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.

Where & When?

We have now set a date and place for the SPRING MEETING:

Thessaloniki, Greece - where the tour will be co-ordinated from. 13-16th March

Concrete ideas in WHICH SPACE in a city it could take place are still being discussed. We have a potential venue, but if you do know of anywhere which could host meetings or people, write your suggestions here....

There will be places to stay for the Spring Meeting. The idea is to stay for as long as you can/want, not to feel like you have to come for all four days. Also we hope to find space so that people can stay on after to help with co-ordination if they'd like to. What accommdation there will be for biketour coordinators will become clearer in the beginning of March.

Ideas

Route / Region / Theme Ideas

The route and theme of this year's tour is not yet decided but we are looking to visit projects, join up with grassroots campaigns, NGOs and social movements and communities relevant to structural (economic/political) or personal (e.g. poverty as a result of austerity) crises and how people are finding creative solutions to coping with its effects or fighting against it. We will also revisit themes that we have seen in previous biketours such as 'degrowth', public debt, austerity, economic refugees, minorities and solidarity.

What we do know is that we will be organising the tour from Thessaloniki in Northern Greece from March and will begin cycling in July, or possibly the beginning of August. Where we head to will depend on projects and opportunities we find to visit - and this all depends on the ideas that come from everyone....

If you can think of any places / people / communities / projects / activists in the southern Balkans area that we should visit to learn from, take part in actions or to lend a hand in some way, then put them on the list below or email team-2014@ecotopiabiketour.net (or both!). If you can't, but you know someone who can, perhaps someone living in this part of Europe, please ask them to share information so that we can consider their ideas, along with all of the other options, at our meeting in March.

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/)
• pikpa on the island of levbos, a welcome centre for asylum seekers & refugees (http://lesvos.w2eu.net/tag/pikpa/)