Biketour 2014

Spring meeting 2014

Dear ecotopians,

we just finished our autumn meeting this year to discuss how we will organise ecotopia biketour 2014 - any contributions are welcome - and one of the points agreed there was that we will find a date and time for the SPRING MEETING as kick-off on next year's tour early enough so people can plan to be a part of it. The spring meeting will focus on the topic of the biketour, how we want bt days to be structured e.g. how long do we want to stay at projects and how far do we want to go, and of course route options.

Place

We would like the SPRING MEETING to take place in the Southern Balkan region where next year's tour will roam around. Some first suggestions that can be added to:

• Thessaloniki, place of next year's co-ordination
• Skopje, contacts through bt-2013 participant (I'm not sure if it will be enough space for everybody... The Center at the moment it's small and it's getting full of activities every day! I'll ask anyway! -kbra-)
• Sofia, invitation from former bt participant
• Varna, contacts through bt-2013 participant
• Bucharest, several contacts through bt 2013
• Istanbul?
• some countryside project in the region
• bring your suggestions...

CONCRETE ideas in WHICH SPACE in a city it could take place and there has been contact with this place/project. We will need both a meeting place as well as sleeping places and accessibility for people coming from all over Europe might also be an issue. So please put your suggestions into the wiki within a week's time, i.e. 19 DECEMBER.

Date

The suggested date is around the weekend of 15 March 2014, please ask the spaces whether this would be possible for them or ask whether the weekends before or after are a possibility. People might stay longer than just a weekend and contribute to the co-ordination of ecotopia biketour 2014 in a collective based in Thessaloniki. We will set a date based on a doodle after we know which place(s) are actually available after the 19 December deadline, still within this year so people can plan the spring meeting well into the new year.

Ideas

Route / Region Ideas

• Greece and surroundings
• ...

Theme Ideas

• Crisis and Creative Solution Approaches
• ...

Project Visit Ideas

• direct democracy festival in thessaloniki for 3 days sometime between the 5th and 15th of september
• solidarity centre in varna, bulgaria; social centre in the centre of varna where they hold lessons/ workshops/ parties, etc.
• united wheelers in bucharest (http://unitedwheelers.blogspot.gr/)
• ...