based in London.

We need:

• Tech/computer-savvy volunteer

Jobs

we have quite a lot of job opportunities to offer :) smaller areas of the project, where u would be the right person to take responsibility:

• coordinating a bit of the route
• take care of our outreach during the tour: flyer, poster, website content, prepare an action, prepare a theater piece, prepare actions, prepare workshop to be given to the tour members or to the public
• coordinate the outreach for participants and organizers
• maintain the website
• style/desing the website, leaflets, posters...
• raise funds
• take care about visa
• overall coordination – done at the moment by laura and jan – are u interested ?
• backup office
• presswork
• bring bt to social networks like facebook and keep it updated there

Meetings

Things are moving!

• Skype meetings (calls or chats) are happening weekly. Email laura [a] ecotopiabiketour.net if you want to join the next call & can't find the details!

• Face-to-face Wintermeeting happened in February: The extensive minutes are here: Winter meeting minutes February 2010

• Laura & Moritz went to the french climate camp meeting in Angers

• Moritz & Laura will hopefully meet for a week in middle of April, in Gent.

• We would like to have a meeting in London, Lille or Le Havre for the Biketour with regional organisers/co-ordinators before the tour starts!

Funding

Yo & mark are looking into funding so far.

We can alway ask small funds like x-y (any other ? more details ?) who already know us from previous years - so we have template applications to be inspired by. Do you want to write an application ?

Another way of DIY fund raising is to get a party or concert going and cook some food in your local squat or social center. offer us your profit and also ask people to donate for biketour. Jan will ask the vienna critical mass to do such a party.

You can go to ur local bikestore and ask for a donation - well we could make this quite big and ask bigger companies for sponsoring. there are so many adventurers getting their bike trips sponsored, so why would it not work for us. we can ask for money or equipment.

Then there is x-mas, where everyone loves to donate money. you could ask people doing that to donate for bt instead.

Outreach

before the tour

we want to attract people to come to the tour and to help organizing. lets start now. we should concentrate on the countries we will pass, but it is also good to do it ur your environment, in all possibly interested networks. talk to people about biketour, hand out leaflets at your next (bicycle) demonstration/concert hang up posters about it in your local bikestore, anarchist bookshop, squat, bio-shop, community center, free shop...

online outreach should include couch surfing, warm showers, wcn, eyfa, facebook, critical mass forums, cyclotourism forums do you know any others ?

we should announce our route, date and that we are an international collective based on volunteers. what biketour is about and that we are looking for participants who already now join effords to organize, as well as hosts and people who would potentially want to organise BT 2011 !